◡◶▿ Silences
Earbud disco at the Gare de John Cage | Summer sound letter #4
There has never been a silent film - there’s always something. But we know that films contain a lot of silences.
These silences are not the absence of sound. A silence in a film is the sound or sounds of silence.1 (It is also the look, the rhythm, and the smell of silence.)
Subtractive and additive silencing
The filmmaker may experiment with removing sounds one by one until the remaining sounds make a satisfying silence. This is called subtractive silencing.
It’s easier to remove sounds in your mind or on paper first, and then layer the remaining sounds from scratch, on set or in post-production. It’s more difficult to remove individual sounds from a live recording of a scene. This is because sounds stick to each other.
And how about additive silencing? To silence additively, you layer sounds without referring to the live scene recording or imagining what your silence will sound like. Begin with the minimum possible sound and build on it until it sounds like silence.
Done clumsily, additive silencing can sound artificial. The audience listens harder, and perceives the joins. Could be good.
Buried silences
Conventional audiences are disturbed by more than the shortest silence. A sustained silence draws their attention to the passing of time (or whatever else time is doing) in a film. Some filmmakers start with silences, pasting other categories of sound on top. The audience can never ignore the presence of time in a movie with buried silences like these.
Some film cameras are so loud in operation that they may be heard on the movie’s soundtrack. The sound of a film camera in operation makes the silence audible even in a noisy scene.2 The quick click-click-click of the film stock turning over acts as an overzealous clock. Marking out the silence.
Animating silence with the quick click-click-click of the film stock turning over has a curious side effect. It makes the actors seem less animated. The measured silence between each click, although brief in the audience’s world, conjures the eternity of the characters’ world. Try it!
📹 Unfound Peoples Videotechnic | Cloud-based filmmaking thought. ☁️
ℹ️ About us 🐦 Twitter | 📸 Instagram | 😐 Facebook | 🎞️ Letterboxd | 🌐 Website
A movie silence can be created by removing all sound, but this is just one method of composing a silence. This method leaves a very loud silence. The audience may interpret this peculiar silence how they wish. For example:
The audience may understand that the images are taking place beyond this movie’s established time realm or outside of moving time.
(Of course, like sound, silence can only exist when time is moving. But, the uncanny feeling of a stretch of blank soundtrack - as opposed to a silence of recorded sounds - realigns the mediaphysics of the movie in which it occurs.)
Or that there is a leak between the movie and the world immediately around the audience.
But, to remove sound altogether is rarely the most effective method of composing silence. This is because silence doesn’t sound like silence. Silence sounds like sounds.
Where does this silence live?