The Importance of Sound Effects in Science Fiction Cinema

Science fiction (SF) cinema has existed for over a century. SF moviemakers have gone to great lengths to entice their audiences while challenging mainstream science phenomena, such as the reanimation of extinct animals, time-traveling murdering cyborgs, extraterrestrial life, and helpful, semi-anthropomorphic robots. Screening Space (1987) author Vivian Sobchack defines SF cinema as, “a film genre which emphasizes actual, extrapolative, or speculative science and the empirical method, interacting in a social context with the lesser emphasized, but still present, transcendentalism of magic and religion, in an attempt to reconcile man with the unknown” (pg. 63).

Dinosaurs, xenomorphs, cyborgs and robots do not exist, at least, not on our planet. Currently, these things exist only on film. Their sounds had to be created from existing sounds and, by manipulating those sounds, new sounds were made and used for these characters; however, it is important to note that the character sounds were established at the same time of character design and the background sound effects aided in making the character sounds stronger thus evoking a greater reaction from audiences (Whittington, 2007).

Sobchack argues soundtracks are subjectively emotional. In contrast, SF films’ use of sound effects is more reliable to the authenticity to the film because these sounds can be found in our external world (Sobchack, 1987). Perhaps it is this assertion that makes these characters; sounds become a tangible thing. Having experiential and even a loosely defined schema of these sounds prior to entering a movie theater, makes the sound real to us although these sounds could possibly have not been acknowledged until having the transcendence from an idea to an actuality, or the sounds’ ability to become more than just background noise – these sounds are now related an alien, dinosaurs, a robot, or a cyborg .

Reference

Sobchack, V. (1987). Screening Space: The American Science Fiction Film. New York: Ungar.

Whittington, W. (2007). Sound design & science fiction. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

by Alix Rael 

http://soundsofcreaturesandmachinesinscifi.blogspot.com/

The Sounds of the Dinosaurs in Jurassic Park

Over 200 million years ago, dinosaurs walked the earth. The fossils and the mystery of their ultimate demise have interested people for decades. These extinct animals have been resurrected in many Hollywood films since 1925’s film The Lost World.

Since then, audiences have been captivated with seeing dinosaurs come to life in theaters; however, according to Robert Baird (1998), seeing these cinematic animals always had a “familiar jerky, almost pixelated, look” (pg. 91).

Steven Spielburg attempted something new with his 1993 film Jurassic Park (JP). Spielburg's dinosaurs had to look as real as possible. The dinosaur designs went from using traditional stop motion techniques of films past to employing both animatronics and computer generated imagery. Spielberg and his design team consulted paleontologists regularly to give these dinosaurs a sense of realism but, despite their scientific accuracy, JP's dinosaurs relied upon animal schemata for both visual and sonic design. Stan Winston (Baird, 1998) recalled:

“You look at a triceratops and say this animal could in some way relate to a rhinoceros. You look at amphibians, you look at reptiles, you look at mammals and at birds, take all that information in hand, and then you makes aesthetic choices. Nobody can look at you and say, scientifically, that it’s the wrong color… It’s a matter of looking at it and going, does this feel right? Does it feel real, does it look real, is it dramatic?” (pg. 92)

Relying on this concept, JP's production designer, Rick Carter, was able to get JP's dinosaurs away from the bug-eyed monster phenomena, noted by Sobchack (1987) and discussed in the next section, and make JP's dinosaurs animals (Baird, 1998).

In 1954, science fiction (SF) film Godzilla was released and later gained worldwide popularity. Shuhei Hosokawa and Akira Ifukube created Godzilla's reputable roar. Instead of using animal or human voices for the monster's roar, Hosokawa and Ifukube combined a series of musical sound and tape manipulation, becoming the first producers to use tape manipulation in Japan (Hayward, 2004). For the construction of JP's dinosaurs, Gary Rydstrom was directed by Spielberg to only use animal sounds when creating the dinosaurs' roars, breath, and other vocalizations (Barid, 1998).

The Tyrannosaurus Rex's roars and grunts are a mixture of alligator, elephant, tiger, dog, and penguin while the velociraptors used over 25 different animal sounds. Perhaps one of the most memorable sounds is the raptor call, a manipulation of mating tortoises (Rattigan, et al, 2012).

