Week Three Blog (Cont'd)

This scene incorporates many aspects of sound that go along with the special effects of this and many action movies. Most of the sounds such as helicopters and grenades exploding are semantic in the sense that they aren’t actually blowing up.  Another example of a semantic sound is heard when Four Leaf hits the ground. Instead of a soft thud, it’s replaced by a loud timpani hit. There is also a fair amount of non-diegetic sound that is the music playing in the background. The characters can’t hear it but to the viewer it adds a lot more suspense and emotionality. One of the properties of the Gestalt Principle, illusion, is heard when Four Leaf is getting shot and all we hear is the helicopter and music playing. Here the audience only needs to understand that he is getting shot. The bullets noise coming from him and every other sound would be over-kill in this situation. In this same situation we see Figure and Ground taking place. Here the camera is only focused on Four Leaf while there is still other action in the background. It almost hurts our eyes to try and see what’s behind Four Leaf but the point of this Figure and Ground is to only focus on what’s important. This is a very intense scene and the sound and focus adds to that intensity.