What I was trying to say is that in audio, technical prowess is more exact and less subject to artistic choices. But obviously I was wrong.
Actually, it's completely the other way around, cinematography is more exact and less subject to artistic choices than audio!
Let me give you an example, let's say you're filming something in a suburb of a city, you only have 3 main artistic choices with the cinematography; 1. Your shot composition, where you point your camera and what is included in the frame. 2. How you light what is in this frame and 3. What in the frame you focus on, DOF, etc. With cinematography all you are doing in effect capturing what is in happening in front of the camera, to create the visual world of the film. With audio post we are doing a similar thing, creating an audio world (a soundscape) but the difference is we are not limited by what's happening in front of us, we are limited by nothing except our imagination.
For example our soundscape may or may not include: The sound of background road traffic, heavy or light, fast or slow moving, quite close, very distant or anywhere in between, it may or may not include motorbikes, trucks, buses, etc. We may or may not hear police or ambulance sirens again close or distant. We might hear passenger jets passing overhead, or police/news helicopters or small, private aircraft. We might hear birds; sinister crows cawing or pleasant song birds, many of them or few, close, far or both. We might hear children playing, laughing and shouting, close or far or maybe hear a couple fighting in their apartment with the window open. Maybe we can hear someone listening to their TV or music system, maybe they are listening to a violent film/music or maybe it's something nice and relaxing. Maybe we can hear some distant or close construction sounds, maybe it's a bit of local DIY or some heavy commercial construction. Maybe we want to give the impression of a school somewhere in the vicinity or a factory or train station, etc. Maybe there are some dogs barking, maybe they are cute pet barks or maybe they are dangerous and aggressive pitbulls, dobermans, etc. The list goes on and on, only limited by your imagination of the sounds which COULD believably be present in whatever type of soundscape we wish to create. We can have as many or as few of these sounds as we want, at different distances, to make a dense or sparse soundscape. We can make this soundscape pleasant, relaxing, aggressive, threatening, sinister or pretty much anything we want emotionally to support the story. We can make any of the elements of this soundscape almost inaudible or so loud they are almost deafening. We can place these elements of our soundscape pretty much anywhere within a 360deg soundfield, they can be stationary or move slowly or quickly from any place to any other, depending on the movement, pace and energy we want to create. And, we can change and evolve this soundscape throughout the scene, add and remove elements, make those elements more present or less or change their feel, to create hidden implications to aid or confuse the story. And, all this is just the atmospheric soundscape, we haven't even mentioned the Foley or the dialogue processing to create different emotional feels/meanings, pace and energy!
For any given second of any given scene our artistic audio choices and options could be virtually limitless! The art of sound design is frequently just as much about what we choose to leave out as what we decide to include. But it is an art, not just a technique and, it's arguably the most creative of all the film arts.
Maybe
this thread will help you understand sound design a little better.
G
