Technical Awards Represent Sound Judgment

I was saddened to read in the Calendar pages that one of your writers feels the Academy Awards ceremony would better serve its viewers by relegating what the writer referred to as the “technical awards” to the hinterland of an untelevised, i.e., unimportant, separate function (“10 Movie Wishes for 2000,” by Kathleen Craughwell, Jan. 2). This way, I assume, the public would not have to suffer the boredom of watching the film industry recognize those who apparently contribute only technical, and not artistic, input into its product.

I can only assume that this viewpoint arises from ignorance of the contribution that sound and sound editing (the example your writer used) make to the artistic impact of a film.

Most of the recent discussion in the press concerning sound in films has focused primarily on the decibel level of action films and how annoying it can be.

Almost all of us in the sound field, both editorial and re-recording, will be the first to agree with you that films have become too loud. That is a technical issue, and one that is strictly under the control of the directors and producers on whose films we work.

What is rarely discussed is the

integral part sound plays in both the final entertainment value of a film and its emotional impact on an audience.

It goes without saying that most audiences today would be disinclined to go to a silent film, with nothing but music and written dialogue to complement the picture.

But if an audience were shown a film with just the dialogue and sound recorded at the time the picture is shot, the film itself would stand the risk of being so uninvolving as to be unwatchable. In fact, studios now spend literally hundreds of thousands of dollars on their larger films to edit and mix a temporary soundtrack strictly for the purposes of one or two preview screenings, because they know such a track significantly contributes to the audience response.

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Imagine “The Matrix,” for example, with only dialogue and music. What sort of impact does a fight-training session between Keanu Reeves and Laurence Fishburne have if you hear nothing but clothes rustle and bare feet shuffling? How can a visual effect such as “bullet time” be credible without sound effects just as carefully designed to make something so farfetched seem real?

We create both emotion and a separate reality just as the cinematographer does. He paints the picture with his camera. We give it three-dimensionality with our sound. If we are very, very good, we sell the audience on the reality of the most unbelievable of visuals, be they dinosaurs, aliens or spaceships. We put the audience into the ambience of the 19th century by reviving the sounds the world no longer hears to create an atmosphere of that time existing as we watch.

We surround the audience with the horrible assault on the senses that was World War II, or the sinking of an ocean liner, whose terror was much more than simply visually induced.

We paint on the canvas that the director presents us. And just as painters do, each of us in the sound industry has a distinct style that is far removed from the “see a door close, hear a door close” mentality with which we are viewed. If you tell several different painters that you want the sky in your picture to be painted blue, every one of them will come up with a different color blue, applied in a different manner. Some will make the sky look flat and artificial. The very best will paint a sky that is not simply blue but is so real, you will feel you are sitting underneath that sky experiencing all the emotions that a very real, very beautiful sky can induce.

Music’s emotional impact is enormously subjective. So, too, is

sound. The artistic merit in the sound of a film lies in how well we manipulate that impact to the benefit of the film.

This is not assembly-line work. This is a complex creative effort that, at its most successful, is almost invisible due to its perfect integration with the film.

Even in the film industry itself, many executives and producers view sound as a necessary but unfortunate expense. They do not understand the extent to which we can enhance any type of film to make it at least more watchable, if not infinitely more involving. But the best in the industry understand and wish to honor our contribution. Perhaps the television audience, and some members of the academy, have forgotten that the Academy Awards originated to honor exceptional contributions to the film industry. It was not conceived as a two-hour dramatic comedy to garner ratings and entertain an audience. The films exist to entertain the audience. The awards exist to honor the artists. Those of us who create sound for those films are also the artists.

Julia Evershade has been a feature film sound editor for the last 20 years. Her credits include “Top Gun,” “The Fifth Element” and “The Matrix.”

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