This module examines the nature and conventions of sound design in narrative cinema.
This includes the following:
The role of the Sound Designer and Foley Artists.
The conditions of listening in cinemas and the effect of these on audiences' experience of films.
The conventional uses and effects of music, speech, sound effects and silence in films.
The work of leading and influential sound designers and sound-conscious film directors.
Historical developments in the practices and technology of film sound.

Varied and flexible teaching and learning methods will be employed aiming to develop the students' analytical and research skills in terms of sound. These will include:

Lectures on key areas of research film sound and some introductory exercises.

Textual analyses of those films selected for screening.

The reading of selected articles and discussions relating to this reading.

Library, Internet, Media Lab, Film Theatre or Lecture Theatre with video projection and speakers, TV/DVD/VHS Playback

Rick Altman, Sound Theory, Sound Practice (London: Routledge, 1992)
Michel Chion, Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990)
Claudia Gorbman, Unheard Melodies: Narrative Film Music (Bloomington & Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1987)
Sarah Kozloff, Overhearing Film Dialogue (Berkeley, CA: University of California, 2000)
Vincent LoBrutto, Sound-on-Film: Interviews with creators of film sound (London: Praeger, 1994)
Gianluca Sergi, 'A Cry in the Dark: the Role of Postclassical Film Sound' in Steve Neale and Murray Smith (eds.) Contemporary Hollywood Cinema (London: Routledge, 1998)
David Sonnenschein, Sound Design: The Expressive Power of Music, Voice and Sound Effects in Cinema (Los Angeles: Micheal Wiese, 2001)