Hollywood Wants You To Hear Well Too!

So how important is sound? Why do the people who surround us care so much about what we hear? Why is it that there is a huge industry wrapped around hearing aids? In the last article I talked about why it was important to me, why I want my two major input receivers to be working as best as possible. Today I’m going to tell you why other people feel it’s important.

Let’s start with family then move on to Hollywood. When we are talking with loved ones, there is nothing worse than having to repeat everything four or five times. I hate doing that! Especially if it’s something that is funny and requires the timing! Once you’ve lost that moment, it’s gone forever. And it was hilarious! Not so much the second time. How often have you said something really funny or really profound only to have the other person reply “sorry I missed that, could you say it again?” And when you do the profundity is lost because it was a very “in the moment” type of thing. I hate that! Why put anybody through that?

Even if it’s something relatively unimportant, (my wife would say that is not possible with anything she has to say, however…..), having to repeat it over and over is an exercise in frustration. Now, there are times that it’s unavoidable; at home we have a habit of trying to speak to each other between rooms without changing the volume of our speaking level, which is absurd yet I think everyone does this at some point. So you move closer and have them repeat it. But what if you’re already in the same room? Uh oh, is there an app for that? Yes, get your hearing checked!

So, on to Hollywood. Doing some research I found that approximately one third of the budget for any big movie is spent on music and sound effects. The music is chosen and licensing fees for the use are paid, or a score is written and orchestras are brought in to play it at a huge cost to the production. Sound effects are created in studios long after the filming has been done and they are all carefully crafted to get the right mood and timbre of whatever scene happens to be playing. Effects people are paid a small fortune to do this, often the same amount as those who create visual effects. Industries have been created out of the need for proper sound effects. Why? Because filmmakers know that the sounds in their films can make a scene or break it. They help give a foundation to the visuals that you see on the screen and create the mood for whatever is happening.

Three years ago my son, then 9, watched a Youtube video of a ghost movie, Paranormal Activity, or something like that. It scared the heck out of the poor little guy, to point that he had trouble sleeping. I watched the clip myself and I know exactly why he felt that way; a quiet room, a couple sleeping and suddenly one of them is dragged out of bed by some unseen force and dragged up the walls, across the ceiling, back to the floor and tossed around like a ragdoll. The sound effects were typical of those in horror movies, some minor chords increasing in volume and of course the screams of the actors just audible over the music which lead to a minor crescendo that triggered horror in the mind of the viewer. But I needed some way to get this out of my son’s head so I tried a little experiment.

Using Adobe Premiere I ripped the scene from Youtube and made two small changes. The first change was to remove the audio track. Seeing someone fling around with no sound was a little less traumatic, but it still needed something. So in its place I put in “The Yackety Sax”, which some of you will remember as being the theme song to the Benny Hill Show. And, like they did on Benny Hill, I sped the film up slightly. The horror film suddenly became a comedy in the vein of slapstick British humourists since time began. I showed it to my son and he never lost another night’s sleep! Well, at least not for being afraid of ghosts! I may still have the edit, if you e-mail the address at the bottom I can look it up and send it to you. It will definitely clear up exactly what the proper sound effects and music can do to and for a film, and it will help you realize why you need to hear what movie makers spend millions of dollars on every time a film hits the big screen.