Additional Work: The Importance of Sound

This blog post is to elaborate on my points in my importance of sound blog on the use of asynchronous sound and the omission of sound in movie fight scenes.

Asynchronous sound

Three famous uses of asynchronous sound that personally spring to mind are the use of asynchronous sound is the use of it in John Woo's 'Face-Off', and trailers for 'Maleficient' and 'Marvel's Avengers: Age Of Ultron'.

Face Off, in a bloody gun fight, sow motion is implemented and in the background a altered rendition of the famous cinematic ballad 'Over the Rainbow' sang by Judy Garland in none other than the timeless classic, The Wizard of Oz. The song usually inspires positive emotions but it is used in this scene to create a stunning contrast. It is supposed to catch out the audience as Woo would've expected majority of the audience to be familiar with the song and its connotations due to its ubiquity.


Maleficent trailer, the movie was a drastic retelling of the iconic Sleeping Beauty nemesis. It's goal was to make the audience sympathise with Maleficent and show that her evil is misunderstood and to a point justified. For the trailer, pop star Lana del Rey covered the animated movie's famous song 'Once Upon a Dream'. Once again, this is an example of an upbeat and cheerful song, del Rey toned it down to give it a more ominous and eerie feel. The familiarity of the song once again comes into play as Sleeping Beauty is one of the most famous animated pictures to come out of the Mouse House so they expect the audience to know the song and understand the desired effect.



Avengers; Age Of Ultron, the plot of this gargantuan superhero pic was that Tony Stark creates an AI system for the betterment of mankind, in goes rogue and becomes a problem that only the Avengers can stop. The theme is the movie is that titular villain, Ultron, is free ; 'he has no strings on him'. The quote is straight out of the Disney classic, 'Pinocchio' a puppet who is given life. Pinocchio sings he has no strings in a joyous manner but for the Avengers trailer it s much more depressing and downbeat. Here is yet another example of the film banking on the familiarity of the song so that the audience can easily grasp the effect.



Fight scenes

As I said, most movie fights are backed by a fast paced theme but two movies that stand out in my mind changed this. These movies are Paul Greengrass' 'the Bourne Ultimatum' and Christopher Nolan's 'The Dark Knight Rises'. They both have fantastically choreographed fight scenes but the omission of music accentuates the sound effects and Foley sounds and  gives both fight scenes a rawness that cannot be found everywhere.