What’s the Score

What’s the Score, a panel talk hosted by David Barker and Pacho Velez, was held on November 13th at 5pm in Hunter College’s Third Work Symposium. In this discussion panel, Barker and Velez presented their view on sound design in the score. The presenters defined the three standard sound elements in film to be; foley, ambience, and the score. They then compared these elements to the ambience in short clips that they played for the audience. In every clip Barker and Velez would show examples of how ambience was heard, and in every clip they were stressing the importance of there being a new element in sound design. In their words this new sound design element was based on making the ambience and the sound in the picture very close to the viewer of the film. They stressed that this created a sense that everything outside of the frame becomes more present than is usually seen in contemporary day films. What I believe they were going for was to have the stereo levels and equalization of the ambient noises, which were not seen in the frame, to be very amplified, panned very close in front, and made very present. From what I understood, this was supposed to bring the onlookers of the film not only into the frame’s direct setting, while making them feel as though they were there, but was supposed to almost force the onlookers be present in the frame cognitively. An example of what I mean is that when I watch a movie, read a book, or listen to someone, I can be listening to them, and then I can realize that my thoughts have wandered off to some tangents. This wandering off can result in me not knowing the material of the last two pages of a book, and will force me to reread them. This is due to the fact that I was mechanically reading and looking at words written in the book, but my mind became tired and jumped to some other thoughts that were of bigger interest to me. From what I understood, Barker and Velez were trying to make the background noises more present, so as to engage and keep the attention of the onlookers in the frame to be more present. They were trying to get their message across to the public by showing many clips with the background ambient noise being almost too loud and present, but towards the end of their showing were met with a lot of skepticism and criticism, because the topic was a on a very confusing matter.