These manipulations might not be considered to be part of the temporal and three-dimensional structures necessary to schemata if not in part by using reptile sounds as the foundation for most of the sounds of the Jurassic Park animals (Baird, 1998). Still, schematas are altered over time as a person incurs experience of, in this case, sounds. Rydstrom's modified schema for sound and his knowledge of the highly intelligent pack hunter velociraptors gave reason for Rydstrom to use dolphin screeches for the velociraptor attacks (Rattigan, et al, 2012), dolphins being one of the most intelligent animals on Earth.

Many of the sounds for JP are not sounds people hear everyday. Yet, sound schema has been developed in audiences and from the many other movie examples of these extinct animals. Perhaps the reason these character sounds are more emotive than past film sound effects is because the characters look like things audiences have seen before outside of a theater such as elephants in a zoo or animal documentaries. The idea of how a Tyrannosaurus Rex might sound becomes an actuality when, visually, the character has a presence both on and off the screen.

Reference

Baird, R. (1998).Animalizing “Jurassic Park's” Dinosaurs: Blockbuster Schemata and Cross-Cultural Cognition in the Threat Scene. Cinema Journal, 82-103.

Hayward, P. (2004). Off the Planet: Music, Sound, and Science Fiction Cinema. London Bloomington, IN: John Libbey. Distributed in North America by Indiana University Press.

Rattigan, T., Reisz, K., Holm, I., Firth, C., & Wilton, P. (2012). The Deep Blue Sea. Artificial Eye.

Sobchack, V. (1987). Screening Space: The American Science Fiction Film. New York: Ungar.

by Alix Rael 

http://soundsofcreaturesandmachinesinscifi.blogspot.com/

Ridley Scott's Alien (1979)

The bug-eyed monster (BEM) is one of two antagonists that have caused agitation in science fiction (SF) moviegoers. Usually the woman-kidnapper/man-killer, the BEM has been seen as a horrible, evil doer that must be stopped and/or destroyed before it strikes again (Sobchack, 1987). The xenomorph in Ridley Scott's 1979 film, Alien, uses the BEM's absence to strengthen the visual and sound effects of the BEM's presence when the xenomorph finally appears.

In direct contrast with most SF films at the time, Alien was one of the first to have a female as the sole survivor and the last voice of the xenomorph's attack. Although the xenomorph kills the entire crew, one woman included, the xenomorph's birth seems like an attack on the human male.

The design of the xenomorph was developed by HR Giger after Ridley Scott discovered HR Giger's art book Necronomicon. All three stages of the xenomorph's lifespan, the facehugger, the chestburster, and lastly the xenomorph, are what critics and cast have considered to be uncomfortably sexual and violent while being sleek and mysterious. That Giger's work merges sex and technology into something he refers to as biomechanics, a mix of organic and machine. In Alien, the forced implantation of the xenomorph makes the contact uncomfortable for all who watches, although the birth of the xenomorph is substantially more horrid (Whittington, 2007).

Photo courtesy of cxareigna.wordpress.com

Photo courtesy of lcart3.narod.ru

Photo courtesy of avaxnews.net 

Giger's xenomorph design went hand in hand with his overall design of the planetoid and the alien spacecraft where the crew first encounters the nest of eggs; however, Ridley Scott knew sound was play a large part in the film:

“When you see the film with the proper mix of big sound, you can hear a lot of very subtle sounds all the time; they are always there working on your paranoia. I think the atmospherics are terribly important. This is not score. This is just uneasy, almost organic sounds that make you feel uncomfortable” (Scott et al, 2003).

The soft sounds provide an ambience to a sequence evoking anxiety while the contrasting loud screech of the xenomorph shocks the audience into what William Whittington calls dark lyricism (Whittington, 2007).

Xenomorph Attacks Dallas

Dark lyricism is a concentration on the ambient sounds in horror SF films. In the case of Alien, Scott uses a heartbeat to indicate when the xenomorph was about to attack. In non-SF films, these types of sounds become part of an ambient soundtrack, part of the background noise. In SF films, particularly horror SF films like Alien, the soft hum of wind or gentle jingle of chains only provoke uneasiness in the audience as they wait for something to happen. (Whittington, 2007).

