ABSTRACT
In the silent era actors were occasionally placed behind projection screens to speak dialogue musical accompaniment was provided by full orchestras in the grand picture houses of the 1920s, while even smaller cinemas used solo pianists to improvise musical accompaniments while films were projected. Those technologies have also given filmmakers the tools to craft complex soundscapes in which scene ambience and bespoke musical scores work alongside dialogue and visual storytelling to create complex viewing experiences for contemporary audiences. Similarly, the methods used to record dialogue and the post-production treatment of spoken speech by sound editors plays an equally crucial role in the meaning-making of dialogue within a film. Scores might affect a quiet presence, gently progressing beneath dialogue and other sound layers to signpost a range of meanings. Scores, too, are sometimes given centre-stage presences in films, replacing dialogue within audio mixes to punctuate action or to prompt a range of visceral effects for a film's audience.
