Offscreen sound
An offscreen sound (CHION 2009, 481) is a sound whose source is not visible; however, such source exists in the diegesis of the film, that is to say within its time and space of the film.
- An offscreen sound is heard diegetically, i.e. "within" the film (i.e. the diegetic characters can hear it), but its source remains invisible within the diegetic space of the film.
- Offscreen sounds tend to have logical, rational sources, even when left unseen to the diegetic characters and film viewers. For instance, the ringing of a telephone happening in a living room presupposes the presence of a telephone in that room, or near it.
- Voices of characters can often be treated as offscreen sounds: in a shot-reverse shot dialogue, the voice heard while the camera focus on the listener is an offscreen voice—the voice belongs to the other person speaking to that character.
In Victor Fleming's The Wizard of Oz (1939, USA) Dorothy hears giggling sounds coming from outside the frame; like us, she searches for the source of these offscreen sounds, by looking in different directions. As we (and Dorothy) learn from Glinda, the Good Witch, those sounds are from the Munchkins. Eventually we meet the source of the giggling and are formally introduced to the Munchkins.
An example from Jacques Tati's Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (1953) gives a good example of offscreen sound; in a restaurant, customers suddenly hear a jazz music, and their expressions further emphasize their confusion as to the source of the music. Because the sound is so loud and ostentatious, the characters are inclined to find its source.
[C. V.]
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