Monday, April 11, 2011

Museum of the Moving Image


          Going to a museum is not always the cool thing to do on a Friday night with your friends, but museums have always intrigued me. You can learn so much from one simple trip to any museum. The first time I visited a museum was when I was 12 and went to the Museum of Natural History. I loved it and ever since then, I have never said no to a trip to a museum. When I got the syllabus for the class and noticed that we had a museum trip in April, I was more than excited and could not wait for the day to come. Finally, on Wednesday April 6, 2011 our class went to the Museum of the Moving Image. I have never heard about this museum especially for the fact that I have never gone to Queens. It was an adventure that I was more than happy to make on what turned out to be a very nice day.
          Once on the tour, there was not one moment that seemed boring and unexciting. I participated in all of the demos that where shown to us (video flip book and automated dialog replacement exhibit). My favorite demo had to be the automated dialog replacement exhibit where we dubbed over a scene from the movie Babe.  There was three line we had to dubbed over and my line was “She…she called us all Babe.” To be honest is was a lot harder than I thought. My friend had gone before me and it was a lot harder than it seemed. It was not easy reading the line and saying it at the same time to match up with the character’s facial expressions. Standing and recording in a replica of an ADR room was quite the experience.
          After that demo, we went to the Sound Editing exhibit. We where played a scene from the movie Titanic when the smoke stack of the ship was breaking. I was amazed to learn that each sound was actually something different in real life to give the movie feeling. The sound of the ropes breaking was actually a gun shot to make it sound dangerous. The sound of the stack ship falling was actually a slowed elephant in distress to make it sound big and powerful and the sound of the stack ship actually breaking was the sound of a soda can being crushed to make it sound loud and clear that the stack ship was breaking instead of just falling. It shocked me to learn just how much time is actually invested into the sound editing process!
          Sound production is nothing to take for granted, because with out it, our experience in the movie theaters would simply not be the same. Each sound is picked carefully to make sure it expresses the feeling that the director is trying to portray. It is amazing to see just how sound production has evolved over the years. In earlier films where sound could not be included in the film, it was usually a piano playing in a cheaper theater and an orchestra in a more expensive theater. Eventually sound finally came with the film and now sound is more advance than ever. Sound producers now have a job that once didn’t’ require as much time and creativity as it does now. There is much more than what we believe goes into a movie and sound is just one small part of the entire process. Although is it one small part, it is equally important to all the other parts because without sound you can be more than sure that your experience watching a movie would not be as thrilling.