In an interview with Business Insider, Nolan said the following: The video breaks down how composer Hans Zimmer has incorporated the Shepard Tone into the score, which creates an everlasting sense of tension throughout the film. The top commenter has playfully said, “Not sure if I’m watching Vox or Nerdwriter1” because the essay is as well-produced as many other film theorists’ works on YouTube. Surprisingly, the video essay was produced by Vox, an organization that usually produces videos on news and international subjects. The sound illusion is ideal for film and game sound effects, but what about using the concept to create tension in a movie score? Christopher Nolan demonstrates this in the recently released action thriller Dunkirk, and thankfully we have a video essay breaking down the technique. Richard King, the sound designer behind The Dark Knight, said that “Chris had the idea that it should never shift, that it should keep ascending in pitch like an unstoppable force, we had an idea to use a concept called The Shepard Tone.” The team later captured the sounds from electric race cars and Tesla models to find the base pitch to create the Bat-Pod’s Shepard Tone. In recent years, one of the most famous uses of the Shepard Tone was Batman’s Bat-Pod in The Dark Knight (see 4:46) For example, the highest-pitched tone will drop down an octave and become the lowest-pitched tone, but since we can still hear the other two tones rise, we think the sound is ascending infinitely. Think of the three tones working in alternating roles. In Vsauce’s video below, he explains another way to think about how the Shepard Tone works. Because you can always hear two tones rising in pitch, your brain skips the loop and believes the tone is infinitely ascending. By the end of the track, the highest-pitched tone has become quiet, the middle-pitched tone stays loud, and the low-pitched tone has become louder. In essence, there is a high-pitched tone, a middle-pitched tone, and a low-pitched tone that all rise in pitch until they loop back to the start. The tone is a sound that comprises multiple sine waves separated by an octave and layered on top of each other. The term refers to an auditory illusion of a sound that continually ascends (or descends) in pitch. If you’ve never heard of this term, I can almost guarantee you’ve heard the tone itself. The Shepard Tone creates the illusion of continuously swelling sound, which can build tension or suspense.
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