Victoria Wood : 
- What effect has sound (mainly music) on a film? 

WHY are you not concerned with the dialogue?  
Look at a motion picture feature script...the pages are covered with DIALOGUE.  It is the sound of the human voice that can soothe or repel. It is the sound of the human voice that indicate joy, sadness, fear, apprehension, anger... all human emotions. 

Often an off camera voice can instantly convey to the audience an sudden change in the scenes mood.  We can go from a gay, happy scene to frightening horror when a blood curdling screem suddenly explodes. In short, sound alone can tell a story. 

Story telling was around since man learned to speak a common language.  Then there was radio drama;  human dialogue with music and efx. 

However, the one aspect which you should always remember in your research is that ultimately there are no rules in the creation of a track (discounting the technical requirements of course). The most recent and positive viewpoint about sound is that it works utterly and completely in conjunction with picture and visa-versa. The two should be seen as interacting as seamlessly as possible to create a whole, regardless of the individual components. It is vital to remember this. 

Separatism amongst the various creative aspects of film making will always be around on a professional level, however this should never be apparent to any audience. They as observers are granted the right (by pure nature of their position) not to have to be exposed to the fractionalism inherent in any creative medium. 

Edited excerpts from CAS Forum,  1999   
Original URL: http://www.ideabuzz.com/cas/archive/forum/discusions.txt 

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