The scene I chose to transcribe is from the 1982 film, “The Thing”. In the scene, the Norwegian crew of an Antarctic research station discovers an alien creature inside the station. I think that the sound design is done well in this film. The Gestalt Principles are applied to The Thing in the film. According to figure and ground, the most prominent sound stands out. The Thing’s screeching, squealing, and screaming are definitely the most prominent sounds in this scene because it is so much louder than everything else. The sounds are also strange, but this brings us to the next principle of proximity and similarity. The intensity of the Thing’s sound is much louder than anything else for most of the scene. The pitch of the Thing’s “voice” varies as well. Sometimes it makes low growling noises and sometimes it makes high pitched screeching noises, which I think contrast nicely and also give it a creepy, other worldly feel.
Listening modes are also used differently in the film. Some sounds are causal and some are semantic. Causal sounds are literal sounds. In this scene some of the causal sounds include the shotgun, the flamethrower, and the people’s voices. Semantic sounds are representational sounds, or sounds that are used to represent a sound of something that normally don’t make the sound. The Thing’s sounds are semantic because a creature like that does not actually exist. Therefore, different sounds were used to create what the want the Thing to sound like.
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