Everything is a sound bite
Industry professionals speak about importance of sound in motion pictures at I Am Karachi Music festival
(L to R) Taha Malik of Kostal, Filmmaker Azaan Sami Khan, Member APMC Ayla Raza and Filmmaker Baber Sheikh during panel discussion. PHOTO: PI STUDIO
KARACHI:
In 1966, a lesser known Woody Allen took a Japanese spy-thriller, titled International Secret Police: Key of Keys, and dubbed it with completely original dialogues. The result was What’s Up, Tiger Lily? – A laugh-a-minute riot, comedy film which put Allen’s career into overdrive.
Ad-filmmaker Babar Sheikh couldn’t have chosen a better example to drive home the importance of sound in motion pictures during a music dialogue at the I Am Karachi Music Festival.
Even though the panel was titled Form & Structure of Music, Arrangement, Composition & Lyrics, Sheikh used the platform to speak about visual music.
Despite the revival of the Pakistani film industry, Sheikh was of the opinion that the new wave of film-makers was more focused on improving the visual side and not the audio-side of films. “I am glad that the revival of cinema is happening but one thing I would like to point out is that, unfortunately, we stress a lot on visuals and end up ignoring the audio side,” said Sheikh.
He added that people needed to recognise the value of sound because as far as the audio-visual medium is concerned, everything is a “sound bite”.
“As far as motion pictures, documentary and advertisements are concerned everything is a sound bite. When you hear a sound bite you think of a visual and vice versa.”
Having racked up years of experience working in the Pakistani entertainment industry, he pointed out that films that are being made in Pakistan focus more on the ‘characteristics’, but the importance of sound and music cannot be underscored.
“Visual expanse can benefit greatly from the right characteristics and right sound will always end up giving the visuals a new life,” concluded Sheikh.
The panel, which was being moderated by Fuzon frontman and music composer Imran “Immu” Momina, also featured Ayla Raza, Kostal’s Taha Malik and young filmmaker Azaan Sami Khan.
Adding weight to Babar Sheikh’s argument, Azaan mentioned how the once-long collaborative process of film-making was now being treated like an “assembly line process”, noting how previously composers used to spend months preparing the score but now they were doing it in the space of a few days.
According to Khan, sound has greater recall value than any other facets of film-making. “If I play you five notes of a melody of a score or a theme of a film, you will remember the entire film; you will remember the moments of the film when it was played and it would connect you right back to why you loved that film – that is the power of sound,” said Khan.
Ayla Raza, a member of the All Pakistan Music Conference, requested audiences and musicians to not just look towards music for the sake of recall value, but also in an attempt to understand and explore its dimensions. “Recently, I saw Birdman and the way they have treated silence in the film as a sound [is brilliant]. This sensitivity towards sound has to be there whether it’s eastern or western,” said Raza.
With the first half of the music festival, comprising of Music Dialogues, ending on Wednesday; the festival will now move towards the business end, with a string of musical performances, featuring several Pakistani musicians scheduled to take place on August 8 and 9.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 7th, 2015.
In 1966, a lesser known Woody Allen took a Japanese spy-thriller, titled International Secret Police: Key of Keys, and dubbed it with completely original dialogues. The result was What’s Up, Tiger Lily? – A laugh-a-minute riot, comedy film which put Allen’s career into overdrive.
Ad-filmmaker Babar Sheikh couldn’t have chosen a better example to drive home the importance of sound in motion pictures during a music dialogue at the I Am Karachi Music Festival.
Even though the panel was titled Form & Structure of Music, Arrangement, Composition & Lyrics, Sheikh used the platform to speak about visual music.
Despite the revival of the Pakistani film industry, Sheikh was of the opinion that the new wave of film-makers was more focused on improving the visual side and not the audio-side of films. “I am glad that the revival of cinema is happening but one thing I would like to point out is that, unfortunately, we stress a lot on visuals and end up ignoring the audio side,” said Sheikh.
He added that people needed to recognise the value of sound because as far as the audio-visual medium is concerned, everything is a “sound bite”.
“As far as motion pictures, documentary and advertisements are concerned everything is a sound bite. When you hear a sound bite you think of a visual and vice versa.”
Having racked up years of experience working in the Pakistani entertainment industry, he pointed out that films that are being made in Pakistan focus more on the ‘characteristics’, but the importance of sound and music cannot be underscored.
“Visual expanse can benefit greatly from the right characteristics and right sound will always end up giving the visuals a new life,” concluded Sheikh.
The panel, which was being moderated by Fuzon frontman and music composer Imran “Immu” Momina, also featured Ayla Raza, Kostal’s Taha Malik and young filmmaker Azaan Sami Khan.
Adding weight to Babar Sheikh’s argument, Azaan mentioned how the once-long collaborative process of film-making was now being treated like an “assembly line process”, noting how previously composers used to spend months preparing the score but now they were doing it in the space of a few days.
According to Khan, sound has greater recall value than any other facets of film-making. “If I play you five notes of a melody of a score or a theme of a film, you will remember the entire film; you will remember the moments of the film when it was played and it would connect you right back to why you loved that film – that is the power of sound,” said Khan.
Ayla Raza, a member of the All Pakistan Music Conference, requested audiences and musicians to not just look towards music for the sake of recall value, but also in an attempt to understand and explore its dimensions. “Recently, I saw Birdman and the way they have treated silence in the film as a sound [is brilliant]. This sensitivity towards sound has to be there whether it’s eastern or western,” said Raza.
With the first half of the music festival, comprising of Music Dialogues, ending on Wednesday; the festival will now move towards the business end, with a string of musical performances, featuring several Pakistani musicians scheduled to take place on August 8 and 9.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 7th, 2015.