JOE:

There is no dialogue in the film.

There is one track at the beginning and end of the film, and it is the same track for both. It sounds as if it is a harmonica and some sort of drum acoustics. It doesn’t play during the sound effects, other than when he is shining his shoes or walking around. It’s meant to give a relaxed feeling and let you know nothing dramatic is going to happen, and that it’s going to be a fairly lighthearted video.

There were added effects that didn’t appear to match what the actual noise would sound like, but were rather over exaggerated to give the viewer the affect that the main subject would feel. It’s almost a cowboy/western kind of song. It’s only used when he is polishing his shoes, which shows that he is happy and upbeat when he does that.

Time Persists:

The only dialogue in the film is conflictive. It’s the younger kids telling the older adults that they don’t want to grow up yet. There is also a xylophone used in the film, to symbolize their childhood still being present and the unwillingness to grow up. There are no sounds during the dialogue of the film to add weight to the importance of the dialogue. The dialogue is spread out over a period of about a minute, within the confrontational scene. It’s really exchanged between the two sides: the adults who want the kids to grow up, and the kids. However, interestingly enough, when one of the kids “grows up,” when she speaks, you cannot hear a word she says. This implies that the kids no longer understand her, because she decided to grow up while the others didn’t. The lines are spoken with a little bit of a break in between the exchanges rather than cutting rapidly back and forth to add weight to the words that each side is saying. The visual edits generally happen when the characters are exchanging words.

The only thing you can hear is the sound of the woods, and the xylophone. However, when the kids are preparing for “battle,” you can hear some of the sound effects, such as a sword being unsheathed, or bubbles being blown. Because there are really no other sound effects during the film, it adds weight to the sounds that are in it, such as the sword and the bubbles. This accentuates the childishness of the characters, and how serious they are about not growing up.

The only music we hear in the sequence is the xylophone being played with a children’s song. This adds to the accentuation of how child-like the characters are. The music is really the forefront of the sequence, even though it feels like it is in the background. It is used almost as if it is an additional character in the film.

The sound design of the film adds drama to it because it’s only used for the children. Generally when you hear a xylophone, it’s used in a horror film. It adds to how scary it is to grow up when you are on the cusp of aging. It’s meant to get us worried or anxious about growing up, and at least in my experience, it does so successfully.

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