“There is Nothing to Carry Sound”: Defamiliarisation and Reported Realism in Gravity

[ish mailian]

Although it is arguably unrealistic, one of the conventions of science
fiction cinema is the presence of sound in the vacuum of space, for
instance the commonly used low drone as the audible accompaniment to a
large spaceship moving past the camera or the high-pitched whine which
is apparently emitted from a small fighter craft as it whizzes into an
attack position. According to William Whittington, the decision by the
Star Wars (1977) filmmakers “to render this space with sound would
colour the sound tracks of almost every subsequent science fiction
film from Star Trek—The Motion Picture (1979) to The Matrix
Revolutions (2003)”. (1) This observation certainly holds true for a
number of more recent space films, such as Duncan Jones’ Moon (2009)
which presents the sound of the moon harvesters spitting out rocks
after processing them for Helium 3, and Joseph Kasinsky’s Oblivion
(2013) which features the digital beeps and swivelling sounds of
drones inspecting Jack Harper’s podcraft as it enters the giant
space-station the Tet.

http://sensesofcinema.com/2014/feature-articles/there-is-nothing-to-carry-sound-defamiliarization-and-reported-realism-in-gravity/
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l