Sound in film

Every film needs sound, without it wha would it be? No catchy theme songs, no smashing bottles, it would be a disaster. There are two types of sound in films, there is diagetic and non-diagetic. Diagetic sound is sound that is within the story. By this, I mean the sound that the characters would be able to hear. This includes the dialogue, sometimes the music, and very rarely sound effects. Non-diagetic sound is sound that only the audience can hear because it is added into the story afterwards. This includes the special effects and the music, for example an explosion would not be able to be done so the image of the explosion and impirtantly the sound would ne non-diagetic.

Sound in Romeo & Juliet
Even though this film is a very modern version of the very well known story of Romeo and Juliet, the dialogue between the characters is still an old shakespearian language. As much as this could make the film much more like the original play, I personally do not like it because I believe that they should go full modern if they sre going to at all and that it may be quite confusing to people who are not familiar with the play.

The dialogue does, however, help to build characters. This is because we can learn from their voices who is the authoritative figure among them. We can also hear their emotions from their voices. For example, when one of the montague boys insults the capulets and he is threatened, he talks very fast and fearfully. In this example of a film though, without dialogue, we would still be able to take a good guess at what is going on because of their facial expressions snd the mise-en-scene.

The sound effects in the film would normally be diagetic (and we are meant to believe this) but they are exxagerated. For example when Tybalt puts out a cigarette with the heel of his shoe we get an almost unbearable sound of the shoe scraping against the concrete floor. This increases the impact of the sounds and draws the attention of te audience to what is happening and they remember that pount for the sound. It manipulates tha audience and builds tension.

Finally, the music in Romeo & Juliet. The film starts with a diagetic rebelious tune blasting out of the montague's car. This music becomes non-diagetic after a freeze frame in which everything is stopped except the music. In the rest of the film, the music subtely fades in and out taking turns with the dialogue. This secretly makes the dialogue more noticeable because there is no music distracting us from what the characters are saying. However, when music is playing, it is quite 'in your face' and loud and seems to intrude after a quiet part of dialogue. This is good because it makes sure that the audience are paying attention.