Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1512183
M OT I O N P I CTU R E S O U N D E D I TO R S 113 focused on linguistic analysis. When Peirce died in 1914, cinema was still a young and "silent" medium and he didn't have a chance to apply his semiotic model to the analysis of film. Ehrat relates to us that "Unfortunately for Peirce, he did not, like Hegel, enjoy the chance during his lifetime to present his thought in an organized fashion or to have his pupils do so." (Ehrat, 2005). Yet all three types of signs that Peirce proposes (icon, index, and symbol) can actually be found in a film soundtrack. Sound is such a rich tool to create, meaning that it's worth outlining how each of the three main elements of a soundtrack; sound effects, dialogue, and music can produce semiosis. It is worth identifying that when film sound is more poetic or abstract, it tends to gravitate more toward symbolic, arbitrary sounds. And when the film sound is more realistic or mimetic, it tends to gravitate more toward iconic, naturalised sounds, like Foley which is predominantly iconic. Animated features and shorts are a genre that more often employs a more stylized and denaturalised (symbolic) sound design whereas period dramas, action films and documentaries tend to use more naturalised (iconic) sounds. Signs in Sound Effects. Let's discuss how sounds in a film produce semiosis. An ambulance siren, for instance, is an indexical sign that someone is having an emergency nearby. The sound of thunder is an index that lightning has occurred. When we hear a beer bottle opening in a film, chances are that the sound we are hearing is not from the actual bottle being opened on set but the sound from another beer bottle opening that was recorded specifically for that purpose or it could come from a library of bottle-opening sound effects. The sound of a bottle of beer opening is iconic and therefore, it doesn't need to be the sound of the actual bottle used in the take. In sci-fi and fantasy films, sounds can become so symbolic that they become part of the sonic culture of that fantasy world inside and outside the film. One good example is the sound of the lightsaber in Star Wars (1977). The lightsaber sound designed by Ben Burtt has become the culturally accepted sound for lightsabers in subsequent films, video games, and kids playing with plastic lightsabers. The lightsaber sound today represents not just a futuristic sword, it represents Star Wars and a whole set of cultural ideals. Like Murray Stiller says, "Sounds do not inform but converse, no longer limited to cinematic functions because they have become poetic, symbolic of something more than what they represent. The sound artist's responsibility is to engage them so that they speak as one in the soundtrack in conjunction with the picture." (Stiller, 2016). And this is precisely what Ben Burtt did, using only concept art by Ralph McQuarrie as visual reference, he combined the hum of a theatre projector, the buzz from a TV set, and the crackle of carbon rods to create a sound that was completely new at the time. A sound free of any precise denotation because there was nothing to compare it with at the time and that became a staple and is still part of popular culture 46 years later. Both the lightsaber sound and Darth Vader's theme music, namely John Williams' "Imperial March," are great examples of symbolic or arbitrary sound signs. They are learned as symbolic codes upon watching the film as opposed to naturalised sounds, like the sound of a beer bottle opening, which are iconic. Sound effects inside the diegesis of a film however, can also convey information beyond their iconic signification, and well beyond what Barthes calls the 'myth' order of signification. They can for instance, convey indexical and iconic information about their surroundings and produce meaning merely by their acoustic characteristics. To mention a few Illustration of Star Wars lightsabers by Ralph McQuarrie.