Audio-Vision

In Audio-Vision, the French composer-filmmaker-critic Michel Chion presents a reassessment of the audiovisual media since sound's revolutionary debut in 1927 and sheds light on the mutual influences of sound and image in audiovisual perception.

Chion expands on the arguments from his influential trilogy on sound in cinema-- Las Voix au cinema, Le Son au cinema, and La Toile trouee--while providing an overview of the functions and aesthetics of sound in film and television. He considers the effects of evolving audiovisual technologies such as widescreen, multi-track sound, and Dolby stereo on audio-vision, influences of sound on the perception of space and time, and contemporary forms of audio-vision embodied in music videos, video art, and commercial television. His final chapter presents a model for audiovisual analysis of film.

Walter Murch, who contributes the foreward, has been honored by both the British and American Motion Picture Academies for his sound design and picture editing. His is especially well-known for his work on The Godfather, The Conversation, and Apocalypse Now.