The Abstract

This paper is an analysis of the history of music and sound in cinema from the early silent film era up through modern cinema. The sound and music in modern cinema is almost as important as the image on the screen. Ranging from the score to the sound effects and even the dialog, post production sound helps create a coherent and powerful film. Sound and music in film has several purposes, and those purposes have changed since the invention of the movie. Initially used to mask the sound of the projector in movie theaters and played by live musicians with little regard for the on screen action. As the process of making movies evolved so did the sound. The music in movies has slowly developed into a very specific art form with several key composers. In modern cinema the music serves as a signifier of emotions, a tool for narrative development, and as a way to create a sense of unity and continuity in a film. The research for this paper was abstracted from several books, articles, journals, all dealing with the history and or processes of music and sound in film, as well as various film scores and first hand accounts of working in the medium of sound for film.