Planning: Sounds

The power of sound

Sound, voice and music are integral to most films and viewing experiences. Even the earliest silent films were often shown with live musical accompaniment. Sound enhances the imaginary world, it can provide depth, establish character and environment, introduce a new scene or cue the viewer to show important information.

Diegetic Sound: Diegetic sound is any sound that the character or characters on screen can hear. So for example the sound of one character talking to another would be diegetic. For example in a movie, the character is playing music form a radio and then they switch it off just to tell the audience that they were playing the music.
Non-diegetic sound: Non diegetic sound is any sound that the audience can hear but the characters on screen cannot. Any appearance of background music is a prime example of non-diegetic sound. For example during an extreme long shot there is a cheerful song being played to set the mood of the scene. This gives the audience an idea of what the movie is about.
Sound Ambiguity: Sound ambiguity is when the music plays with the idea of diegetic sound and non-diegetic and it grabs the audience’s attention. When music is playing in the background, the audience automatically assumes that it's non diegetic but instead turns out to be diegetic when the character switches of the music.