Walter Murch On Sound by Peter Cowie

24Oct/050

Walter Murch On Sound by Peter Cowie

Cowie grills the philosopher-editor, Walter Murch:

I began by asking him if he felt that sound represented fifty percent of the experience when watching a movie? "Yes," he replied, "although I'd have to qualify that, because the human brain is wired to spend more of its computing power on vision than it does on sound. So what happens is that when we hear a sound we don't hear it consciously, but it has an effect on us, and that effect we sort of re-process and render into an attribute of the visuals. So it's very rare that an audience will hear sound for what it is. Usually what's happening is that the sound is conditioning and colouring the way we're perceiving the visual."

[Via GreenCine Daily]