Here are my comments/questions regarding this week’s readings:
1) Reading McKee’s opening which discusses how we are completely and constantly surrounded by sound reminds me of an episode of MTV’s “True Life” I saw recently in which it followed the lives of 2 deaf teens. One of the teens got a cochlear implant which enabled him to hear. Right after getting the implant he was amazed at all the sounds he was hearing for the first time like the sound of the wind blowing, the crunch of fallen leaves under his feet, etc. It made me think – how would our world be different if sound was muted? What if we could only hear what we were focusing on and not any background noise? How would that impact our daily lives?
2) How can sound benefit visual media (i.e. text and/or picture)? Can sound hinder it (i.e. distract from it)? What is key to maintaining that balance? What if sound replaces the visual (books on tape/cd)? Or visual replaces sound (closed captioning)? Is the total package lost with either of these two examples?
3) When films first appeared there was no sound, but now we have movies with spoken dialogue, sound effects, and soundtracks to go along with the visual. What if we went back to silent movies? What effect would the silence bring to the film?
