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SOUND EFFECTS AND ITS MAGIC ON THE AUDIENCE
- Vanaparthy Ranganath*
Sound effects

In almost all of the Telugu homes, a day typically starts with someone in the family turning the radio on, for some people it starts with Sri Venkateshwara Suprabhatam, for some it starts with regional news but for most of the people it continues with favorite Janaranjani. We hear very commonly something like " Thappaka Choodandi … DTS Sound Effects tho .. mee abhimana theatre xxx70mm lo" . Not only in radios almost every channel that telecasts Telugu programmes gives ads like this in the breaks, how does a common viewer react to this special sound effects in the theatre, let us try to do some analysis on this interesting topic.

It is true that Telugu Cinema rose to its peak only after the introduction of sound into the movies, earlier when there used to be no sound in the movie, the movie could not probably convey the correct message that the director/artistes wanted to convey to the audience. Let us now see how the people behind the camera use this effectively to convey their message. In this article we will see how sound effects have been used while displaying titles of the movie on the screen, hero/villain's introduction in the movie, fights, dances and sad/sentimental scenes.

Providing special effects while displaying titles on the screen is probably very new, if we see old classics we hear only a good classical tune being played in the background while the names are being displayed. In the movies that we see now a days, we realise that the artistes prefer to have the titles also being displayed very differently than other movies, typically some songs of the movie are played in the background, for some movies we see some graphical images popping up with the name of the movie suddenly popping up. Well, frankly this does not impact the viewers to a great extent 'coz most of the people will not be still settled in the theatre.

One of the main areas of concentration in a typical Telugu movie is the "Hero/Villain's introduction". If it is villain, then some dreadful sounds like a cat screaming, wolf howling , sounds resembling that of a vulture raring to go etc are what we usually hear. This often creates a small amount of fear in the viewer's mind, this effect could be greater if the viewer is below 12 years, whenever that kind of sound is heard in the movie the viewer relates that the villain could be seen in the next scene. On the contrary if we see how a hero is introduced, we usually hear the blowing of trumpets, sounds of huge drums, a lion/tiger roaring and even a horse neighing sometimes, audience especially fans do not allow the people in the theatre to hear the dialogues for sometime in the movie due to the excitement that this sound effects create, whistles, papers, coins, color and what not fill the theatre , that is the effect of this introduction of the hero which is increased to a great extent by the sound effects.

The main area where this sound effects really come into the picture is fights and dances. Let us first look into fights. In old movies, especially in mythological movies when there is a fight between two characters like Arjuna and Karna , when both aim arrows at each other , we realise that these two arrows meet each other in the air and ultimately one vanishes and that is accompanied by a typical sound of a drum beat. But in the modern era , fight scenes are a lot different. We must congratulate both Ramgopal Varma and Nagarjuna for introducing the concept of 'Pidi guddulu' in the movie Shiva, which later created a trend for other movies to follow. Coming to the area of songs, which undoubtedly is the area of heavy concentration in modern movies, the sound effects are catching up with every movie. People go to decent theatres just for enjoying the sound effects. Almost all of the present day actors prefer that their songs are in stereophonic mode if not in DTS so that the level of enjoyment for the viewer is higher.

Coming to the usual sentimental scenes, the sound effects are tuned in such a way so that the viewers should not stop tears from rolling down seeing the artiste on the screen crying or leaving the village etc. In these kind of scenes, Nadaswaram is the most effective instrument. People sometimes joke in the theatres saying that Telugu people cannot stop wiping their tears if Nadaswaram sound is heard in the movie in sad scenes. In old movies, we often notice that harmonium is also used for these kind of scenes.

Whatever may be scene, who ever may be the person behind it , these sound effects definitely leave a impact on the audience. Let us hope that these sound effects help Telugu movies to reach to the people's hearts as long as Telugu movies are made.
End of Sound Effects
* Ranganath Vanaparthy works for Oracle Corp., Silicon Valley
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