The First Xenomorph Attack

The xenomorph costume was molded for seven foot tall, rail-thin Bolaji Badejo, a Nigerian graphic design student. Badejo was sent to t'ai chi and mime classes to get his movements fluid. 

Photo courtesy of laurajul.dk

Percy Edwards, a longtime animals impressionist, lent his vocals to the xenomorph's scream. Limiting the xenomorph's screen time while keeping the vocalizations to four screams in a two hour long film, Ridley Scott kept the imagination of the audience:

“The most important thing in a film of this type is not what you see, but the effect of what you think you saw. Every movement is going to be very slow, very graceful, and the alien will alter shape so you never really know exactly what he looks like” (Scott et al, 2003).

Sobchack agrees that once a film shows too much of the of the monster, the monster and the film looses the appeal and the emotional connection to both: “[if] the totally imaginative visualizations of alien life forms in the SF film strive to dislocate us from the narrow confines of human knowledge and human experience, they best do so when they are virtually silent and primarily inactive” (pg 91-92).

SF horror films rely heavily on the lack of imagery of the BEM. The screeching and sounds of the BEM pale in comparison to the tricks the mind plays when in the depths of silence, or black noise. The silence between the screams make the screams of the xenomorph more plausible even though the audience has no frame of reference for how an alien life form might sound.

Reference

IMBd. (n.d.). Percy Edwards. Retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0250272/bio

Scott, R. (Director), O'Bannon, D. (Writer), Weaver, S (Actress). (2003). Alien Quadrilogy [DVD]. United States: 20th Century Fox.

Sobchack, V. (1987). Screening Space: The American Science Fiction Film. New York: Ungar.

Whittington, W. (2007). Sound design & science fiction. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

by Alix Rael 

http://soundsofcreaturesandmachinesinscifi.blogspot.com/

The Black Noise of James Cameron's The Terminator (1984)

The second type of antagonist in science fiction cinema is the transformed human being. Although typically transformed by radiation or by DNA alteration, like in Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, the transformed human antagonist becomes the murderous monster (Sobchack, 1987). In The Terminator, the human is transformed into the destructive, calculating machine set to destroy humanity, as a result of man's own doing. The Terminator, a product of military weapons, eventually sees all humans as aggressive and needing to be terminated (Whittington, 2007). 

Reese's Explanation

In science fiction, there are three kinds of robots: the humanoid, the self-propelling servant, and the automatic machine. The Terminator is the automatic machine, not stopping until it has met it's objective, an objective that would be in violation of Issac Asimov's Laws of Robotics: 

1. A robot may not injure human being or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm except where that would be in conflict with law 1. 
2. A robot must obey orders given to it by humans except where that conflicts with the first law. 
3. A robot must protect your own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second laws. (Khan, 1998). 

Violating these rules is a main source for concern and science fiction cinema and the basis of the Terminator films. 

Sobchack explains how obsessed our culture has become on physical fitness . It is of little wonder why Arnold Schwarzenegger was chosen for the role. The cyborg embodies our ideal of a perfect physical body, a "lean machine, focused on only one objective(Sobchack, 1987). According to Telotte (1995), "[the android] figure has become one of the central and identifying icons of all science fiction literature and that the figure is recent dominance of science fiction film seems far from surprising" (pg. 31).

photo courtesy of dvdverdict.com

The Terminator's mission is to go back in time to annihilate Sarah Connor, the mother of his enemy, Jon Connor. In doing so destroying the human race and winning the war between human and Skynet and the machines. As humans become part of an increasingly technological environment, science fiction (SF) filmmakers play on audiences anxieties of the threat of machines becoming sentient, making audiences question how we exist in in this technological world. Just as most of technologies are able to blend into our culture, the terminator is able to blend into society and customs so easily in fact that even wearing sunglasses at night inside a police station does not warrant a second glance (Telotte, 1995). 

Once the cyborg deconstructs down to it endoskeleton there is nothing but the dramatic score and machinery sound effects. Resembling Death, the terminator's foley sound effects were created from machine sounds found in the external world today, creating an authenticity for the terminator's hums, whirring, clanking, etc. Sobchack argues credibility for the sounds of the terminator since these sounds are not as far fetched as other sound effects for other science fiction antagonists, claiming the sound of SF is the sound of machines and technology  (Sobchack, 1987).

