Assignment 3

This is a scene from one of my favorite movies, Fight Club.

The following is a scene written in script format from between the times of :30 to :58 from the video above.

There are many different principles of sound utilized in this scene from Fight Club. It utilizes both Causal and Semantic listening modes. For instance, in the scene where it cuts to an inserted shot of a green forest, there are literally birds chirping in the background. This is causal because it is the literal sound. Then, when it shows the insert shot of his hand burning, there is a sizzling noise that sounds much like bacon frying on a griddle. This is semantic because the chemical burning would most likely not sound just like that, and is what represents what the audience expects to hear. There are also examples of Gestalt Principals and illusion in this scene. It seems like there is a cacophony of sounds going on as he is being burned, which heightens the audience awareness of the pain that must be going on, but in reality it is illusion and there is only the constant sirens playing with the occasional sound overlapped with it. Also figure and ground applies because what the audience picks up and perceives is based on the hearing one sound stand out amongst the others. For example, even though the siren is constantly blaring in the background, the audience hears the sizzling stand out when they watch his hand burning.