Reflection on the Jennifer Ralston interview

I’m not surprised that sound is under appreciated since I feel like most people who are interested in media production gravitate towards the screenwriting, directing, cinematography or acting aspects of it. One of my best friends at GMU is a screen writer and his really good friend and peer is a cinematographer so their films are always well written and beautiful visually but sometimes lack a little in terms of sound features. A lot of people don’t even always actively pay attention to sound to in television shows or movies and even just listening to one episode of the The Wire it becomes clear that audio plays a huge role in creating the atmosphere of a scene and defining what is going on in the scene.

It is amazing to me that the sound for The Wire wasn’t taking place on set or in Baltimore, and that is was in New York, and that the sound effects team had to actually travel to Baltimore to get accurate sounds before shooting some of the episodes. I found it very clever when she says that when it’s too noisy then you have to add more noise to balance  out the scene, because not having any audio experience, my first instinct would be to just take out all of the noise and somehow add it back in later…

Taking into account perspective for sound seems like it would be an obvious aspect to focus on but as a viewer, I never took sound perspective into consideration because the sound editors in The Wire blended the perspectives so smoothly that it just all seems very natural when you’re watching it. Another cool technique Jenn talked about was how if you want the sound to be quiet, you don’t do it through silence, and she explains that “you convey silence by bringing out details that you only hear if it was quiet.” Again, another trick that isn’t completely obvious when you are trying to sound work for the first time (or even 100th time probably). Lastly, I think it is very cool that sound can be used to enhanced the character’s perspective, development, and even personality, since usually I would just that relies on visual components.