Hyper-realistic sounds

Hyper-realistic sounds are sound recordings created for film and television that are over emphatically stated, over exaggerated and overly defined to that of sound reflected in real life.  Hyper realism in Media is an evolving convergence. Multiple creative thinkers draw from each other across platforms to help build the continuity and advancement of the practice.

The elements that often best illustrate these effects are recorded while watching a picture such as footsteps, and are often blown up in both loudness and in closeness that what would normally be expressed in reality. Some of the exaggeration found in films are due to the experience of practitioners finding that average sound playback systems, in ambiguous detail the sound doesn’t offer the affect in which they aimed to create, which is to simply amplify different actions and emotions and feel of a particular place or setting, therefore it is over exaggerated and over expressed. A good deal of the exaggeration still is desirable under the best playback conditions, simply because of the competition for other kinds of sound. 

One film in particular that I feel exploited the arts of ‘hyper realistic sound’ is expressed within 'The Terminator 2' where James Cameron's approach to sound was typically based on hyperrealism. Everything featured throughout all scenes had to be so much bigger than life in order to make the film into one of the most well known, best selling films of that year winning the best sound effects and editing as well as other various awards.

 Within the Terminator 2 every sound effect had to sound like it was infused with strong, bold bursts of high level energy and it had to be magnified to unworldly possibilities in order to for fill the objective of what James Cameron wanted to achieve through this action based, energetic film.

One reason for creating a hyper realistic sound is that there is typically so much competing sound at any given moment throughout different scenes that each sound that must be heard has to be rather over-emphatically stated, just to read through the clutter. For example denotation was expressed through the scene where two sounds of different motorbikes had to be re-recorded to specifically identify the different models of bikes, the re-recorded sound presented from the bikes had to be exaggerated in order for the different sounds to be infused with energy so that the scene presented was to the right standard of this action based film.  Heard in isolation, the recordings seem silly and overly exaggerated but heard in perspective; it implements a more expected, natural balance.  

The dialogue, the music and larger than life sound effects thrown together by James Cameron really shaped the film. I feel because of the work of hyper realistic sound, once empty, ineffective scenes, I now feel are very effective and full.

James Cameron had a very distinctive idea of how he wanted to feature music and effects in each scene. For example at (0.07s) within the film, we observe a truck crashing into a brick bridge wall  then descending into the ground. This sound had to sound larger than life and the sound engineer had to make a crucial decision in how to do this, for example by increasing the EQ level and changing the pitch so the sound heard is much more effective and loud. This scene contains larger than life sounds that I feel from an audience perspective would come across as being injected with a shot of testosterone, that helped intensify this action scene, so therefore the audience are taken back and affected by this scene so the action of the truck crashing in to ground is fully portrayed, really capturing the effectiveness and realism of how it would come across in an accident in reality .

Another example later on in the clip is when the terminator fires his gun, it makes a massive bass filled boom sound effect, which wouldn’t necessarily sound quite so deep and full in real life.  This moment has been aided with a number of dynamic based tools such as compressors and limiters that will make it sound a lot tighter helping this section of the scene stand out more from the rest of the sound, which is going on behind it.

Another film in its entirety that features the works of hyper-realistic sound is within 'the Da Vinci code'. Rob Howards approach within ‘The Da Vinci code’ features smaller hints of hyper-realistic sound than of that projected within ‘the terminator 2’. Nevertheless, having multiple renditions of hyper-realism throughout the whole film, altogether implements the works of this art form within film as it helps bring reality back to a quite farfetched production.

In the trailer they used scenes with hyper realistic sound is used, they do this because intensifying the sound to an almost unnatural level can intrigue the audience and pull them in as if they are in the scene with the characters. In the Da Vinci code, they used it to grab the audience and make them want to watch the film. For example at 1:16 when the priest is running and is breathing heavily, both the sounds have been made louder to create a feel of anxiety and nervousness towards the audience.

Another point is at 1:27 where a gunshot sound is louder that what would normally be projected in reality to break the silence and helps create the mood of mystery and tension. These two points are better at creating moods than the Terminator 2 clip as they have more mystery to them.

 

 

Lastly hyper realistic sound is presented in ‘The dark night’ whereby we observe in the first scene, the carlike object (batmobile) start to vibrate and parts of it start to move. Within this scene at 0.07s, there is a low rumbling bass sound that is barely heard by the audience thus creating suspicion to the viewers to what this low drone sound is. This sound is low pitched and has been panned by sound engineers to help the audience get a sense of the vibrations travelling through a wider space.

At 0.40 seconds, we see a truck turning right transporting the camera with it creating a deep engine resonance by lowering the frequency and pitch. This correspondence with image and sound is created through panning the sound to the left, giving a feel of full 360 stereo sound. Through the truck turning we are able to understand the different effects that show the diversity of sound engineers as all these different effects once implement together make for an exciting, thrilling experience because of the different ways in which we project hyper-realistic sound.

Another effect projecting hyper-realistic sound is at 1.04, where the bike speeds through a tunnel, only isolating the sound of the robotic engine. There are many other competing sounds within the tunnels which are a most common reason to why sound engineers incorporate hyper realistic sound to film. For example within this scene there are cars that are situated and many other evolving sounds within the tunnel, but with the effect of hyper-realistic sound, by boosting the volumes level, increasing the frequency and pitch of the bike and muting other noises that can differ the effect of the bike, all help aid to batman’s character as it gives a sense of depth and aggression towards him and brings short, fast tension to the chase scene.