ACADEMIC
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Abstract
The use of music in films has become almost ubiquitous in both drama and documentary. Music is used regularly in cinema, broadcasting and more recently, in interactive media. Yet audiences often criticise makers for its overuse, especially in actuality television. The problem is not merely concerned with the volume and placement of music, but of the internal nature and structure of the musical material itself. This article contextualises the history of western music in a way which may be able to help inform film-makers and broadcasters about how music might be used more advantageously to accompany moving pictures.
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Abstract
The changes brought about by technology, politics and demography impacted on the method of production, finance and distribution of BBC TV programmes. This article of- fers an insight into how these changes were reflected in the author’s experience as televi- sion composer during the period 1975 − 1995, with particular focus on the BBC’s Classic Serial, broadcast on Sunday evenings during that period. Changes to the management and structure of the BBC brought about by the appointment of John Birt (later Baron Birt) first as Deputy Director General in 1987, and later as Director General in 1992, impacted significantly on the output of this strand of programmes. The article describes the envi- ronment in which composition for television occurred during this period of transition.
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This article examines aspects of how sound (especially music) integrates with animated images and, especially, how synchrony between sound and image offers the viewer focal points of attention within the animation. It examines synchronic gestures in two animations – one abstract, the other representational – and compares the use of synchronous sound in both. It places these two works in the context of animation generally and offers reflections on aspects of the relationship between sound and image in animated film.
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Abstract
Since its release in 1960, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho has entered the consciousness of our culture as have few other films. Its iconic imagery, combined with its universally recognised score, has prompted a wealth of scholarly output. New understanding in the areas of emotion and cognition now affords us the opportunity to re-examine this film from a less familiar vantage point. This article places Psycho within the context of American TV drama of the 1950s, explores the effect of Bernard Herrmann’s music on the emotional responses of the viewer, as well as the possible consequences of this effect upon the cognitive reading of the film.
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This Philosophy centres on the choices available for combining sound with moving images - strategies through which film sound is planned and integrated within the production process. It is primarily about why decisions are made, not about how sound is produced (there are already many books on this subject).
Other articles, presented at the School of Sound, can be read here.
FICTION
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a Novel
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a Mostly Reliable Musical HistoryWith Several Pedantic Footnotes, Interruptions, Essential Digressions and Appendices.
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Dark haired, slight, with deep-set haunted eyes, Herschel Grynszpan is an undocumented Jewish alien living in Paris. He receives a postcard from his parents – recently bundled from their Hanover flat, put on a train and dumped, with 12,000 others on the Polish border. Enraged, Herschel buys a gun and kills a minor German official in the German Embassy. The repercussions trigger Kristalnacht, the nationwide pogrom against the Jews in Germany and Austria, a calamity which some have called the opening act of the Holocaust. Intertwined is the parallel life of the German boxer, Max Schmeling, who as a result of his victory over the then ‘invincible’ Joe Louis in 1936 became the poster boy of the Nazis. He and his movie-star wife, Anny Ondra, were feted by the regime – tea with Hitler, a passage on the airship Hindenburg – until his brutal two-minute beating in the rematch with Louis less than two years later. His story reaches a climax during Kristalnacht, where the champion performs an act of quiet heroism.
