Brief Summary
This video explores the historical divide between film scores and sound design, highlighting how they've traditionally been treated as separate entities in the production process. It uses John Cage's "4 minutes and 33 seconds" to question the definition of music and sound, and examines instances where collaboration between composers and sound designers led to innovative audio experiences, such as in "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "WALL-E." The video advocates for integrating sound design and music composition from the beginning of creative projects to enhance the acoustic landscape of media.
- The traditional separation between film scores and sound design.
- John Cage's "4 minutes and 33 seconds" as a challenge to the definition of music.
- Examples of successful collaboration between composers and sound designers.
- Advocacy for early integration of sound design and music composition in media production.
The film world has long been divided between film scores and sound design. Film scores encompass all the music in a film, while sound design includes creating unique sounds (like lasers), Foley (actor-made sounds recreated in a studio), and ADR (additional dialogue recording). Sound effects are often seen as competition for composers, a sentiment that contrasts with early cartoons where music came first and animation followed.
Early Disney cartoons used a technique called "Mickey Mousing," where music was composed first, and animators adapted scenes to fit the score. As cartoons evolved and incorporated dialogue, studios had to find creative ways to emulate sound effects due to technological limitations. Sound departments began recreating sounds in studios, similar to modern Foley, but these closely scored sound effects became associated with goofiness when used outside of Disney cartoons.
The worlds of sound effects and film scoring have remained largely separate since then. Composers typically work on music independently, with sound effects added later. This separation is common in various media, including video games, where audio designers and composers rarely interact. A behind-the-scenes clip from Star Wars Episode 2 illustrates the challenge of integrating music and sound effects in the final mix.
John Cage's "4 minutes and 33 seconds," a piece consisting of silence, challenges conventional notions of music. The piece has three movements of varying lengths, each marked "Tacet," indicating silence. Interpretations of the piece vary, with some suggesting it's about the audience's sounds becoming the music, the performer's discipline, or a composer's mastery.
Cage wrote sequels to "4 minutes and 33 seconds" that further challenge interpretations of the original piece. "4 minutes and 33 seconds number two," also known as "0 minutes and 0 seconds," instructs performers to perform a disciplined action with maximum amplification, subject to interruptions and obligations to others. "One cubed" involves placing a microphone in a music hall on the edge of feedback, making the audience's noises the performance. These sequels disprove theories about the original piece by creating works that embody those interpretations, suggesting "4 minutes and 33 seconds" has a different meaning.
The video argues that "4 minutes and 33 seconds" is about defining music. If music is a series of organized sounds, then Cage's piece qualifies as a basic form of music. Time is the canvas for music, and silence is an essential component used by all composers. Bob Ross's wet-on-wet painting technique is used as an analogy: just as Ross can leave a canvas white and call it a painting, Cage can present silence as music.
In production, music and sound design are often the last elements added to a film. The author expresses frustration that audio is often an afterthought. Composers sometimes listen to sound effects to ensure compatibility, but this is rare. Exceptions occur when music is needed before filming, such as in musicals. Films like "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "WALL-E" demonstrate the benefits of involving composers and sound designers early in the creative process.
Tim Burton involved Danny Elfman from the beginning of "The Nightmare Before Christmas," showing him concept art and ideas before the script was complete. Similarly, the sound designer for "WALL-E" was brought in early, allowing for close attention to sound during animation. This collaboration enabled Pixar to create an opening with minimal dialogue. The video concludes by advocating for producers, directors, sound designers, and composers to collaborate from the start of a project to create a cohesive acoustic landscape, emphasizing that sound effects are, in essence, organized sounds.
