Film Soundtracks

In today's lessons we learnt different layers of sounds in the film:

ambient sound
Dialogue
Non diegetic / diegetic sound
Sound effect (Foley Sound)
Voice Over

Ambient Sound

We hear ambient sounds in the film to get a sense of locations. Ambient sound includes background noise, distant chatter, wind, traffic etc. Most likely the ambient sound is recorded during the set. It is also part of diegetic sound.

Dialogue

Dialogue is the conversation or noise that the actors make, such as speech etc.

Non diegetic / diegetic sound

Diegetic;

- it is the Greek term for "world" and is used in film analysis to describe the 'narrative world' of a film.

- it is any sound we would expect to hear of we were part of the narrative world, for example footsteps, doors opening etc.

- Diegetic sound could be include:

Dialogue
Sound effect
Ambient sound

Non diegetic sound

- it is sound which has been added on top of the film to support the mood and atmosphere that the filmmaker is trying to convey.

- It is usually the form of added music, such as theme music etc.

Sound effect (Foley Sound)

sound effect is for the sound that we expect to hear in the film 'narrative world' but couldn't be done on set, such as swords, monster noises etc. These sound would be create by foley artists.

Here are two videos I found on YouTube about making sound effects...

Voice Over

Can be either diegetic or non diegetic. Voice over can be present as it is part of the 'narrative world' such as the character talking to someone that we can't see but we can hear the voices. It mostly is a technique where a voice that is not part of the 'narrative world' has been added later on for storytelling or create atmosphere.