The Relationship between Sound and Picture in TV Documentary

The Relationship between Sound and Picture in the Creation of TV Documentary

The creation of sound in the creation of TV documentary, as an independent form of expression in TV programs, is far more complicated than the creation of picture. This is not only because of the complexity of the sound components, but also because people are paying more and more attention to the sound. The sound components in documentaries mainly include: character contemporaneous sound, natural sound, effect sound, narration, music, which often cooperate and interact with each other in the works to form a comprehensive sound effect. Regarding the relationship between sound and picture, it has been an issue of endless debate in the process of creating TV documentaries, and this debate on the relationship between sound and picture is often manifested in the understanding of sound. For a long time in the past, there are two major deviations in the understanding of sound: one is to advocate that the picture should be the main focus, and the sound is to supplement the insufficiency of the picture, which focuses on the impact and expressiveness of the picture; while the other is to emphasize the role of the narration, and the picture is just a graphic illustration of the significance of the narration, which focuses on the ideological role of the narration and the expression of the creator's subjective emotions. Although these two understandings have their own reasons, but in a sense, they have ignored the performance characteristics of television itself.

Television is a kind of intuitive audio-visual image system, it is the picture and sound at the same time, and the two are complementary, indispensable, they **** with the role of the situation constitutes the activity, only in different situations, it is different focus. Such as in zhejiang TV documentary "zhejiang spirit", the character's behavior is the main, although the film has sound effects and language, but these sound factors just as the activity of the companion. On the other hand, in another kind of TV documentary, such as "Ballad of the Past", the main narrative is completed by the main character's own narration, which takes up a large proportion of the whole movie, and its sound information becomes the main body. In the film, because the interviewed character's speech is natural and vivid, with actual content, it can still satisfy the needs of television viewers to receive information, and thus be recognized by the audience. The picture of the character's speech in the film, although sometimes there is not much action and scene changes, lack of certain figurative characteristics, but that the interviewee's expression when speaking, body posture and speech content interaction, vividly expressed his cheerful and bold, bold and carefree character traits. This sound and picture integration of the composite structure, there is no which is more important or who complement the difference between who, but only to express a real material existence. For example: the use of live effect sound, the sound itself does not supplement the picture in the expression of the lack of meaning, the reason why a large number of people use this method, the intention is not to supplement the lack of picture, but rather to use the potential of sound information, through the interaction of dual information, to create a sense of reality and a sense of scene. The reason why that practice of music padding and laying it all out to the end is not recognized by peers and viewers is also not because it does not complement the inadequacy of the picture, but because it ignores the function of sound in spreading information. The relationship between those additional sound components - narration and music - and the picture is more complex. The picture, as a direct form of information, is mainly used to convey the atmosphere and details of the scene. Sound, as an indirect form of information, is used primarily to represent conceptual movement, to express abstract meaning and the subjective emotions of the creator. Here, visual and auditory information perform different tasks and play different roles. They are not only a complementary relationship, but also an interactive and mutually reinforcing relationship. For example, in some political, historical and cultural subjects, such as Zhejiang TV series "Tide Rising from Zhejiang", Gansu TV art film "Re-shaping Kunlun" and Zhejiang TV six-episode TV documentary "The Spirit of Zhejiang" and other types of TV documentaries, the narration is important, because it is in itself in order to reason, to express the point of view, and influence the audience, not to say, it will not achieve the purpose. And for another type of TV documentary which is mainly based on the sense of form, the formal beauty of the picture is far more important than the sound. Such as exploratory TV documentary "Pan Tianshou" the whole show without a commentary, the film is completely through the picture between the cut rhythm changes, the picture itself changes in the scene, as well as the interviewee's narration to express the author to express the idea and emotion, and the sound of the film is only music, which serves as a kind of emotional underpinning.

