How do we know what to feel when we watch something? How much difference does music make in determining how we feel?
These and other questions we will attempt to answer in today’s….
AUDIO VISUAL EXPERIMENT
OK. How this is gonna play out is you need to first (like right now) turn off all sound on your computer. Put it on mute.
Have you done that? If the answer is yes, click play on the clip below and watch it.
Nice. Now turn up the sound on your computer nice and loud or even better put on some head phones or something. Then run the clip again.
What did you think? For me the difference was night and day. The audio made all the difference between it being a relatively boring or dry visual experience and an emotive, funny or intriguing one. I like how subtle the sound effects are and how much they add by being so quiet.
For me it was the music that made this a ‘positive brand experience’. It’s an interesting step from Google to move away from the kind of robotic, nerdy, geeky vibe they so often have, to a more emotive, engaging one. But what took it to that place was nothing to do with the visuals, it was all in the audio.
In a lot of ways, it is the audio that lets us know how we should feel about what we watch. Should we be afraid, happy, relieved, apprehensive, angry, upset? Audio is the cue we use to help us make sense (emotionally) of the visual experiences we have. It’s the difference between funny and upsetting, happy and sad or boring and engaging.
We specialise in audio…. just saying.