Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1518296
M OT I O N P I CTU R E S O U N D E D I TO R S 37 characters, are a precious source of information when experiencing a film, not because we necessarily want to, but because our brains are wired to give the human voice priority even in the harshest listening conditions. This is why film has been historically verbocentric, while superb exceptions have proven it doesn't have to be. In addition to dialogue quality and popularity status of the actor, language and slang can be strong drivers of credibility if the language a character is using matches that of the time period and ethnographic context of the film world. An example of this is Al Pacino adopting a Cuban accent in Scarface (1983) which also maximises credibility. Another common use of pathos is generating empathy toward fantastical and unknown creatures through the sound of their voice and their vocal expressions like director Joe Dante does in Gremlins (1984). Therefore, appealing to their persuasion crosstalk with the three elements of sound design as follows. Ethos, pathos, and logos in the film soundtrack. Ethos through the dialogue track. (authority/credibility). "To anyone within the sound of my voice." Captain Kirk. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989). Voice is usually a character's primary driver of authority and credibility. (Dialogue track). Actors put great effort in inhabiting characters down to the way they talk. And as audiences, we learn much about characters by the way they speak. In film scripts, how something is said is just as, or more important than what is being said. Credibility in the characters at a sonic level is maximised by the tone of voice they use, the quality of their voice, e.g., raspy, firm, soft, loud, etc., and by the sound quality of their voice in the track, e,g., if it sounds dry and isolated or if its reverb matches its location. The rendition of a character's vocal identity can be subtle and performed by actors like Anthony Hopkins who won an Oscar for convincing us he was a cannibal killer in The Silence of the Lambs. The singular way Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) speaks and the way he utters an array of mouth sounds are both sonic character traits masterfully performed by Hopkins and then edited by the film's sound department, helmed by Tom Fleischman and Christopher Newman who were also nominated for an Oscar that year. One of the many successes of the film is that the dialogue track enhances the credibility of Hannibal's deranged state of mind (without much help from sound effects). In The Exorcist (1973), the demonic presence in the child is communicated through her altered low-pitch voice, maximising with this borrowed voice, the audience's credibility that she is in fact, possessed. In the fantasy genre, deity, or super-natural status is often established or reinforced through the character's voice. As M. Stiller points out; "Dialogue is the voice of the character and not merely a means of story exposition." (Stiller, 2016). Dialogue is also affected by the celebrity/popularity status of the actor/character speaking. A line said by a new actor may not enjoy the same authority and credibility that the audiences have invested in an actor like, say, Tom Hanks. The dialogue lines, the words that come out of the Aristotle's three modes of persuasion. Source: Studiobinder.com