In a film there are a wide range of audio methods to get the
information across to the audience or to inform what might happen next in the
film. Each film I will look will consist of either Spoken Word (Dialogue),
Sound Fx or Music and I will be looking at the audio used in that clip/scene of
the film.
Children of Men (Car scene)
Dialogue:
Within the Car scene of children of men there is a variety of
different audio effects used to show information about the character and what
might happen in the future. The Dialogue is the most prominent sound at the
start of the clip as it’s when we get to know the relationship between each
character. It is naturalistic conversation as it is a type of dialogue that you
would realistically talk about in a car and through this dialogue we get to
know the history between the characters when they talk to each other for
example when Julian said to Mariam and Theo “He always snores” this suggests
tat they’ve had a romantic relationship in the past. Towards the end, the
dialogue is also a emotional realism (1m37s – 2m47s) as each character
highlights fear and panic when the car comes rolling down the hill so this
emotional realism when Luke said ‘We aren’t gonna make it, We aren’t gonna make
it” (1m28 – 1m31s) suggests that something terrible is about to happen in the
scene but also supports the action throughout the scene as they have no idea
what’s going on and all sound really scared and shocked by what’s happened.
There are also parts of the scene where they have used Functional dialogue to
help with the narrative of the scene for example Mariam said “Look out!” (1m20s
– 1m28s) as the car came tumbling down this was to alert us that something was
ahead of the road.
Music:
The music that is played in the background creates a sense of
atmosphere that is displayed throughout the scene. At the beginning of the
scene the music creates a calm atmosphere, which is displayed by the way each
of the characters react and talk to each other at the start as they’re all
happy and joking around and telling stories to each other. The music on the
radio is digetic music but also an establishing sound, which can be heard in
the background whilst driving, Digetic music is music that would realistically
be used in that situation in a car and its an establishing sound as it set the
mood and tone of the whole scene. The genre of music you can hear on the radio
is pop/country style as its tone is upbeat, fun and something that would
typically be on the radio. Throughout the scene the music on the radio is at a
low level so that we can hear the conversations between Kee, Mariam, Julian and
Theo talking and even lower when all the action happens but the music is played
throughout the entire scene. The song on the radio also creates pace and rhythm
in the scene and will most likely end up in some sort of action as the music is
upbeat, we would think this because the music is fast paced.
Sound FX:
Most of the sound fx that were being used in the scene were after
the burning car rolled down which connotes that something bad will happen and
that they aren't alone. There are a variety of different Sound effects used in
the action scene such as the gunshots to implement that someone is targeting
them in the woods, glass smashing which could connote that someone has been
shot through the glass and that things are getting out of hand. There is also
some ambient sound effects used such as birds chirping at the end of the scene
to represent that the action has stopped and everything is going to become
calmer. The sound effects are also hyper-real as their exaggerated and are a
lot louder than they should be, this is so that the person knows that its one
of the main action scenes that take place in the film, however this is not
realistic as the sound has been increased to make the gunshots and the rest of
the sound fx more dominant over the other sounds around.
The Hangover Part II (Dads Heart Attack)
Music + Dialogue:
At the start of the scene we hear happy non-digetic music playing
in the background whilst Alan is driving home from the zoo with his pet
giraffe. The music playing in the background in the scene is current pop music
that would be played on the radio this is done to tell the audience its in a
modern society with current music. When the giraffes head is chopped off the
music immediately goes silent so that we could hear all the sound effects that
Alan is hearing such as the breaking cars, pipes tumbling down a truck to
create a realistic sounds as the giraffes head goes onto a moving car. After
this scene we see Alan and his dad having a angry conversation where he is
ignorant of the situation that his dad is saying about the issue of the dead
giraffe. We see that Alan is ignorant as he said “oh please! Were Rich!” this
connotes that he doesn’t care about the situation and thinks that his dad could
deal with this situation with their money. This would be considered as a
Naturalistic dialogue as the dialogue between each of them is realistic and
would be something a parent would say to a child, However, Alan’s dad is
treating Alan as a child as he has said “Your my best friend” this suggests
that Alan is a child who has no friends and stays at home with his parents and
so this Dialogue between the characters could also be Anti-realistic as the
parent is talking to an adult but is dealing with the situation as you would
with a child and so Alan is treated like a child. After this conversation Alan
puts on his headphones with the music turned up so loud that he couldn't hear
his dad having a heart attack and dying. The music that he was playing in his
headphones was emotional realism as it gave the audience what the mood of his
current situation was as the music played had lyrics such as "Go ahead
with your life and leave me alone" this suggests that he didn’t want to be
disturbed and was angry with his dad.
Sound Effects:
Nearly all of the sound effects happen at the start of the
scene/clip to show what has happened and how it will be resolved in the future.
Every sound effect we see in this scene is a synchronous effect, which means
you are able to see the cause of the sound effects that are happening. In the
beginning we hear the giraffes head being chopped of and being flew into another
person car, after this we see the persons window being smashed as you can hear
the smashing of the glass and the person being scared as they were screaming
inside the car. After this incident, we hear all the cars breaking steadily and
into each other which is can be considered as a sound bridge as the sound
effects overlap each other whilst the cars crash into each other and the pipes
comes tumbling down the truck. The sound effects would not be considered as
hyper-real as their just sound effects that happened in the background and
would not be over-exaggerated.
