Using sound in Film: Apocalypse Now

When working on research i wanted to look at films that many look at as using sound effectively, and one of these that i put as primary research and many say use sound well is Apocalypse Now.

How Does It Use Sound:

Something that Francis Ford Coppola did with this film was to mix sounds in post production which caused dialogue and special effects to come out of different speakers this giving audience a new type of emersion and gives a sense of perspective. What this does for the audience is firstly tells them in relation to themselves where the characters are in the film, it also allows for the audience to know how far away the action is happening and from which direction the sound is coming from.

Apocalypse Now was the first multi-channel movie to be mixed with a computerized mixing board. As both Walter Murch one of the most prominent sound designers in Hollywood and Coppola wanted the audience to feel like they were in a war-zone, surrounded by gunfire and bullets.Others also say this multi-channel “surround” style also works eerily well in the jungle sequences.

Also one prominent sound that impacts most of the film is the sound of helicopters which Murch talks about here "It was something that came up long before the film ever got made — back when George [Lucas] was going to direct it. There was a lot of discussion between George and me, and between us and John Milius, who was writing the script, that what made Vietnam different and unique was that it was the helicopter war.....The beginning of the film was a trigger for the psychic dimension of the helicopters. Later on, when you get into the attack on the village [when Robert Duvall’s ramrod Col. Kilgore tries to clear a VC-held coastal town], it’s dramatic and it’s fantastic, but it is fairly much “what you see is what you hear.” Whereas at the beginning of the film it’s some drunken reverie of this displaced person, Willard, who is trying to bring himself back into focus." [http://designingsound.org/2009/10/walter-murch-special-apocalypse-now/]

More info: https://soundandinteraction.wordpress.com/2011/10/10/the-sound-of-%E2%80%9Capocalypse-now%E2%80%9D/