MoMI trip

Visiting the Museum of the Moving Image was an interesting experience since it shed light on aspects of film making that are integral to its success but cannot be fully understood upon watching the film and are sometimes hidden. The sound effects demonstration was very interesting because one would think that the sounds in the film are natural and the sounds would be easy to replicate. This however is not true, in one small scene there can be multiple sounds overlapping each other and some of them may be from outrageous things that could not plausibly be in the situation but the editing is done in such a way that it becomes seamless. The scene that the instructor showed was from Titanic, which is a movie that most have watched but while all the other aspects of it were appreciated by me previously, I never thought of the sound effects aspect of the film. The sounds in the scene sometimes have nothing to do with the current situation they appear diegetic but in reality are non-diegetic. There are sounds of a lion's roar that is muted and morphed to make it seem to sound like a wave of water. The falling and breaking of a part of the ship is actually an elephant. Obviously there is not elephant or lion in the film but their sound is masked and used and it fits the scene seamlessly. Additionally, in all the action of the ship sinking the dialogue cannot be captured on the set so it is recorded and then matched which is difficult and sometimes doesn’t match properly. In an action scene sometimes matching the lip sync can be overlooked because the viewer is distracted but in general it must be done with scrutiny. These are just some of the tracks in one scene and all of them come together to convey a perceived reality, which is enjoyed by viewers but rarely discerned.