Sound & Score
An Ordinary Background Voice Can Change the Scale of a Scene
Listen to public announcements and background voices in a film scene, separating their practical information from the world they suggest.
The journal
Sound & Score
Listening closely to sound, music and the spaces between words in cinema.
Sound & Score
When Two Characters Talk at Once, Which Voice Do You Follow?
Listen to overlapping dialogue for shifts in attention, unfinished phrases and reactions without assuming every word must be equally clear.
Sound & Score
A Sound Moves Closer Before the Person Enters the Frame
Footsteps, voices or an engine can suggest changing distance before their source appears. Follow the sound’s development and compare it with the eventual image.
Sound & Score
A Phone Call Gives a Film Two Different Listening Spaces
Watch how a film handles a phone conversation: who we can see, whose surroundings we hear, and when the scene chooses to cross between them.
Sound & Score
Listen for the Sound That Arrives Before Its Source
Follow a sound whose source appears later in the scene, noting what you infer before the image confirms or complicates your first impression.
Sound & Score
When the Sound and the Image Tell Different Stories
Watch how a cheerful soundtrack or an ordinary conversation can pull against the image, and describe the tension without guessing the filmmaker’s intentions.
Sound & Score
Music Begins, Music Stops: Listening to the Edges of a Cue
Follow the entrance and exit of one musical cue to hear how a scene changes, keeping your response separate from claims about the composer’s intention.
Sound & Score
The moment before the cut: listening to a scene change
A sound can lead us into a new scene or linger after the image changes. Learn to notice these transitions without interrupting the film.