Soundscape

Rating:
Summary: Lots of Sound Ideas
Review: I would guess that if you are a "sound professional" you will likely be familiar with much of the content in this book, or at least will have well-developed opinions about what's discussed. For non-professionals like me, this book provided a wealth of theories, ideas, explanations, suggestions, and examples--something I thought didn't exist until I ran across a reference to it in the art magazine, Modern Painters. It's not a "how-to book". Even so, it's a book that gave and will continue to give me plenty of ideas about different ways of integrating sound and SILENCE into my video projects. Even if you don't intent to make videos or movies yourself, this book will give you clearer notions about sound theory that will help crystallize what you might have already grasped intuitively but couldn't put into words, e.g., the notion that music is a vector. It's also about how the sound track for some well know movies was developed, Apocalypse Now, for example, and how the movie business works with regard to sound and the music score.

There are chapters by David Lynch, Walter Murch, Randy Thom and other accomplished editors, directors, and sound designers. Just the chapters by Murch, Lynch, and Thom are worth the cost of the book! There are a couple of pretentious chapter authors but they are quickly discovered within the first few pages of reading and can then be easily skipped without consequence. Similar to silence, these dud chapters stand out all the more because they're in the context of such outstanding ones.

Here are a few of the conclusions I came away with after reading the book. Silence can exist only to the extent that the possibility of sound is present. Silence is a metaphor for thought and can also induce thought in the viewer. Music sound loops can be disconcerting because they don't lead us anywhere. It's not just my hearing, many Hollywood movies have poorly produced sound tracks! Sound is 50% (or more) of a movie. Sound can determine what you see and vice versa. Dialog needs to be understood even if it's not important for the story.

If you are making videos or movies of any kind or are an artist interested in incorporating sound into you work, this book is a real find. The same is true if you are just interested in film or if you are a movie reviewer. It's one of those books that caused me to both see and hear movies, and the world for that matter, in a different and more enchanting way. What more could a person ask of any book.

Rating:
Summary: Lots of Sound Ideas
Review: I would guess that if you are a "sound professional" you will likely be familiar with much of the content in this book, or at least will have well-developed opinions about what's discussed. For non-professionals like me, this book provided a wealth of theories, ideas, explanations, suggestions, and examples--something I thought didn't exist until I ran across a reference to it in the art magazine, Modern Painters. It's not a "how-to book". Even so, it's a book that gave and will continue to give me plenty of ideas about different ways of integrating sound and SILENCE into my video projects. Even if you don't intent to make videos or movies yourself, this book will give you clearer notions about sound theory that will help crystallize what you might have already grasped intuitively but couldn't put into words, e.g., the notion that music is a vector. It's also about how the sound track for some well know movies was developed, Apocalypse Now, for example, and how the movie business works with regard to sound and the music score.

There are chapters by David Lynch, Walter Murch, Randy Thom and other accomplished editors, directors, and sound designers. Just the chapters by Murch, Lynch, and Thom are worth the cost of the book! There are a couple of pretentious chapter authors but they are quickly discovered within the first few pages of reading and can then be easily skipped without consequence. Similar to silence, these dud chapters stand out all the more because they're in the context of such outstanding ones.

Here are a few of the conclusions I came away with after reading the book. Silence can exist only to the extent that the possibility of sound is present. Silence is a metaphor for thought and can also induce thought in the viewer. Music sound loops can be disconcerting because they don't lead us anywhere. It's not just my hearing, many Hollywood movies have poorly produced sound tracks! Sound is 50% (or more) of a movie. Sound can determine what you see and vice versa. Dialog needs to be understood even if it's not important for the story.

If you are making videos or movies of any kind or are an artist interested in incorporating sound into you work, this book is a real find. The same is true if you are just interested in film or if you are a movie reviewer. It's one of those books that caused me to both see and hear movies, and the world for that matter, in a different and more enchanting way. What more could a person ask of any book.