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Mal - means bad
Ariadne - goddess that leads you through the labryths

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I think that Inception by Christopher Nolan needs no introduction. However, what may need a brief introduction are few sound design/musical terms that will be used throughout this article. So, here we go, starting with my most favorite - pitch shifting!

Pitch Shifting

Pitch shifting is about changing the pitch of a sound. With pitch shifting we basically detune the sound up or down in semitones (=musical half-steps) or even cents (extremely small finite intervals) (1).

To give a real-world example, try to imagine a fast lift in some skyscraper: When it slows down or accelerates, you'll hear a change in the pitch of the sound.

Or if you play a musical instrument, particularly keyboard, there might be a pitch wheel located to your left that changes (raises or lowers) the pitch of a note being played.

By the way, there is a great talk by my favorite sound designer Randy Thom, who talks about pitch shifting in SoundWorks Collection sound show: How to Train Your Dragon. If you're interested in sound design and haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend it! (Or if you are interested in pitch shifting only, he starts to talk about pitch change at 00:24:00 and gives away one of his secrets btw.)

Reverb

Reverb is actually pretty tricky to describe/explain. Therefore I think it is best to use an example. Imagine yourself singing in a bathroom and than in a church.

First, you'll hear your voice, but then it will be followed by sound waves reflected from the surrounding surfaces (=reverb). The type of reverb you'll hear depends on the type of surface (ceramics tile vs. stone) and space (bathroom vs. church).

In any case, each place or space has a specific reverb that helps you orient where you are.

Tempo

Tempo is a musical term that dictates the pace/speed of any musical composition (2). In other words, it dictates how fast or slow should we play the musical composition. The tempo is usually given by BPM (beats per minute) or using words (Largo, Adagio, Allegro, etc.).

Sound Bridge

Sound bridge can lead us in or out of a scene (3). It connects seamlessly two scenes together by overlapping the sound from one scene to another. Either by overlapping the sound from previous scene to the following scene or by playing the sound from following scene into the previous scene. It is the same as J or L cut technique in editing.

Anyway, the best sound bridge is when the sound not only overlaps, but transforms to something else. That's pure cinema!

SOUND CUES

Inception is pretty complex and complicated movie when you watch it for the first time. When I was leaving the theater I had only a rough idea what was and what wasn't a dream. But at the same time, I knew that this wasn't a simple mind fu*k and immediately wanted to see the movie again.

The characters travel into various levels of a dream (=dream within a dream within a dream), so especially the first time, it was quite difficult to keep the track where we are. However, sound works as a guide for us, the audience, to help us orient whether we are in a dream and whether we are transitioning from level to level. Here is how the sound cues work:

Pitch Shifting
Change in Pitch
When we transition into another level of a dream, pitch shifting occurs (4). Not all the time, because that would be totally annoying. But in some scenes, when the characters fall asleep and start dreaming (or travel into another level of a dream), there is a change in pitch of surrounding sounds.

When we transition into deeper level, the pitch goes down (and vice versa, when we transition into upper level, the pitch goes up as well.)
Change in Speed
In the case of Inception, pitch shifting changes also the speed of the surrounding sounds (4). When we transition into deeper level of a dream, the surrounding sounds slow down (and vice versa, when we transition into upper level of a dream, surrounding sounds speed up). This directly correlates with the time-flow in various levels of the dream. The deeper the level of a dream the slower the time-flow (and vice versa).
Sound Bridge
Lastly, pitch shifting may work as a sound bridge at the same time in some scenes. For instance, interior jet roar becomes traffic when we transition to the first dream level (4). Or tire screeching becomes metal screeching when we transition to the second dream level. Very, very cinematic use of sound!

Music

Hans Zimmer used throughout the movie leitmotif from Edith Piaf's "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien" (5). The music slows down based on the dream level we are currently in. The deeper we are, the slower the music plays back (and vice versa). Again, this directly correlates with the time-flow in various levels of the dream. The deeper the level of a dream the slower the tempo of music.

To illustrate this, watch the video below that went completely viral.

