POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.off-topic : About sounds in space in movies : Re: About sounds in space in movies Server Time
7 Sep 2024 09:23:50 EDT (-0400)
  Re: About sounds in space in movies  
From: Leroy Whetstone
Date: 23 Jun 2008 23:38:12
Message: <486088E7.2030300@joplin.com>
Warp wrote:
>   Everybody knows that there's no sound in space, and everybody knows that
> the vast majority of scifi movies get this wrong and present sounds audible
> in space, which is physically impossible, and thus an inaccuracy.
> 
>   However, I read a rather interesting point of view about this.
> 
>   When a movie is filming some subject, let's say for example two people,
> the sound environment is that of these two people, not that of the camera.
> Regardless of how far (or how close) the camera is, the sound is that of
> the "average" of those two persons. In other words, the film soundtrack
> depicts what those persons hear (averaged between the two). The camera
> itself may even be a dozen of meters away, yet the soundtrack is from the
> perspective of the subjects, not the one of the camera.
> 
>   This is an accepted movie technique, and you seldom see anyone complaining
> about it. It's an established way of depicting a fictive scene, and
> everyone just accepts that.
> 
>   If the scene had a soundtrack from a microphone attached to the camera
> (which would be "realistic"), that would actually break the fourth wall,
> so to speak. It would actually make the audience aware that there *is*
> a microphone, there *is* a camera, and the former is attached to the
> latter.
>   In the movie's own reality there, of course, is no camera nor microphone,
> so making the scene so that it becomes obvious that there is, breaks the
> fourth wall and the willing suspension of disbelief.
> 
>   The same goes for outer space scenes: If the movie is, for example,
> showing a spaceship as the subject of the scene, the soundtrack is that
> of the point of view of the spaceship. The spaceship can "hear" itself
> (or, more practically, the people inside the spaceship can hear it).
> 
>   If that scene was completely silent, however, it would once again break
> the fourth wall: The movie is telling that the "microphone" is in space,
> probably attached to the camera, which reminds the viewers that there *is*
> a camera, there *is* a microphone, and both are in space, where there's no
> sound.
>   This, once again, breaks the fourth wall because in the movie's reality
> there should be no camera nor microphone.
> 
>   Movies which have sound in space are simply sticking to the movie
> convention that the soundtrack is that which is perceived by the subject
> being filmed, not that which is perceived by the camera (which doesn't
> really "exist" in that reality).
> 

Thats sounds like a lot of rationalization for the simple Truth that We 
the viewers love explodions.


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