Field Trip to the Museum of the Moving Image

During our visit to the Museum of Moving Images, the class got the opportunity to view different aspects of post-production. Many of the exhibits I got the chance to view involved the manipulation of sound effects and the breakdown of all the audio involved in making a scene. One exhibit our tour guide took us into, we had the opportunity to break down a scene in the Titanic, specifically the one when the ship is starting to sink. We were able to view the scene with selected audio, ranging from sound effects, dialogue, and music separately and together. The part that interested me the most was learning how the sound effects were originally made. For example, Cal was seen going through a window onto the deck of the ship. The sound for the water running through the small hole was created using a vacuum sound and a lion’s roar played backwards. Normally, I would not associate these sounds together, but they did make a believable suction sound. Also when one of the smokestacks snapped in half, an elephant sound was used. Hearing the elephant sound by itself, it’s easy to recognize the animal’s sound. Placed with the image of metal bending, the sound is less recognizable as an elephant which shows how important context is when putting sounds together with the scene. The musical score also adds a very strong emotional component to the scene. When listening to dialogue or sound effects separately, it only sounds awkward and scripted. The orchestral music adds more dimension to the scene by adding crescendos to more dramatic points of the scene such as when viewers watch a long shot of people running haphazardly across the deck. The music helps emphasize the important points of the scene the director wants people to notice and adds an emotional charge to very intense scene. I feel that the music is what makes people more invested into the movie they’re watching and enhances how they experience viewing it.