The most interesting part of the class tour at the Museum of the Moving Image was easily the audio demonstration. Our tour guide broke down the multiple elements that make up audio in some of our favorite Hollywood movies. We did, however, spend the most time dissecting the fascinating and often very odd sounds that go into creating what we hear in the Hollywood blockbuster Titanic. He played the visuals without the appropriate sound effects, then sound effects, without visuals.
Without realizing it, we have come to associate certain sounds with certain actions and objects without understanding that much of it is constructed by sound designers using a series of objects, some of those object quite odd, actually. For example, I discovered that the soft sound we have come to associate with gun silencers is a complete myth and sounds much lower than an actual silencer. In Titanic, crushing cans, roaring lions, and a falling chair all serve as some of the components that make up the sounds that we see as water rushing on the sinking ship. Hearing the melding of the different types of sounds - sound effects, music, dialogue all coming together gave me a new appreciation for the men and women who work on constructing the sounds we hear in movies. I will say though, after hearing the different types of sounds independently it slightly took the magic out of Titanic. It was cool, however, to see how mundane things were dramatized by using a lion's roar, for instance.
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