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SOUND
EFFECTS AND ITS MAGIC ON THE AUDIENCE
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Vanaparthy Ranganath*
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In almost all of the Telugu homes, a day typically starts with someone
in the family turning the radio on, for some people it starts with
Sri Venkateshwara Suprabhatam, for some it starts with regional
news but for most of the people it continues with favorite Janaranjani.
We hear very commonly something like " Thappaka Choodandi … DTS
Sound Effects tho .. mee abhimana theatre xxx70mm lo" . Not
only in radios almost every channel that telecasts Telugu programmes
gives ads like this in the breaks, how does a common viewer react
to this special sound effects in the theatre, let us try to do some
analysis on this interesting topic.
It is true that Telugu Cinema rose to its peak only after the introduction
of sound into the movies, earlier when there used to be no sound
in the movie, the movie could not probably convey the correct message
that the director/artistes wanted to convey to the audience. Let
us now see how the people behind the camera use this effectively
to convey their message. In this article we will see how sound
effects have been used while displaying titles of the movie on the
screen, hero/villain's introduction in the movie, fights, dances
and sad/sentimental scenes.
Providing special effects while displaying titles on the screen
is probably very new, if we see old classics we hear only a good
classical tune being played in the background while the names are
being displayed. In the movies that we see now a days, we realise
that the artistes prefer to have the titles also being displayed
very differently than other movies, typically some songs of the
movie are played in the background, for some movies we see some
graphical images popping up with the name of the movie suddenly
popping up. Well, frankly this does not impact the viewers to
a great extent 'coz most of the people will not be still settled
in the theatre.
One of the main areas of concentration in a typical Telugu movie
is the "Hero/Villain's introduction". If it is villain, then
some dreadful sounds like a cat screaming, wolf howling , sounds
resembling that of a vulture raring to go etc are what we usually
hear. This often creates a small amount of fear in the viewer's
mind, this effect could be greater if the viewer is below 12 years,
whenever that kind of sound is heard in the movie the viewer relates
that the villain could be seen in the next scene. On the contrary
if we see how a hero is introduced, we usually hear the blowing
of trumpets, sounds of huge drums, a lion/tiger roaring and even
a horse neighing sometimes, audience especially fans do not allow
the people in the theatre to hear the dialogues for sometime in
the movie due to the excitement that this sound effects create,
whistles, papers, coins, color and what not fill the theatre
, that is the effect of this introduction of the hero which is increased
to a great extent by the sound effects.
The main area where this sound effects really come into the picture
is fights and dances. Let us first look into fights. In old
movies, especially in mythological movies when there is a fight
between two characters like Arjuna and Karna , when both aim arrows
at each other , we realise that these two arrows meet each other
in the air and ultimately one vanishes and that is accompanied by
a typical sound of a drum beat. But in the modern era , fight scenes
are a lot different. We must congratulate both Ramgopal Varma
and Nagarjuna for introducing the concept of 'Pidi guddulu'
in the movie Shiva, which later created a trend for other movies
to follow. Coming to the area of songs, which undoubtedly is the
area of heavy concentration in modern movies, the sound effects
are catching up with every movie. People go to decent theatres just
for enjoying the sound effects. Almost all of the present day actors
prefer that their songs are in stereophonic mode if not in DTS so
that the level of enjoyment for the viewer is higher.
Coming to the usual sentimental scenes, the sound effects are tuned
in such a way so that the viewers should not stop tears from rolling
down seeing the artiste on the screen crying or leaving the village
etc. In these kind of scenes, Nadaswaram is the most effective
instrument. People sometimes joke in the theatres saying that
Telugu people cannot stop wiping their tears if Nadaswaram sound
is heard in the movie in sad scenes. In old movies, we often notice
that harmonium is also used for these kind of scenes.
Whatever may be scene, who ever may be the person behind it , these
sound effects definitely leave a impact on the audience. Let us
hope that these sound effects help Telugu movies to reach to the
people's hearts as long as Telugu movies are made. |
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End
of Sound Effects
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| * Ranganath
Vanaparthy works for Oracle Corp., Silicon Valley |
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