“How to engineer a mood - A study of sound in audiovisual contexts” is a study on the perception of sound in audiovisual contexts, i.e. sound and the image combined. There seems to be a consensus among researchers in the field on the fact that music influences the interpretation on film. However, there does not seem to be a specific consensus in regards to other sounds than music, such as the human voice or sound effects. Guided by a set of theories, an audiovisual text will be analyzed, in part through results of a quasi-experimental pilot survey and partly by the author herself. This paper would like to contribute in making the relationship of different sounds in conjunction with the image become slightly clearer. The outcome will help to show how a mood can be created with sounds. Although there is a limited number of theoretical models that have been developed in this field of research, the theories that are introduced will hopefully help to create a better understanding of sound in audiovisual texts.  Finally the theories and results will come together in this thesis; this will lead to an analysis and produce ideas for further research on how sound in audiovisual contexts influence our emotions. As mentioned before there has not been much research in this field, hopefully this thesis will be able to provide some clues and could serve as a first step for further research to find more definite answers on how emotions work in a audiovisual context. However, many questions will remain unanswered, and further research is needed to answer them.

This research project addresses the problem of scoring non-narrative film work. Deprived of a narrative content to follow, the composer faces the fundamental problem of deciding what other elements should be considered for establishing a meaningful relationship between the screened events and the music soundtrack. In order to mitigate the problem, this research project investigates the possibility of applying cross-modal principles to soundtrack composition, and systematically exploits the human ability to experience or interpret the information channeled through one sense modality in terms of another. After the Introduction which explains the research aims and methods, the thesis is structured into subsequent chapters. Chapter two considers cross-modal relationships in music and other expressive arts along with a brief consideration of Reception Theory and its relation to my work. Chapter three provides a set of four case studies of contemporary compositional approaches to non-narrative film. Chapter four demonstrates a new and systematic approach to soundtrack composition through a specially devised Table of Audio-Visual Correspondences, mapping parameters from one domain to another. This method is then applied in Chapter five in relation to a portfolio of original composed soundtracks. A detailed analysis is provided of each piece and the application of crossmodal logic to the scoring of non-narrative video is discussed and evaluated. Finally, Chapter six offers conclusions, recommendations, and outlines the scope for further research. An explanation is given of how work on this thesis has affected my own practice and compositional voice. A suggestion is also provided on how this thesis can benefit the wider film music academic and practitioner community.