When watching or looking at a picture, without sound, you can have initial thoughts of anything at all because there’s nothing guiding your emotions, but when you put music to it, you’re suddenly guided into a direction, such as sadness if the underscore is melancholy, and this is why music plays an important part in perception. Ever heard that whatever genre of music you mostly listen to affects how you see the world? Well, this is because music can change a video of a puppy sleeping from cute to sad just by adding a melancholy underscore, this is because it almost creates a story and guides your emotions.
When we looked at a scene from Lord Of The Rings, we changed each underscore and saw how affective the sound was and what thoughts the sounds provoked, each sound change changed our perceptions of the scene.
Original Underscore – This suited very well and was like the missing piece of puzzle, because all the cinematography was perfect but the underscore really made the scene feel like we was heading for something good, which he found the ring, but also quite a patriotic feel, which I think in the scene, they were heading for battle so it works.
Footsteps From Big Fish Underscore – The class was laughing instantly and it just kind of took away the power that the original sound employed. It didn’t work because this gives you a sense of them running from something, and it’s almost like a comical skit.
Different Underscore – This one took a more melancholy sound and it felt almost like they’d lost something, which opposed the scene because he had just found the ring. This doesn’t work because it doesn’t fit the story feel and it’s almost like he’s lost a battle or something.
Mission Impossible – This underscore is so iconic that it kind of became more common in comical skits so instantly it took away the severity of the scene and turned it into a joke. This doesn’t work because this film isn’t a spy film and this sound it related a lot to spy movies.
Benny Hill Theme – This isn’t even remotely affective because it gives a sense of him running away from something and is used a lot more for comical scenes as to poke fun at them for being so dumb.
Chariots Of Fire – This doesn’t work because it has a lot more correlation between like being at the finish line but from the looks of it, he’s still on his journey so it’s ineffective and contradicting to the story it’s meant to be portraying.