This thesis examines how Zhao Jiping's film score in Yellow Earth (1984) establishes distinct identities for the diegetic and non-diegetic (presentational) space, as well as how Zhao manipulates the audience's perception of musical-spatial boundaries in order to create moments of musical significance during the "river scenes." To model the diegesis, I use a perception model approach combined with work by Winters and Yacavone. This frames the diegesis in relation to reality, without being beholden to it, and attributes to the audience an active role in constructing the diegesis, internally and subjectively expanding on fragments presented by the film. I then characterize the music of the diegesis as being representative of the Shaanbei region of China, using folk singing and instruments indigenous to the region. The music of the presentational space uses melodic material derived from the diegetic music, supported by orchestral music in a style similar to mixed instrument ensembles in Model Works. During the "river scenes", Zhao's music gradually detaches the audience's sense of anchoring in the diegetic space and pivots into the presentational space, creating an intense contrast that supports the narrative significance of the scene. Afterwards, similar techniques are then used to gradually re-anchor the audience back into the diegesis. Using models of the diegetic and presentational spaces that incorporate recent shifts in academic perspective, this thesis demonstrates Zhao Jiping's nuanced understanding of how an audience perceives musical space, both by creating distinct identities for the diegetic and presentational spaces, and by manipulating audience perception of space in order to create moments of musical significance.

In 2K Games’ Bioshock (2007) the player, as the protagonist Jack, is thrown into a dystopian, futuristic alternate history of America. Rapture is an underwater city saturated in music: popular songs from the mid twentieth century; classical-style soundtrack pieces composed by Garry Schyman; characters humming, singing, whistling or playing instruments; musical vending machines; and even the sounds of whales and other creatures all participate in forming a textured soundscape. The songs from the 1930s - 50s used throughout Bioshock recall a real-world cultural environment—a popular music culture that is both comfortably recognizable yet strangely unfamiliar. They occur within the game world and are heard by the player and game characters, and thus the songs are diegetic or “screen music.” In Bioshock, such music is an explicit component of narrative production, game environment creation, and player immersion. Significantly, diegetic music participates in the construction of narrative through a constant interplay or negotiation with the video game’s other elements—visual, textual, ludic—and ultimately functions as a distinct discourse able to mediate for Jack/the player between contesting factors, via established conventional codes of musical, cultural, film, and now video game signification. Bioshock’s use of music initiates a pre-game discourse during installation and prior to every game session in the disc-loading scenes, and this musical discourse is continued throughout the narrative. The story’s opening and descent into Rapture further establishes and “naturalizes” the presence of diegetic music as part of the story being told, and as a vital component of the audio-visual environment enhances player immersion. At the same time, these opening instances and subsequent occurrences of diegetic music at significant points in the story demonstrate that music’s culturally encoded emotive potential produces ironic and poignant effects, while its lyrical intertextuality generates narratological and ludic commentary in various song/scene pairings.

M. Mus. (Composition) by Coursework and Research, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, 2011 / The aim of this Research Report is to highlight the overt and more subtle roles that contemporary film music plays in the final presentation of a film. An analysis of selected examples by the renowned film music composer, Hans Zimmer, illustrates the techniques and musical tools that he uses to achieve certain effects which influence the way different scenes are perceived by the viewer/listener. Much of the debate revolves around the degree to which the music plays either an obvious or less obvious role in the multi-media modality of film and the techniques that the composer applies to achieve his/her desired dramatic result. I have drawn on the writings of current film music theorists in order to interrogate the interaction between music and some of the other art-forms that coalesce in the creation of the final film product.