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Transcript
Full transcript of “The Sequels to Silence”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 so for the longest time there have been two adversaries in the film world the film score and the sound design the film score is all the music that goes into the film whereas the sound design well the sound design is actually kind of a misnomer there's actual sound design which involves creating sounds that don't really exist in our world like lasers and magic spells and whatever those might sound like then there's the Foley which is all the sound that the actors are supposed to make but because film sets get really noisy a lot of the actual sound they record tends not to be used as a matter of fact ADR or additional dialogue recording can be thrown into this group as well you'd be amazed at how much of the dialogue in a scene is actually recorded in a studio but you get the idea it's all the sounds in a film versus all the music in a film as a matter of fact don't listen to me take it from the man himself sound effects are a big problem for a composer you know it's our great competition the dubbing room which is when all the all
0:47 the sounds are being put together sometimes if a soundtrack is is is completed the sound effects of a scene I like to listen to that to see what what uh my competition is going to be which is kind of a weird sentiment cuz like when cartoons first came out it was the exact opposite when you look at the old Disney cartoons a lot of the time they just get a piece of romantic music and then animate according to what happens in the piece this technique has come to be known as Mickey [Music] mousing with this technique it's important to remember that the music comes first and the animators would change a scene in order to fit what was going on in the score um this is kind of the whole idea behind the sorcerer apprentice scene in Fantasia it was supposed to pay respect to those older styles of cartoons But as time went on and cartoons started to stray from their
1:32 traditional form and basically started having dialogue the studios had to get creative with how they were going to emulate these sound effects technology was really limiting back then you couldn't just go out and do a field recording which is pretty much just walking around with a giant microphone and hoping to pick up whatever sound you're looking for the equipment wasn't accurate enough and it was just too big to really transport so what a lot of sound Department started to do was they would recreate these sounds in studios sort of like what we would call Foley nowadays but basically there were these sound designers who would perform sound effects Just Like Music but over time people started to associate these closely scored sound effects with those Disney cartoons and when they started using it in other contexts it just started to sound too goofy literally and since then the worlds of sound effects and film scoring have kind of been in odds and never really come back together most people just let the composers Work the music and have the
2:18 sound effects just be the sound effects and for the most part this is just how it works in a production cycle the audio designer who works on the sound effects for a video game for example most likely won't have much if any contact with a composer of a game invit vice versa as a matter of fact take a look at this behind the scenes clip where the sound team was working on the Final Mix for Star Wars Episode 2 you never know what's going to happen until you start running it all together the whole problem is that we haven't heard Michael's done the dialogue he hasn't really heard everything that we've done in effects we haven't heard the music at all so throw it all into the pot right off the bat and it's a surprise how it all sounds together now considering how keeping the music and sound effects separate is just how the worlds of Television film and video games have basically Works since well Steamboat willly I just kind of accepted that that's how it is and that's how it's
3:04 always been done and that's how it always will be that was until I heard the controversial piece 4 minutes and 33 seconds now 4 minutes and 33 seconds was written in 1952 by John Cage probably the most well-known experimental composer who's ever lived and the entire piece of 4 minutes and 33 seconds consists of 4 minutes and 33 seconds of absolute silence it has three movements the first is 33 seconds long the second is 2 minutes and 40 seconds and the last is 1 minute and 20 seconds and if you look at the score to this piece and yes there is a score you'll just find that each movement says Tac it which is the music term for like silent or just sit out so if you have a piece of music where you want like a trumpet to play on the first and third movements but not on the second movement
3:50 on the second movement the trumpet part will say tcid now the interpretation you regularly hear about this piece is that it's all about the audience like during the performance someone will cough or Shuffle their feet or maybe whis whisper to whoever's sitting next to them and that in fact is the whole point of 4 minutes and 33 seconds is that all the sound the audience makes is actually the piece of music I've also heard people argue that this piece is about like the discipline of the performer like it takes a lot of guts to walk onto a giant stage and just stare at a piano or a stopwatch for 4 and a half minutes maybe this piece is designed to test the performer's nerve some other more highbrow arguments have involved like the pursuit of Mastery and that this pieces more about how a composer demonstrates their Mastery of her music now that's great and all debate away have your philosophical arguments what really interested me was that John Cage wrote sequels to this piece that's right the silent piece has not one not two not
4:38 three but kind of like two and a half sequels so in 1962 cage wrote a response to 4 minutes and 33 seconds insightfully called 4 minutes and 33 seconds number two this piece is also known as 0 minutes and 0 seconds and it involves a single line of instruction in a situation provided with maximum amplification perform a disciplined action as if that wasn't confusing enough during during the second performance of 4 minutes and 33 seconds number two which I like to call 4 minutes and 33 seconds number 2.5 cage added four more qualifiers for the performance of this sequel one the performer should allow any interruptions of the action two the action should fulfill an obligation to others three the same action should not be used in more than one performance and four the action should not be the performance of
5:24 a musical composition the next sequel which was called one cubed well okay actually the full title is this was written in 1989 one year before cage died and the idea behind this piece is that a music hall has to be put on the edge of feedback without any actual feedback meaning that there's a microphone sitting on stage turned up to Max and just left there and the idea is that you're listening to the Music Hall all of the noises that the audience make will get picked up by the microphone and will be played back to the audience in essence making the audience the performance and with that these sequels should suddenly start making sense with each sequel cage was disproven in people's theories about 4 minutes and 33 seconds when people started saying that the audience was the performance he specifically wrote a piece of music where the audience was the performance meaning that 4 minutes
