• Monocentrism, or Soundtracks in Space

    Author(s):
    Eric Dienstfrey (see profile)
    Date:
    2020
    Group(s):
    Film Studies, Music and Sound, Science and Technology Studies (STS)
    Item Type:
    Book chapter
    Permanent URL:
    https://doi.org/10.17613/v5y9-ze30
    Abstract:
    This chapter investigates how the introduction of stereo complicated Hollywood’s vococentric practices. It also reveals how sound technicians developed mixing techniques that preserved the salience of dialogue in multi-channel soundscapes. The author refers to such techniques as monocentrism and illustrates monocentric norms by analyzing the climactic scene from The Martian (2015). The chapter then examines how technicians often play with these norms in order to change the meaning of a given sequence. To demonstrate this phenomenon, the author analyzes the Louis and Bebe Barrons’s score to Forbidden Planet (1956) and argues that MGM’s rerecording engineers mixed the musical effects so that they panned to different locations within each theater, which thereby invited audiences to interpret these sounds as the voices of the film’s invisible monsters.
    Metadata:
    xml
    Published as:
    Book chapter     Show details
    Pub. DOI:
    https://doi.org/10.5622/illinois/9780252043000.003.0013
    Publisher:
    University of Illinois Press
    Pub. Date:
    2020-9-18
    Book Title:
    Voicing the Cinema
    Author/Editor:
    Eric Dienstfrey
    Page Range:
    229 - 244
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    5 months ago
    License:
    Attribution

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