Sound

 When recording and designing sound and applying it within film and television, we can have either diegetic or non-diegetic sound.

Diegetic Sound is sound that has a physical origin within a scene, this could be either on screen or off screen- examples include, a TV playing, a door closing, twigs snapping. Diegetic sound is important to adding the sense of realism to a piece and can also give indications that perhaps can't visually be seen about a characters movements, location or situation. 

Non-Diegetic Sound is sound that does not have a physical origin within the scene and can cause a piece to become ambiguous- examples include, music/soundtrack and exaggerated sound effects. Whilst decreasing a piece's aspect of realism, non-diegetic sound plays an important role in building emotion in a scene or conveying certain ideas to an audience.

There are three basic sound types used in film and these are:

Dialogue

Dialogue is simply the words spoken by characters and is most useful in establishing a characters personality; either in what they say or the tone of voice in which they say it. Dialogue will also provide details of a story that haven't or can't be seen on screen, either by an interaction with other characters or a voice over. A voice over is the voice of an omniscient narrator or a character in the film and they can provide backstory and other narrative information.

Sound Effects

Sound effects are sounds that are recorded for a scene, other than dialogue and music. They are used for enhancement purposes, so this could include enhancing emotions in a narrative or scene. They can also be used to make a creative statement through the use of Exaggerated Sound, also known as Pleonastic Sound (pleonasm referring to the action of 'overdoing' or providing 'too much' of something). For example, the sounds of a couple kissing may be exaggerated in order to emphasise the feeling of intimacy and passion between the two characters. Pleonastic sound can also be regularly found in comedy movies to make a characters actions seem even more exaggerated.

Sound effects will often be created through the art of Foley, this is a technique in which an Foley artist will record the sound of an object either using the object itself of other various items to mimic an enhanced version of a particular sound. 

Music

When music is used over a scene, it is often used to heighten the emotion and aspect of drama within a scene. Music can be used for these purposes through the use of either Parallel or Contrapuntal Sound

Parallel Sound is when the sound in which we hear directly reflects the mood and emotion of a scene, and accompanies what we are seeing on screen. 

Contrapuntal Sound is the opposite of parallel sound, and this is when the sound we hear is an extreme contrast to what we are seeing on screen. Through contrapuntal sound, an audience can be disorientated during a scene and perhaps question further into what they are witnessing.