Sound I - Music

Whilst film is arguably a visual medium (we 'watch' a film and our attention is most obviously focused on aspects of mise-en-scene and cineamtography) since 1927 and the decline of the Silent Era film has most certainly been significantly audio-visual and it is hard to ignore the enormous significance of film sound. Sound, whether dialogue, sound effects or, perhaps most noticeably, music provides anchorage, providing greater meaning and significance to the visual elements of film form such as cineamtography, mise-en-scen, editing and performance. To the modern viewer, an absence of sound can be disconcerting, leaving the images on screen confusing and largely redundant. Frequently it is sound which signifies the status, function or emotion of a character and it is sound which both guides the audiences expectations regarding what may happen in the narrative and our emotional response to events on screen. Music, both diegetic and non-diegetic is key here...