ABSTRACT
Counterpoint synchronization emerges from the same cultural identifications used for the domain of music, but applied to correlations of sound and image: “counterpoint” is a higher-level interpretation that emerges over time. In being dependent on the progression of the sequence this variable connection becomes coherent following the conventions of musical form—a “visual music”—thus employing the audience's past experience and cultural expertise, i.e. reifying the same ideological basis as illustrative synchronization. It is not always an immediate or obvious linkage. In place of the directness of ‘lip-sync,’ the model for how counterpoint proceeds is “choreography/dance”—this statement is a linkage/conjunction of otherwise disparate events that the audience identifies as indirectly aligned via a limited number of emergent audible sync-points (the beat, musical phrasing, and/or instrumental performance) that complement the visual ones used by direct synchronization (motion, duration, and/or chiaroscuro), allowing sound::image to converge in the development of either the shot or the edited sequence; rhythmic montage, as employed in the title designs for Arabesque and Les Bleus de Ramville, is the most common type of counterpoint synchronization.
