Blog #4

Sunday, December 6, 2015

FILMP/MEDP 160 Field Trip / Museum of the Moving Image Fall 2015 – Nov. 25

I really enjoyed visiting the Museum of the Moving Image and I plan to go back to visit the museum soon.  What I discovered about a specific aspect of media production is the role of a Sound Editor.  My tour guide provided three examples from a popular syndicated television show and two block buster Hollywood movies.  They were The Simpsons, The Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) and the Titanic (1997).  My tour guide explained that it is the Sound Editor's job to view the visual shots and provide four possible sounds that can be synced to the visual shots.  The Sound Editor presents four examples for each shot to the Director and the Director will inform the Sound Editor which sound from the four examples should be used for the shots that were taped/filmed.  

The examples presented in The Simpsons was a scene in which Lisa Simpson was about to take an exam in school.  She was nervous.  The tour guide played the group four examples of sounds that can be used to sync as the sound of the hand of a clock moving, the sound of an eraser being used on a paper, the sound of a pencil being used to circle in an answer and the sound of Lisa's classmate Milhouse as his eyebrows move as he looks at Lisa taking the exam.  The group was asked to select a sound for each shot.  Once the sounds were selected we watched the sequence of shots and listened to the sounds we selected.  As The Simpsons are an animated cartoon when we watched that scene the sounds we heard sounded funny to the group.  Some sounded realistic and some didn't.  

My tour guide did similar experiments with my group for Terminator 2: Judgment Day and the Titanic.  We watched the chase scene from the Terminator 2 where the T-1000 was driving a truck to kill ten-year-old John Connor as he tries to escape on his scooter.  As the truck gets closer to the scooter The Terminator rides on a motorcycle, passes by the truck, then he picks John up from the scooter and has John ride on the motorcycle with him.  My group had to pick from four different sounds the sound of the truck, the sound of the tire screeching sound as it breaks, the sound of the motorcycle and the sound of the truck as it explodes after it crashes into a wall.   

We did the same thing for the Titanic.  We saw the clip with sound and without sound.  Then the group selected Foley sound effects to use for when actress Kate Winslet jumps down to the deck.  We also selected the sound to use for when the ropes snapped and went into the ocean, the sound for when the part of the ship fell into the ocean.