Museum of Moving Image

When we went to the Museum of Moving Image there were a few demonstrations you could participate in. One of the demonstrations included the soundtrack for James Cameron’s Titanic. During the demonstration they dropped different parts of the audio track, to show all the different elements within a film’s soundtrack. One of the most interesting aspects of this demonstration was the sound they used for sound effects. Some of these sounds include a lion roaring, and played backwards, while water was rushing in. The reasons behind this, is that a lion’s roar will induce fear or discomfort subliminally, further heightening the emotion of the scene. It was explained during the demonstration that the entire film is peppered with animal sounds. This was an attempt to make the ship a character in the story. If audiences felt they could relate with the ship in some way, it would add to the climax of the film, as the ship is sinking/dying. It was also interesting to see how the film soundtrack consisted of about ten different tracks, including ambient sounds, a couple of sound effects, two different musical soundtracks. The advances in film sound have changed the viewing experience drastically; through sound the film creators can involve an audience member more emotionally. At the museum they had many old film cameras leading up to the present, and it was evident that the older cameras would have many limitations due to their size. Today’s cameras are much more versatile, opening up more ways to communication using the images they capture.