2. Analysis: two cognitive forms of immersion

2.1. The Ring

The third scene of The Ring depicts the reception held in memory of the sudden and deeply mysterious death of the young Kate, which occurred during the first scene. The atmosphere is sad and mournful, but at the same time reflective and free of tension: the viewer is not expecting any horror. During the reception, in a sequence without musical accompaniment and featuring dialogues and environmental sounds which are soft and peaceful, Kate’s mother asks her sister to investigate the death on account of the strange circumstances in which the body was discovered. She says she was struck by her daughter’s expression; suddenly, at 14’ 50”, there is a brief cut to a shot of the dead girl, found in a wardrobe in her bedroom with her face distorted in terror, a shot that is accompanied by a violent digitally produced sound object. In this frame, involving  flashback, the director adds no new information since the audience already knows the situation from the first scene. His aim is to make spectators jump out of their seats, to undermine the tranquil atmosphere that had come to prevail in during the second and third scenes.

To achieve this the composer Hans Zimmer, sound designer Peter Miller and sound editor Trevor Morris amplified the jump cut by using basic psycho-acoustic techniques: purely visually, the cut would have been sudden and unexpected but not violent. In fact the image of Kate is accompanied by a sound object which represents a violent change in dynamics and register with respect to what comes before. Furthermore, the preceding dialogue is at a low and gradually diminishing volume (Figure 1a, sec. 0-2). During the whole sub-sequence featuring the dialogue in the kitchen (13’ 45” - 14’ 50”) environmental noises gradually fade out and the two sisters’ tone of voice slowly changes, becoming increasingly murmured and intimate. This process is accompanied by a close up on their faces, seen full face in the last frames. There are two functions in this audiovisual process: it creates a more intimate emotional relationship between the viewer and what is being represented (the characters), and obliges the viewer to listen increasingly carefully in order to understand what they are saying to each other. Since the perception of volume has a differential rather than absolute value, the cut between the dialogue and the sound object that accompanies Kate’s distorted features is intensified. Moreover, Zimmer has created a percussive sound object based on registers which are distant from the average voice range that precedes it, accentuating both the low frequencies (>100 Hz) and high brackets, including a whistle at about 4100 Hz. Thus registers which have not yet been heard are amplified in the sound object, namely the spectral areas which go beyond the fundamental and the principal harmonics of the voices, highlighting the shock effect of the cut and hence the viewer’s sense of horror (Figure 1b).

(a)

(b)

Figure 1. The Ring, waveform (a) and spectrogram (b) of the stereophonic reduction of the 6 audio channels, from 14’ 48” to 14’ 53,5”.

Thus we see that the different components of the film were combined so as to determine the levels of emotional tension and release in the viewer, the closeness or distance vis à vis the screen, sudden shocks and so on by means of sophisticated audiovisual techniques involving the subliminal manipulation of perception.

The first scene of The Ring (0’ 00'' - 7’ 14”), for example, can be interpreted as a prologue, both presenting the ‘topics’ and introducing the viewer into the emotional atmosphere of the film by means of a series of four crescendi in both the narrative and ‘immersive’ tension (0' 0” - 0' 32”; 0' 32” - 2’ 52”; 2’ 52” - 4’ 17”; 4’ 17” - 7’ 13”). In each case the crescendo is followed by an immediate release, each one reaching a higher peak of emotional excitement. Both the music and the sound design exploit immersive techniques, based not so much on the representation of affects but on the ‘presence’ of the sound: the viewers listen not just with their ears but above all through their bodies. To grasp this phenomenon one simply has to observe the dynamic of the surround channels, placed to the sides and behind the spectators, from 0’ 0'' to 7’ 13” (Figure 2):

Figure 2. The Ring, prologue (0' 00” - 7' 14”): waveform of the surround channels.

The sound surrounds, or immerses, the viewer on four occasions, each time with a greater volume and for a longer period, corresponding to the climaxes in the emotional crescendi identified above. Only the third moment comes before the climax: in fact the acoustic peak is followed by a long silence in all the channels, charged with suspense.

If we take a more detailed look at the prologue’s finale (Figure 3) featuring Kate’s death, we can identify the only moment in the whole of the first scene in which the movement of the sound in space is frenzied and not measured:

Figure 3. The Ring, ending of the prologue, from 7'08” to 7'13”: waveform of the 5 channels (Left, Center, Right, Surround Left, Surround Right). Red square: opening of the door. Yellow square: compound digital sound object, associated with Katie's death, which follows her encounter with Samara. Black square: visual (and audio) white noise which fills the whole screen; figuratively speaking, it introduces the viewer both into the vision and into the diegesis.

The morphology of the sound object outlined in yellow moves from the central front channel to the side and then the rear, then back to the front side and finally to the whole front facing channel, the focus moving in the space of half a second from right to central to left and ending up between central and right. All this occurs in less than six seconds. In reality the composite sound object (each part is collocated in a different position in the space) which accompanies the climax of the scene is not perceived by the viewers for what it is but acts on their primary emotions and fears: as well as ensuring a better allocation of the various components of the sound object in space, the movement is intended to disorient viewers and give them a violent shock, almost to make their heads spin. In fact the spatialization adheres to a behaviouralist type paradigm in terms of both direction of movement and velocity.