The Endoskeleton

References

Cameron, J. (Director) (1984). The Terminator [DVD]. United States: Orion Pictures.

Khan, Z. (1998). Attitudes towards intelligent service robots. NADA KTH, Stockholm, 17 

Sobchack, V. (1987). Screening Space: The American Science Fiction Film. New York: Ungar

Telotte, J. (1995). Replications : a robotic history of the science fiction film. Urbana: University of Illinois Press 

Whittington, W. (2007). Sound design & science fiction. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

by Alix Rael 

http://soundsofcreaturesandmachinesinscifi.blogspot.com/

R2D2 - The Preferred Service Robot

According to the Robot Institute of America, "[a robot] is programmable, multi-functional manipulator designed to move material parts tools or specialized devices through various programs motions for the performance of a variety of task" (Khan, 1998).  
R2D2 in George Lucas's Star Wars saga, however, is more than a robot. R2D2 is the epitome of an emotive, service robot. He is the one most recognizable robot in science fiction (SF) cinema as one of the most helpful, relatable, and fun-loving robots in SF films. 

Although some people deplore relying on artificial intelligence, R2D2 has been a welcome part of the group, aiding his masters when the going gets tough and being an integral part in employing plans while remaining coy. 

In a study, interviewers asked interviewees what requirements would be best for a service robots. The study was done quite some time after Star Wars' release, but most people prefered the characteristics, both physically and vocally, to a robot fitting R2D2's description, specifically R2D2s size, walking speed, communication, shape, and ability to faithfully  carry out tasks (Khan, 1998).

R2D2's ability to interact with humans by expressing emotion is most likely why the droid is one of the most famous and considered one of the most friendliest robots in science fiction films. R2D2 seems to simulate human nonverbal expressions such as shaking his head. Sound designer Ben Burtt used an analog synthesizer and samples of his own voice to create R2D2's unique sounds (Jee, et al, 2010). Perhaps it is the use of Burtt's own voice that helped relay to the audience R2D2 was communicating emotionally rather than just being a series of beeps and boops. 

R2D2's Yell

The same way we can determine if someone is asking us a question or is excited by their voice inflection, the audience is able to determine what R2D2 is saying with the metallic beeps and whistles. Yet the droid's unique shape and small size provokes an anthropomorphism feeling to that of a small child or baby (Jee, et al, 2010).  

R2D2's sounds were based on two types of sounds: 

• Intention sounds
• Sounds that convey meaning like yes and no 
• Sounds that convey situations such as warnings or greetings
• Emotion sounds
• Sounds that communicate feelings like happiness or sadness

Intonation was used to control the intensity of emotion, thoughts, and mood. Jee (2010) writes, "In terms of pitch, even though the

perceptible pitch range of humans is from 20 to 20,000 Hz,

the pitch range between 100 and 1,500 Hz is appropriate for

the sound of a robot. This is because a voice in this pitch range

is most common in normal human communication, and most

of us feel comfortable when we hear a sound within this pitch

range" (pg. 201). 

Ben Burtt kept in mind that the robot sound in our Tues robot language should be universal a good quality for those who are watching films.

Reference 

Jee, E. S., Jeong, Y. J., Kim, C. H., & Kobayashi, H. (2010). Sound design for emotion and intention expression of socially interactive robots. Intelligent Service Robotics, 3(3), 199-206

Khan, Z. (1998). Attitudes towards intelligent service robots. NADA KTH, Stockholm, 17

Lucas, G. (Director) (1977). Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. [DVD]. United States. 20th Century Fox

by Alix Rael 

http://soundsofcreaturesandmachinesinscifi.blogspot.com/

Jirij Lotman: 

"Cinematography resembles the world which we see.... But this similarity is as unreliable as the words of a foreign language which sound like words of our own. That which is different pretends to be identical. The illusion of comprehension is created where no genuine comprehension exists. Only by understanding the cinema can we be convinced that it is not a slavish copy of life, but an active recreation in which similarities and differences are assembled into an integral, tension-filled - sometimes dramatic - process of perceiving life."


Reference: Sobchack, V. C. (1980). Beyond visual aids: American film as american culture. American Quarterly, Vol. 32(No. 3), pp. 280-300. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org May 8, 2013