So for the creation of TV documentaries, the requirements of the subject matter, the author's preference for aesthetic interest, as well as the creation of stylistic factors, etc., will affect the understanding of the relationship between sound and picture. Similarly, it is difficult to determine the optimal value of the sound-picture combination with a quantitative analysis method. The two sometimes interfere with each other and can act as a counterbalance, while simply emphasizing one factor while neglecting to play to the potential of the other can both give a sense of dissatisfaction. It is up to the creator to utilize them effectively according to the requirements of the program in pursuit of an optimal communication effect. The reason why I want to emphasize the role of sound in the creation of TV documentaries here is that I hope we can make better use of the potential ability of the sound factor and the expressive power of the sound factor in the creation of our TV documentaries, and open up a broader creative space for TV documentaries, which is also the requirement of TV itself.

The first life of documentary is truth. The authenticity of documentaries depends not only on having real images, but also on having real sound. Documentaries should not only emphasize the application of picture language, but also the expression of sound language. Unlike movies, which have a development process from silent movies to sound movies, the sound of TV is inherent, and TV is the art of unifying sound and picture. As the most characteristic of television documentary is of course "audio-visual" art, its auditory part is of course not to be ignored and not to be neglected, while you feel the impact of the picture language, the language elements of the sound effects also play an important role.

The relationship between sound and picture has always been a matter of debate in the creative process of television documentaries, in my opinion, the relationship between sound and picture is often manifested in the sound of the understanding of the bias, a kind of advocate of the picture as the main, the sound is the picture of the complement, which focuses on the picture of the expressive power; and another advocate is to emphasize the role of the narration, the narration can be to deepen the picture, the expression of the picture does not have the means of expression of the significance of its focus on the narration tableau, which is the role of the narration. The other idea is to emphasize the role of narration, which can deepen the picture and express the meaning that the picture cannot express. These two understandings should be said to have their own reasons, but in a sense, they have neglected the characteristics of television ontology, the art of sound and picture.

In a fairly long time in the Chinese television industry, there is no ENG, there is no live microphone music plus narration plus picture of the traditional feature film creation style continued for many years. It can be said that the progress of filming equipment to restore the authenticity of the documentary, the original state of the record almost became a revolution in the creation of documentaries. The large-scale TV documentary series "Looking at the Great Wall" is the pioneer of this kind of acoustic documentary exploration. Looking at the Great Wall" pays great attention to the pre-shooting, breaking the pattern of previous documentaries that emphasize on picture composition and light processing, seizing the base of documentary shooting, and adopting a large number of multi-source sound sources, multi-source sound sources, making an article on the shooting site, capturing the original state of life in the pristine beauty of the scene, and the picture and the sound have a strong scene.

Sound, as the basic materialization element of the audiovisual medium, constitutes a specific aesthetic space and time together with the picture. Television documentaries can be said to be a breakthrough from the traditional film documentaries in the use of a large number of simultaneous interviews with the characters of sound a huge technological leap forward. Television recording equipment provides us with the means to synchronize the recording of real sound and picture time and space, and the all-round transmission of sound extends the connotation of the picture and makes the characters' emotions more fully displayed. In the beginning of "Paper Gothic", the sound effects from the ancient papermaking machine are synchronized with the multi-camera screen, allowing us to feel the heavy weight of the original papermaking technology in modern civilization.

Currently, various types of on-site sound effects and character synchronization have gradually replaced the unnecessary lengthy narration has become the new fashion of TV documentaries. And interspersed between the scene documentary images of the same visit to talk directly to the audience, not only to provide background material, published in the debate, and to avoid the subjectivity of the writer-director of the intermediary, so that the work is more objective, impartial and credible.

Careful observation, can be found in the documentary interviews in a large number of miniature wireless microphone and boom microphone, the host and the interviewee's shirt with a miniature wireless microphone instead of the annoying "stick type" microphone, so that each interview (or people or people) are as easy as a natural conversation in the spring through the heart of life, real, strong human feelings. Life in the real, rich flavor of human feelings. The use of this wireless microphone and boom microphone, completely dismantled the invisible wall between the interviewer and the interviewee in front of the camera. The interviewer is no longer a rigid microphone stand, but an object of equal communication. The interpersonal communication on the screen is closer to the natural communication in the state of life, with good results.

