Sound: Walter Murch

I have researched into some of Walter Murch's sound work such as 'The Godfather' and 'Apocalypse Now' and have been reading interviews articles in which he discusses his approach to sound as well as the evolving nature of the industry at the time he was working. I found it particularly interesting when I read this article http://www.filmsound.org/murch/stretching.htm as he talks about how the approach to sound design is an immensely creative process as we have "the ability to freely reassociate image and sound in different contexts and combinations." Murch goes on from this to state that "This re-association of image and sound is the fundamental pillar upon which the creative use of sound rests, and without which it would collapse. Sometimes it is done simply for convenience (walking on cornstarch, for instance, happens to record as a better footstep-in-snow than snow itself); or for necessity (the window that Gary Cooper broke in "High Noon" was made not of real glass but of crystallized sheeted sugar, the boulder that chased Indiana Jones was made not of real stone but of plastic foam); or for reasons of morality (crushing a watermelon is ethically preferable to crushing a human head). In each case, our multi- million-year reflex of thinking of sound as a submissive causal shadow now works in the filmmaker's favor, and the audience is disposed to accept, within certain limits, these new juxtapositions as the truth."

I find this concept truly interesting and will use it as a springboard for my own sound recording by not thinking literally about sound, rather more about the space and tone of the image and then how I can manipulate sound to resonate with those ideas.