Reverb

Dreams feel usually very real. But there is always something that is just not quite right. It could be weird behavior of people you know or messed up physics, like different time-flow or unnatural reverb.

So in some scenes, you'll hear a very unnatural reverb. Especially when a piece of glass shatters or breaks. This tells us, that we are in a dream.

Sound Cues - Audio Examples

If you skim through the articles I wrote so far, you'll notice that the vast majority are examples of visual storytelling. The reason for that is that examples of visual storytelling are easier to describe and explain. You can simply see it. However with sound, it is much more difficult. Even the most skilled writer is not able to fully describe the visceral feeling and sensations that sound has to offer.

I used to spend a lot of time at filmsound.org and now I'm spending significant amount of my free time at designingsound.org. I'm deeply in love with film sound design, because it is one of the most powerful storytelling weapons that filmmakers have in their arsenal. Heck, the very first article written for CINEMA SHOCK is in sound design category.

Anyway, the reason that there are so few articles about film sound design is that I was afraid (and still I am) of uploading copyrighted material to YouTube.

Fortunately, there are few exceptions. One of them is the principle of Fair Use. I sincerely believe that the following video I made for this article is in accordance with this principle. Enjoy!

P.S. During my research and preparation for this article, I "watched" the movie with my eyes closed. Try it someday as well with your favorite movie; you'll be surprised what you'll hear! I know that this might sound like a totally weird idea, but hey, welcome to the club! 🙂

Resources

1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cent_(music)

2. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempo

3. classes.yale.edu/film-analysis/htmfiles/sound.htm

4. designingsound.org/2010/08/inception-exclusive-interview-with-richard-king

5. www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/21/AR2010102107408.html?sid=ST2010102203520

Inception and Sound Design

SoundWorks Collection: The Sound of Inception from Michael Coleman on Vimeo.

Movies that question state of dream/illusion/reality

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I think that Inception by Christopher Nolan needs no introduction. However, what may need a brief introduction are few sound design/musical terms that will be used throughout this article. So, here we go, starting with my most favorite - pitch shifting! Pitch Shifting Pitch shifting is about changing the pitch of a sound.

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the link between dream levels - Yusuf going to the toilet results in it raining in the dream level

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Safes appear all throughout the film

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Is basically the only thing that cobb trusts. its what grounds him and keeps him sane.

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Hanz Zimmer composed the entire score to be in the same tempo, where different music speeds are simply subdivisions (half, third, quarter etc.) of the original tempo. This gives the music a seeming consistency throughout the film, which contrasts with the way that the film plays with time in all other aspects.

The entire score is also apparently derived from the instrumental backing of 'Non Je Ne Regrette Rien', and thus develops further consistency throughout the film.

Unusually, there are no pieces belonging to or characterising specific levels of the dream.

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Having systematically picked apart the critical arguments for and against Christopher Nolan's film "Inception" and the many possible meanings of that dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream caper, the Web this week went another level into the movie by focusing on its music.

In recent days Internet denizens have gotten very excited about a viral video (posted above) that compares the Édith Piaf song "Non, je ne Regrette Rien" to Hans Zimmer's score for the movie. When the video's pseudonymous author, camiam321, plays the key musical cue from that score, two ominous blares from a brass section, followed by a slowed-down version of the Piaf song (which the "Inception" characters play at regular speed as a warning to wake up from a dream state), they sound nearly identical.

In a telephone interview Mr. Zimmer, a film composer and producer who won an Academy Award for his music for "The Lion King" and was nominated for films including "Rain Man" and "Gladiator," said the sonic similarity was not only intentional but also the one element of an enigmatic movie "that wasn't supposed to be a secret."

Speaking of the viral video, Mr. Zimmer excitedly said: "I've seen it. I've seen it. I was surprised how long it took them to figure it out."

The musical cue, Mr. Zimmer said, "was our big signpost" in the film of its characters' moving from one level of dreaming (or reality) into another. "It was like a drawing of a huge finger," he said, "saying, O.K., different time."

Mr. Zimmer said the idea for this musical game had begun with Mr. Nolan, the film's director and writer.

