A brief presentation
Audiovisualities is a Scalar platform intended as a teaching tool for the seminar "Music, Sound and the Moving Image" (MUS238).
This database intends to show how contemporary cinema is still heavily indebted to practices going back to the 1930s.
At this stage, this platform showcases a selection of definitions, most of them illustrated by film clips. Most of the definitions are taken from Michel Chion's book Film, A Sound Art (New York, 2009; the original French version was published in 2003).
One of the most, if not the most influential scholar in the field of sound film, Michel Chion has over the years established a glossary of terms, several of which have been devised by him (for instance, the "X-27 effect"), although he also relies on the use of well-known terms for coining newer concepts: for instance Chion uses the word "Foley", a well-known technique for non pre-recorded sounds added at the post-production stage, to coin the expression "Foleyed cinema." Chion's glossary, of course, is not exhaustive (and never intended to be), as there are other important expressions in film studies that have had currency well before Chion (for instance, "dubbing," "Mickey Mousing," etc.)
This Scalar database is made of pages, and media. At this stage, there are no "paths" (the virtual equivalent of "chapters"): paths will be introduced later, when there will be more material (clips and texts) for creating larger sections and subdivisions. What we have for now is mostly one path, as all the terms listed here come from Chion's glossary.
To each Scalar page corresponds one definition of a specific technical term or expression. Most of these definitions are also illustrated by short film clips; most of the clips are viewable in the page itself. One can also navigate through the tags and the mentions of "related pages" that are indicated on the lower portion of each page. Thus, one can navigate from one clip or page to another clip or page, and pursue the navigation for further explanations.
To navigate, go to the left column "Main menu", click on "Index" and then on "load the full index." Then you can click either on "Pages" or on "media files," or on "tags" to get the detail of these (I would suggest to start first by clicking on a page, but feel free to do otherwise); then choose any item, and start your exploration.
There are still a few glitches (a couple of pages are not illustrated by any clips), and there are still typos left.
Some links are not activated yet; the underlining of a word or sentence signals that a link should be introduced.
Jacqueline Waeber © September 5, 2022
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