In addition to the simultaneous recording of sound, the use of multi-track tuning recording technology to record the background sound of life in the documentary, and the use of digital integrated cameras with multiple channels in the downtown area of the interview sound recordings have greatly enriched the sound in the work of the artistic expression of the audience to unfold the true atmosphere of the life of the time and space.

In fact, the sound component of the documentary is quite complex, it is not only the narration, it also includes: character contemporaneous sound, natural sound, effect sound, music, they are often in the work and the picture with each other, and interact with each other.

It has been noted that the sound of narration is decreasing in the creation of documentaries, and creators are no longer writing the narration beforehand and then shooting the picture according to the narration. The proportion of narration in the film has shrunk, and much of it has been reduced to simultaneous sound and subtitles. The writing and "reading" of the narration is no longer so much about the subjective feelings and attitudes of the creators, but as an objective narrator who explains the background and connects the content for the audience. So most of the documentary voice-over narration "read" out of the feeling is no longer "propaganda cavity", "broadcast cavity", but the pursuit of plain, objective, calm style.

We have also seen some documentaries with no commentary, and I'm not advocating that documentaries should not be narrated. I am not advocating that all documentaries should be written without commentary. Commentaries are written for listening, and they can be used to express abstract concepts and the subjective emotions of the creators, as well as to integrate visual information on the screen, but they cannot be separated from the screen, and they are not only complementary to each other, but also interact with each other and strengthen each other. In some political, historical and cultural TV films, such as Quanzhou TV's TV series "Echoes of the Oath", CCTV's TV series "Gate of China" and documentary "Dr. Sun Yat-sen" and other types of TV documentaries, it is more important to emphasize the importance of the narration for the picture which carries a lot of information, because this kind of program itself is to reason, express the point of view and influence the audience, without which it will not achieve the purpose. Without speaking, the purpose cannot be achieved. However, in terms of comprehensive sound language performance, character contemporaneous sound, natural sound, effect sound, music is also indispensable. We often say that the traditional feature film "picture sound two skins", the traditional feature film is not no sound, but it is often a later announcer with the narration and later with the music or effect sound, sounds very perfect, but perfect is not real. Record a character's life, can't hear the person's voice, can't hear the sound of nature can be said to be real? A person without a voice can be mute. And all with "music base", the authenticity will be greatly reduced. From feature film production to documentary creation, a very important change is that the "sound" is emphasized.

In the language of documentary sound, synchronization is perhaps the most important and complex.

Simultaneous sound: the sound whose source is visible on the screen, or the live sound of synchronized video and audio recording. Simultaneous sound actually includes the human voice of the live interview (i.e., the character's contemporaneous voice), the live animals, and the natural sound of the background.

We are shooting a documentary, the camera microphone must always be on, even if in the post-editing of some of the simultaneous sound did not come in handy? What is the role of documentary use of simultaneous sound? First of all, it can enhance the realism of the scene, bring the audience into the environment and atmosphere of the documentary to achieve a complete restoration of the real world, and secondly, it can enhance the program's participatory and watchable, so that the program is no longer a one-sided announcer narration. The documentary "Looking at the Great Wall" has the charm of using a lot of simultaneous sound. Today's TV viewers have long been dissatisfied with seeing the mouth in motion without hearing the sound of the picture, why can you let the hosts say the words have to let the announcer to say it. Simultaneous sound is not the background, simultaneous sound is also the narration, is the performance of characters and deeds of an important means.

The use of sound in documentaries must be synchronized as much as possible with sound and picture in order to get a real effect. However, in the editing of documentaries, we sometimes have such a situation, that is, the sound than the picture earlier than the appearance of the sound, which is the pre-delayed sound. There is also a kind of post-delayed sound: that is, the picture has been converted still continues the sound of the sound source. In order not to let the same period of time is too long, increase the rhythm of the picture and the amount of information, edit the film should pay attention to the use of pre-delayed sound and pre-delayed sound.

