Divergent Tracks

How Three Film Communities Revolutionized Digital Film Sound

Vanessa Theme Ament

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9781501378539
• eBook ISBN:
  9781501359217
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film Direction & Production

By examining three case studies of award-winning soundtracks from cult films-Barton Fink (1991), Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), and The English Patient (1996)-it becomes clear that major American film communities, when confronted with the initial technological changes of the 1990s, experienced similar challenges with the inelegant transition from analogue to digital. However, their cultural and structural labor differences governed different results.

Vanessa Ament, author of The Foley Grail (2009), rather than defining the 1990s as an era of technological determinism-a superficial reading-it is best understood as one in which sound professionals became more viable as artists, collaborated in sound design authorship, and influenced this digital transition to better accommodate their needs and desires in their work.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• Plates
• Preface
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction: Sound Design as Creative and Cultural Artifact
• 2 Geographical Cultures and Technological Tendencies
• 3 “Viscous Was the Word of the Day”: The Interiority of Barton Fink
• 4 “How Would You Like to Work on a Monster Movie?”: The Expressionism of Bram Stoker’s Dracula
• 5 “The Sound of the Desert Is Tape Hiss”: A Study in Contrasts in The English Patient
• 6 Conclusion: Reassessing Sound Design as a Collective Endeavor
• Appendix A Workflow Diagram for Barton Fink
• Appendix B Workflow Diagram for Bram Stoker’s Dracula
• Appendix C Workflow Diagram for The English Patient
• Appendix D Sound Department Credits
• Bibliography
• Index
• Images
• Copyright Page