We often talk about the mysterious Magic of the Movies , the unique ability of the filmic medium to take the audience into another world, another era, even another galaxy. We also talk about films unique ability to record life as it happens and to document what is going on in our world, be it right where we live or at the most remote place on Earth. But whenever we look at film as an art form, most of us tend to exclusively credit the visual component of the film, i.e. cinematography, topped off with the occasional thought on editing. The sonic component of film, however, is unjustly ignored most of the time. Sure, we know the name Hans Zimmer from Gladiator or Danny Elfman from Batman and most recently Spider-Man 2 , but how many of us know who recorded the location sound on Master and Commander ?
The goal of Ton & Traum is to give the film-soundtrack the credit it deserves. I will start out with an analysis on how music, dialogue, and sound effects work together and show what powerful a tool for storytelling and creation of drama and suspense the soundtrack is in the right hands. The second section will look at the soundtrack following different theoretical approaches such as semiotics and psychoanalysis. The third and final section will take it from there and look at the use of Sound Effects in the Sci-Fi TV series Stargate SG-1 .
I hope to demonstrate the importance of the film-soundtrack in order to create that certain Magic of the Movies . I hope to show that film (and Television) is a carefully balanced compound of certain elements that come together - one of them being the soundtrack - to bring the filmic work of art to life.