Acousmatisation

Sound moving from the visualised to the non-visualised field. It empowers the character with the acousmetre power; the viewer perception of the character transfers to his sonic entity and becomes more sought in the context of the scene.

Characteristics:

  • If the context and setting are fully well displayed, the viewer can have a better appreciation of the visual to sonic shift.
  • The visual magnetisation helps in recognising the shift and the spatial information residing in the sound can be lessened.
  • Once the shift has occurred, the other character’s directionality can provide spatial information on the potential position of the acousmatised subject.
  • Using tight framing can weaken the acousmatic mechanism as the spectator might not fully recognise the transfer.
  • More spatial information need to be exposed in the sound.
  • Other characters relational position can be hard to identify once the shift has occurred.

Complementary effect: Character glance
Opposite effect: De-acousmatisation

(Chion, 1994)

Comments are closed.