Being a big lover of technology whether it be media, gaming, TV, film or music, there is one thing I have noticed over time that they all share in common.... How they're all able to harness the power of audio and visual elements to captivate and engage audiences. Drawing all our senses and attention into a world where we focus entirely on a screen which basically is a flat rectangular glass, in which behind contains electronics working to display millions of pixels as one visual image whilst the sound brings those visuals to life. Filling the empty space with audio in which attracts and guides our emotions and perceptions of what we are seeing. It’s fascinating how this combination of sight and sound can transform something as simple as a digital display into an experience that feels vivid and real manipulating our perceptions.
This terms assignment i would learn and enjoy the wonders of working and creating audio for linear and non linear visuals as well as working in Dolby Atmos and would find myself amazed in how far we have come in regards of technology and how we have mastered the art in using technology to bring things to life making visual and audio work together in ways never before imagined to capture our attention and creating an experience so real as if we are part of the scene.
If we rewind back in time to the 90s which i was in my early teens. Being an era full of advancements in technology i had thought we reached the pinnacle of audio and visuals with so much amazing visuals and sounds making waves in society. forming genres and strong followings in all creative industries such as films, music, tv series and gaming. The creative media made back then in the past would look amazing such as film CGI and sound formats such as Dolby stereo or DTS (Dolby theatre systems).
However, when we revisit these visuals and sounds today, the immersion we once felt is harder to achieve as we used to at that time showing that we really just touched the surface of the possibilities of working with visual and audio content. This would also make me question what causes the push in advancements? is it due to the nature of mankind not being content and always in pursuit of progression and to explore and learn the unknown? Is it due to the fact that new things naturally bring new discoveries in which has lead us in creating new tools and methods?. Or is there something more sinister? such as using audio and visual technology to divert our attention by keeping us absorbed in screens full of advertisement or things that influence our behaviour and shape our views and perceptions on life or issues in life?
With a heightened interest and curiosity in audio and visual i would take time to research and look back at the beginning of the journey of Audio and visuals in its earliest forms starting from the age of the birth of silent film in 1910 which used title cards for dialogue and would rely on the storytelling factor as sound was not present in films. Sixteen years later this lead us to synchronized music and effects tracks. At its basic form the magic of audio and visuals was always present and recognised although the audio side would not get the recognition it deserved yet as Michel Chion points out in his book Audio-Vision
"Theories of the cinema until now have tended to elude the issue of sound, either by completely ignoring it or by relegating it to minor status. Even if some scholars have made rich and provocative contributions here and there, their insights (including my own, in three previous books on the subject) have not yet been influential enough to bring about a total reconsideration of the cinema in light of the position that sound has occupied in it for the last sixty years. And yet films, television, and other audio visual media do not just address the eye. They place their spectators—their audio spectators—in a specific perceptual mode of reception, which in this book I shall call audio-vision."
(Chion, 1994, p. xxiv)
This reflects how historically sound in the context of audio and visual was often treated as secondary. Chion further explains how sound shapes the way we perceive sound and image working together to form a whole composition. This challenges the traditional thought that visual information is primary neglecting the fact that sound modifies, enhances, and even redefines the viewer’s interpretation of what is seen.
Chion uses a great analogy by describing how sound was once considered "Queen" while visuals or sight was crowned as "King." He explains how from our birth sound holds a dominant role in shaping our sensory world and how we begin to hear before we are born and sound ruling as solitary Queen of all our senses until sight takes play with both ruling side by side complimenting each other.
He also highlights a key point about the relationship between sound and visuals in film.
“whatever virtues sound brings to the film are largely perceived and appreciated by the audience in visual terms—the better the sound, the better the image” (Chion, 1994, p. vii i).
This statement highlights the small but major impact that sound has on the viewer’s experience of a visual, often enhancing the visual without the audience consciously realizing.
This also made me think as he had mentioned that while sound is inherently an auditory experience its nature is largely perceived and appreciated in visual terms. This alone would inspire me to further develop my sound designing techniques when working with visuals in future projects ensuring to produce quality sound production knowing the impact it would have on visuals.
By revisiting the history of audio and visual integration we can appreciate how far we have come and bonded the marriage of sound and image helping to capture a more full experience of a visual media.
Fast forward to todays time and we can see how technological advancements like Dolby Atmos allow us to explore the deeper integration of sound and visuals.
In today’s world we are constantly surrounded by an overwhelming amount of visual and sound media ranging from streaming platforms, social media, gaming, short format clips and many types of gadgets with a screen and speaker. The amount of content we consume daily has grown at a ridiculous rate that sometimes it seems we lost the sense of how to interact with the world and each other.
The technology we once designed to engage our senses or to better our life for progression seems to have consumed us. We now have terms such as "death scrolling" in which we are in pursuit to please the eyes and ears with the endless flow of media presented to us.
This leads me to question if our lifestyles and social interactions have been affected by visual and sound medias in ways we haven’t fully yet understood or grasped?
We face new challenges appearing such as world recognised addictions such as (IAD) internet addiction disorder, screen time addiction, and gaming disorders to name a few. its impact on mental and physical health has yet to be fully understood but yet we are still advancing at a phenomenal pace with technology.
Has this saturation of visual and audio media turned us into passive recipients???
In the ever pursuit of searching and reacting to stimuli rather than actively participating in life? ?
Or maybe we are only beginning to understand the affect various formats of visual and sound media has on our minds?
These questions challenges not only our use and consumption of visual and audio media but also how we balance technology’s potential with its consequences on our lives.
References
Chion, M. (1994). Audio-vision: Sound on screen (C. Gorbman, Trans.).
Columbia University Press. (p.xxiv page 24)
Chion, M. (1994). Audio-vision: Sound on screen (C. Gorbman, Trans.).
Columbia University Press. (p.viii page 8)