At the same time, we also need to pay attention to such a tendency, character contemporaneous interviews can not be abused, there are many documentaries in the emphasis on the character contemporaneous over the head, head to head, interview to interview, the old let the interviewee to say that the character contemporaneous interviews with too long, too much, affecting the role of the picture as a language of the body of the television, the main function of the documentary should be the picture, so that the picture to pass the message to let the picture itself "speak". The main function of the documentary should be the picture, so that the picture to convey information, so that the picture of their own "talk", where the picture can say clearly to be able to show, to let the facts speak for themselves, so that the real footage to show, do not deliberately arrange the simultaneous interviews, is really the picture can not be photographed, can not be shown with the characters of the simultaneous interviews.

Such as Sun Zengtian won the YAF Grand Prize documentary "The Last Mountain God", the real picture record-based, objective and limited background commentary, through the actions of the characters and scenes of the picture record, the performance of China's northern Daxing'anling Oroqen family's life. Meng Jinfu in the film is the last shaman of Oroqen tribe, who goes to the forest every year to hunt, pray and honor the mountain god. This documentary includes on-site natural sound, effect sound, music and simultaneous sound, but these sound factors only serve as companions to the characters' activities, playing different roles in different scenes. Meng Jinfu said, "It's comfortable on the mountain, not at home, you catch a cold in three days, not outside." There are not many personalized contemporaries like this, but they are Meng Jinfu's own words. In Sun Zengtian's recent TV documentaries such as "Click on the Yellow River", the main narrative is completed by the main character's own narration, which accounts for a large proportion of the film, and its sound information becomes the main body, which, Sun Zengtian said, is the narration of history. Sun Zengtian said that this is the telling of history. In the film, because the interviewed character is a personal witness of historical events, his narration is natural and vivid, with actual content and details, it can still meet the needs of television viewers to receive information, and thus be recognized by the audience. Although there is not much action and scene changes in the film, and the lack of certain image characteristics, the interviewee's expression, posture, and speech content interact with each other to vividly show the character traits and tell the real story.

Documentary music, in fact, is a late match up, the use of good, of course, can be lyrical expression, documentary music can never be a dunk in the end, because the rhythm of the picture is changing, isolated from the picture outside of the music, is not effective, or counterproductive, but also affects the authenticity of the work. Good documentary music is a sound source, that is, the picture explains the starting sound body, such as the documentary "English and White" has a lot of music is not added later, but through the picture explains the starting sound body, natural expression, lyrical works of emotional color. The use of music in documentaries should be careful, because music is the expression of subjective feelings, while the documentary is the pursuit of objective reality.

Documentary sound and picture integration of the composite structure, sound and picture often does not have which is more important or who supplements the difference between who, they are in the expression of a real material existence. For example: the picture is a mountain village in the field, there are dogs barking, the sound of running water or a specific scene of natural sound, these live effects sound itself does not supplement the mountain village picture in the expression of the meaning of the shortcomings, the reason why people use a large number of these sounds, is to utilize the potential ability of sound information, through the sound and the picture of the dual information interaction, to create a sense of reality and sense of scene. The reason why that traditional approach of music padding and laying it all out to the end is not recognized by peers and audiences is also not because it does not complement the inadequacy of the picture, but because it ignores the function of sound to spread information. At the end of Companion, the picture again shows the old woman walking with difficulty on her crutches to pick up pig food early in the morning. People may worry that the old woman will not be able to walk any more, and if she collapses, the pig, which has been raised for seven years, won't be able to survive, and the old woman won't be able to survive either if the pig dies first, and the sound of the old woman's crutches seems to get louder and louder, which aggravates people's worries.

There is no doubt that people watch TV not only to "see" but also to "hear.

In my opinion, the sound effects of documentaries are much more complex than the shooting of images. The language of sound effects in documentaries constitutes the "sound image" of the TV screen, which, like the language of the screen, is an important means of creating documentaries, except that its focus varies in different situations. Sometimes it is the picture language that plays a role, and sometimes it is the sound language that plays a role. The sound language of documentaries should be emphasized and further studied.