Description

Bringing concepts from early film theory into dialogue with the vibrant field of contemporary sound studies, Wild Sound turns an analytic eye and ear to the role of the soundscape in cinema, particularly the way that film soundtracks capture, create, represent, and even critique our sonic environment.

Listening beyond music and dialogue, this book draws attention to the oft-ignored background soundscape-film's "wild sound"-which plays a quiet but substantial role in determining how film audiences feel about certain places, people, and processes. It explores the relationship between location sound and wider practices of phonographic field recording in the creation of a cinematic sonic environment.

The latter half of the book shifts attention from from the controlled soundscapes of cinema to the relatively chaotic sonic environments of the world around us. Michael Pigott ultimately demonstrates how a theory of cinematic soundscapes helps us develop practical strategies for investigating the sonic environment in our personal and natural sound worlds, beyond the cinema auditorium.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Part I: Inside
1. Wild Sound
2. The Sound of Film Theory
3. The Background
Interval
Part II: Out
4. Origin
5. Exhibition
6. Waste

Coda
Index

Product details

Bloomsbury Academic Test
Published 22 Jan 2026
Format Ebook (Epub & Mobi)
Edition 1st
Extent 208
ISBN 9781501350924
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic
Illustrations 20 bw illus
Series The Study of Sound
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Author

Michael Pigott

Michael Pigott is Associate Professor at the Unive…

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