LO1 Task 2 : Sound

Diegetic and non-diegetic are two types of sound found in movie trailers and movie scenes. Sound in a film can create meaning; the diegesis of a film is the story world which the characters are in. Diegetic sound is natural to the story world like dialogue and objects inside the film. Non-Diegetic on the other hand is only what the audience can hear, these are things like voice overs and music. The Simpsons Movie Trailer has both diegetic and non-diegetic examples of sound.

 Firstly, the most notable sound in the trailer is the voice over, this is a non-diegetic sound as the audience or viewer is the only one who can hear it. The denotation of this is a deep voice over that talks about the films information like when it's coming out and what the story is but in very little detail. The deep voice connotes that it's going to be epic and action full, this is because the voice used is stereotypically used in Hollywood action film's trailers, it also connotes drama and it'll make the viewer want to see why 'the family will fall' which connotes that the family is going to fall apart because of a tragedy . Another example of non-diegetic sound in the film trailer is the background music, this just denotes that it is dramatic music, but connotes that it’s going to have drama in the film; this is used with the voice over to create a very dramatic effect. Next is another part of the film's music which denotes adventurous music as to what the other music denotes which is drama, the music connotes that the film is going to have adventure in it as the music's fast paced whilst the dramatic music was slow paced. Finally, there is some incidental music or rather sound effect near the end of the trailer, the denotation of the sound effect is that it’s a drum beat, but the connotation is that it’s there to create tension and build up to the final part of the trailer, but as the Simpsons Movie is a comedy, this is immediately interrupted by an immature fart noise made by Homer and it then goes onto a quick montage of clips from the film.

Diegetic sound is natural to the story world of the film, so this is what the characters and audience can hear. The first Diegetic sound example in the trailer is dialogue, every film in the world has dialogue, and in the Simpsons Movie trailer dialogue is rarely shown due to all the non-diegetic sound in the trailer, but one scene's denotation is a crowd of characters from the show are shouting "We want Homer" with pitch forks but the connotation is that they are angry with Homer and want him dead as shown by the nooses in one of the scenes, which also connotes black humour in the film but isn't taken seriously and is probably overlooked by the audience but not the Simpsons family, the ideology of this scene is a bit like Frankenstein's monster as the mob of people chase the monster with torches and pitchforks a bit like the scene from The Simpsons Movie and Homer is the monster as he 'destroyed' the town with pollution. Another widely used diegetic sound example are sound effect as a film without them would just be a blank film with people talking in a unknown setting, but with sound effects it will give you an idea of where you are, a sound effect in the film that helps you know the setting is when Homer falls through the roof and the sound is wood breaking which is the denotation, but the connotation is that there was an accident or injury as something broke it by falling through it on the roof plus Homer is big and clumsy too. On the other hand there is another example of sound effect which is the kind that explains what's going on in the scene, the denotation of one scene is a bullet been shot by a police officer, but the connotation is that there is conflict going on between two people, in the case of the film, Bart on his skateboard and a police officer in a police car, this also shows binary opposition of age as the police officer is much older than Bart who is shown as delinquent and in his youth.