Music in film is also about the imagery.
Intimate drawing rooms, beer parties, a coronation, sweeping landscape vistas, a foggy road – all of these scenes will require the music to adapt and fit what the audience sees on screen and to help tell the story in these scenes. Music can be broadly appealing and direct in it’s storytelling like in Shrek or Spiderman or subtle and minimalist in films like Spider or Memento. Music is not all that is used.
Ambient sound in film is just as important. Animal sounds, throwing objects together, crushing paper, dropping things on surfaces or rubbing things together – all these techniques will get interesting sounds that can fit the scenes in a film or show. These sounds can be used to surprising and unexpected ways.
The only limit is the creativity of the team doing the work. Sound, whether from ADR, film music, modern music or soundscapes is not accidental. Some of the sounds you hear in films come from making accidental noises but they are kept and used because of some certain quality that can be used to enhance the film.
Film and Gaming