Violence in the Media

This lecture was about the role of violence in games,film, and other media.  The thing I found most interesting in this lecture and seminar was the link between how the sounds of violence often affect you more than the sight of it eg. sounds of bones cracking, skin tearing etc. Listening to a radio play called "A Child Crying" was all about how a man hearing a child crying constantly in his head drove him mad.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b007jnx3/Fear_on_Four_A_Child_Crying/#recommendSource=radio_episode_page

  Sound effects in films emphasise the action that is taking place. The most famous sound effect is probably "The Wilhelm Scream" which was first shown in the Warner Bros film "Distant Drums"and has been shown in over 250 films and some video games. This is a compilation of some of the instances the scream has been used:


Sounds help create a sense of reality within a scene and by mixing sounds the effect can be made even more so. For example the sound of someone being shot in a film may be made up of 3 sounds: a pig carcass being shot, a melon being cracked, and a hammer hitting some wood. Individually the sounds may not have sounded at all effective but together they make the scene believable. Furthermore in real life people may not know the real sound of a bullet hitting a person but even so can recognise the sound of one in a film.