6:09 and 33 seconds must have met something else people started saying that this piece was about discipline so he made an actual piece that was about discipline meaning that 4 minutes and 33 seconds must have been about something else people started saying that it was about the pursuit of Mastery and the celebration of performance and cage showed that that wasn't what this piece was about with each sequel cage showed his critics that they didn't understand his silent piece and that each of their assumptions could be better expressed through another piece of music which leaves us with two questions what is 4 minutes and 33 seconds actually about and what does this have to do with sound effects well let me tell you it's all about defining music when I was in school my composition Professor would constantly tell me that music is defined as a series of organized sounds which I think is a slight alteration of a quote from a mad man called Edgar VZ who once said what is music but organized noises
6:54 either way if music truly is just a series of organized sounds then 4 minutes and 33 seconds qualifies I as one of the most basic and primordial pieces of music ever to exist now this is going to sound like something that you'd see quoted on Pinterest but it's completely true time is the canvas on which we paint music music has an inherent temporal component so by having a piece of music that consists only of the time that it takes to perform and effectively nothing else you've created the most simple form or piece of music and when you think about it there isn't really a single composer in history who hasn't had to use silence in their piece whether it be the silence before piece begins or after a piece ends or even the silence in between the notes or the motifs or the phrases every composer has had to actively use silence in their music in one way or
7:48 another now if this whole absence of sound thing still bothers you I might be able to use Bob Ross here to explain it a little better so Bob Ross used a weton wet style of oil painting that's one of the reasons his paintings took so so little time to create so at the beginning of every episode Ross starts with setting up his canvas and easel gets his paints and his brushes and his paint thinners and whatever else he might need but then he paints a blank canvas white as a primer to begin painting and I've just covered the entire canvas with a very thin coat of liquid white the liquid white is designed just to make the canvas wet and and to make it slick it allows us to actually blend color right here on the canvas but what if he just left it at that what if he left the white paint on the canvas and called it a day is it still a painting well painted it he put thought into it he did as much to the canvas as he wanted to and you can say
8:33 the same thing for cage he set up the amount of time he wanted to and he put exactly as much sound as he wanted to put onto his temporal canvas so if music is the process of applying as many sounds as you want to a temporal space or a series of organized sounds then how is this not [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] music see in the world of production the music and the sound design are the last two things that happen to a film and if you're a longtime viewer of the channel you'll know how much I hate that all of the audio to a piece of media is left to the last minute and is never really given as much time to develop into a literary tool as other aspects of any type of media sometimes if a soundtrack
9:20 is is is completed the sound effects of a scene i' like to listen to that to see what what uh my competition is going to be if the if the oral spectrum is crowded in the high end I might elect to to orchestrate it in in the in the lower frequency ranges to to to make it more compatible with the sound effects but this is really this is a this is a rare luxury usually the sound effects are being cut for the sequences the same time the music is being written but there are exceptions to this case for example if you have a film where you want the characters to be singing songs you have to have that music ready before you begin filming having said that in some extremely rare cases the compos oser is a part of the creative team from the very beginning like with The Nightmare Before Christmas a personal favorite Tim Burton was showing Danny Elfman concept art and general ideas of
10:07 the world before the story had even been completed basically we didn't really have a script and uh there was the story line that Tim had had from years earlier we were running out of time and I just said well I'll just start writing some of the songs based on what we talked about and I started and he'd come over and he listen to it and then I say let's just talk about the next section of the movie and we talk about it and tell me oh and he does this and and I said great great and as soon as he left I'd immediately go and start writing that next song There was a similar situation with the production cycle to WALL-E the production team had contacted Mr lightsaber himself to do all the sound for the animated film and they started paying extra close attention to the sounds while the film was still technically being filmed or drawn or animated or however you film a CGI movie it was something new for us also at Pixar that we had a sound designer
10:53 in-house on a film before post you know it was a little funny at first for me when um Andrew would start uh evaluating sounds that I was making he would show up and five or six other a group would show up and they'd all sit around and i' play one little sound of a door closing click and everybody would think about there'd be a discussion and that film managed to get away with almost zero dialogue for the opening of the film Wally and Eve technically talked to each other at like the 20ish minute Mark but you don't really hear any scripted human dialogue until right around 40 minutes into the film I seriously doubt Pixar would have been able to get away with that had they not taken Bert's expertise into account but all this begs the question what would happen if for a TV show or a film or a video game you had the producer get
11:40 the director sound designer and composer to all work together from the very beginning of the creative process in order to allow the sound designer and composer to coordinate how they were going to sculpt the acoustic landscape of your production cuz in the end of the day what are sound effects other than a series of organized sounds I'm constructing this mentally as I go so it's sort of a intensive it's [Music] composition that's it for me for now guys thanks for watching like comment subscribe do whatever you got to do follow me on Twitter follow me on Twitch I'll answer all your musical questions uh and if you really like this video for whatever reason consider donating to my patreon page but for now that's going to be it thanks for watching
