OCR GCSE Media Studies
A guide to the B322 exam
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Guide to Soundtrack
First of all, don't make the mistake that soundtrack=music; it refers to all of the terms below...
Music: this can be the score (the music composed for the film), existing songs played over the action or even music played within the scene of the film (e.g. a character playing a guitar).
Dialogue: the words that characters say to each other. You can analyse this in the same way you might analyse language in your English lessons/exam.
Synchronous sound: this is any sound that matches something we can see onscreen, for example the gunshot as someone fires a gun.
Asynchronous sound: this is sound that does not match what we see on screen. It could be the sound of a gun being fired offscreen or the film’s score.
Diegetic sound: any sound, whether onscreen or offscreen, that comes from the ‘world’ of the film, such as the voice or footsteps of a character.
Non-diegetic sound: any sound that does not come from the ‘world’ of the film, such as the film’s score or a voiceover.
Voiceover: non-diegetic dialogue; often voiceover is provided by the protagonist to let us know their inner thoughts and feelings.
Sound effects: explosions, gunfire, squealing tires, sometimes exaggerated (hyper-real) sounds such as punches during a fight.
Sound bridge: when the scene begins with carry-over sound from the previous scene or when the sound of the next scene begins before we have cut to that scene.
A very good introduction to the way sound works in filmmaking...
Remember: even if a sound is recorded during post-production, it can still be diegetic, such as the sound of the footsteps these foley artists are recording for the film being shown on the projector
An orchestra playing the music for a film soundtrack will usually have the film showing during recording so their music perfectly fits the on-screen action.