Sound Vocabulary

Ambient Sound: The sound of the location e.g. water noises near a river.

Direct Address: Where the character talks directly to the audience.

Diegetic Sound: Sound that you would hear if YOU were one of the characters.

Non-Diegetic sound: Other sound that the characters in the scene could not hear.

Pitch: Low pitch describes a sound that is deep and low (eg thunder) and high pitch describes a sound that is higher and lighter ( eg phone ringing).

Rhythm: describes the beat of the music, whether it is fast or slow.

Voice over: the use of voice over images perhaps as an introduction, a linking narrative device for or to comment on action.

Sound effects: A sound accompanying an action, sometimes musical.

Synchronous sound: Sound that is in sync with the visuals and was filmed at the same time.

Asynchronous sound: Where the sound is either out of sync with the visuals or is unrelated to the visuals.

Contrapuntal sound: Sound or music that seems strange in comparison to the scene we are seeing.