Audio Components - Atmosphere

Sound in moving image such as sound effects and music is used a lot to create atmosphere. This means the sound is used to create a 'feel' of the scene, e.g. if it is a sad/dramatic scene the soft, slow background music could be playing, this creates an atmosphere that makes the viewer feel what is happening more. If the same sad scene had fast paced loud music it wouldn't create the same effect and would frankly make no sense. Sometimes the best way to create the right atmosphere in a scene is to have not much sound at all, for example it could be just dialogue, very little sound effects and no sound, this would be used in quite sad scenes where a character is very upset.

This is a scene from the movie - A walk to remember. Just by watching it, it is fairly obvious that this is a sad scene, but without the atmosphere created it would not be as sad. The scene starts of with hardly any sound, no sound effects and no music, just the wind, there isnt even any dialogue to create drama and tension. Then, as the scene progresses in sadness, very soft, sad, piano music starts to play, this helps you as the viewer feel what the characters are feeling easier.