"He had the Édith Piaf always written in the script, the 'da-da, da-da,' " he said, imitating the cadence of that song. "It was like huge foghorns over a city, and afterward you would maybe figure out that they were related."

Technically, Mr. Zimmer said, his score is not a slowing-down of the French song, which was composed by Charles Dumont and recorded by Piaf in 1960, but is constructed from a single manipulated beat from it.

"I had to go and extract these two notes out of a recording," Mr. Zimmer said, using a little bit of "Inception" lingo. "I love technology, so it was a lot of fun for me to go and get the original master out of the French national archives. And then find some crazy scientist in France who would actually go and take that one cell out of the DNA."

"Just for the game of it," Mr. Zimmer said, "all the music in the score is subdivisions and multiplications of the tempo of the É dith Piaf track. So I could slip into half-time; I could slip into a third of a time. Anything could go anywhere. At any moment I could drop into a different level of time."

In this sense, the score is Mr. Zimmer's personal interpretation of "Inception," which many viewers have read as a commentary on the nebulous boundary between dreaming and reality.

"Everybody thinks the dream is the important part," Mr. Zimmer said. "For me, the time was the important part: the idea that, in a peculiar way, Chris had made a time-travel movie that actually worked."

Mr. Zimmer, who in 2008 was briefly excluded from an Oscar nomination for the score to "The Dark Knight," which was deemed to have had too many composers (the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences eventually reversed itself and allowed him and a co-composer, James Newton Howard, to compete for the award), said he had no idea how awards bodies would react to his "Inception" score's incorporation of the Piaf track.

"I didn't use the song; I only used one note," Mr. Zimmer said. "But look, I so couldn't care less about awards. I know I'm not supposed to say this. But when you work with Chris Nolan, when you work on a movie like 'Inception,' it's for the adventure."

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Hans Zimmer Extracts the Secrets of the 'Inception' Score

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Having systematically picked apart the critical arguments for and against Christopher Nolan's film "Inception" and the many possible meanings of that dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream caper, the Web this week went another level into the movie by focusing on its music.

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"Nolan engages the audience in such a way that causes both their mind and heart to be involved in the story" (Grade Saver)

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The soundtrack is made from slowed and speeded versions of this song. It is also the song played diegetically to make the characters wake up, thus blurring the line between fiction and reality.
Lyrics

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Water is dark, a subtle reminder of the fact that, most of the time when water appears, Cobb is drowning in it.

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Cobb and Mal lie down on the train tracks in the subconscious level of their minds after spending a lifetime there with each other. The train runs them over and it is a symbol that one must die to the unreal world of our minds as they hold us back from creating a life in the real world. Unfortunately, it is also the idea that Cobb plants into Mal's head, and as that idea persisted into reality, eventually that leads her to kill herself. In other words, a literal train of thought.

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Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

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Robert finds a paper pinwheel in his father's safe next to his deathbed. It is a symbol that his dad has held on to Robert's childhood as the most precious thing he's ever created. It is a symbol that he loves his son and wants what is best for him, not to rip his life apart and diminish him. Finally, it is a symbol that the team has done its job and infiltrated Robert's mind to convince him to dissolve the company.

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At the end of the film, we see Cobb's top spinning on the table as he walks away to his children. The top continues to spin as Nolan cuts away to black. The symbol is that Cobb may or may not be in reality yet. Only more time will tell if the top will continue to spin or will topple over letting him know he is finally home.

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Cobb places a spinning top inside of a toy house in the subconscious realm when he is with Mal. The toy home represents the deepest place in Mal's mind, a place so deep that she may not even know it is there. The home is a symbol of safety, and by Cobb placing the top there he has betrayed this safety as he has implanted the thought that "this world isn't real."

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Ariadne has a golden bishop chess piece that she creates for herself in order to know if she is in the real world or not. This specific totem represents her strategic nature in the grand scheme of the heist they are pulling off as she is the architect of the dream worlds that they will be traveling to. Thus, she is the one who must master the moves on the board in order to place the King in checkmate.