Analysis3-SaraT

Time Persists

Yes, there is dialogue in the film.
Before the kids confront the adults, the dialogue is happening at the same time as other sounds going on. There are also times where dialogue is purposefully cute while one is speaking. When the kids confront the adults, the dialogue is much more upfront. It carries a lot more weight at this point.
The dialogue’s pace changes during the piece. In the beginning, the dialogue isn’t strained and it happens more in the background, for the words are words of play and do not really mean much other than that. When the kids begin to confront the adults, the pace changes. The dialogue is delivered much faster and in the foreground.
The visual edits follow who is speaking at the time. When one person is speaking, the camera is in their general area. When the main conflict is happening, the camera isn’t always on just the speaker at the time, sometimes the camera is on the whole group while one speaks.

Yes, there are sound effects in the film.
There are noises that come from the setting, a prominent sound is the sound of the kid’s feet crunching in the leaves. Other sounds of the kids drawing their weapons are very prominent as well.
The sounds of leaves crunching establish the setting of the film. The kids taking out their toys matched with the sounds of drawing weapons serves to tell the viewer that to the kids, the toys are their weapons.
The dramatic sounds contrasted with the child-like visuals overall contributes to the feelings of desperation the children feel when gripping onto their youthfulness. If there were no sounds, nobody would understand the desperation.

Yes, there is instrumental and vocal versions of the same tune. A children’s xylophone is used to play the tune at the beginning of the film. It is a children’s lullaby, “hush little baby…”. The rhythm is eery and slow in both cases.
The music is used at the forefront during the beginning of the film and at the end, but there is a moment where the xylophone music is also in the background of the film.
I think that the music changing from just instrumental to lyrical represents the change from childhood to adulthood. When you’re a child, the tune is what stands out before the lyrics, but adults are typically the ones to sing the lyrics to their own children, so I think this change very much represents the girl who decided to leave her friends and “grow up”. The eery xylophone instrumental in the beginning also contrasts the happy images of children playing.

Overall the sound design serves the film by exaggerating sounds that wouldn’t otherwise be heard. The music is added to unsettle the viewers and make them feel the fear that is associated with growing up.
The eery music paired with harmless imagery of child’s play warns the viewers that something bad is bound to happen. This provokes a sort of anxiety in the viewers, making them wonder what could happen. Adding the weapons sounds with the children’s toys makes the viewers feel that maintaining childhood is very important to the children in the film.
The tone of the film is mostly reflected in the music. The sounds of leaves crunching really only served to put the viewer in the setting. The eery music and the angry dialogue during the conflict is what gave the viewers a mournful feeling for the deaths of these children’s childhoods. I’ve seen many other movies that use the children’s tune that involves murder and death, so it already leads a lot of people to see that the style of this motion picture is one of sorrow.

Joe

Yes, this film is almost entirely built on effects.
A lot of the sounds are prominently heard, especially the shoe shining, the white stuff dripping, and the shoes squeaking and moving about. Other sounds like people sighing and rubbing their faces are heard, but not as prominent.
The obsessive sounds from the shoes, the squeaking, and shining, indicate to the viewers that the shoes hold great value to the main character. The exaggerated sounds of the white stuff dripping also serve to inform the reader that this liquid being spilled onto the shoes is very bad.
Overall, since all of the sounds are very exaggerated, this makes the viewers feel the anxiety/discomfort that the main character is experiencing. So overall the general feeling trying to be conveyed is discomfort.

In the intro and ending of the film music is heard. It is a harmonica/country sounding piece. It has a steady rhythm.
In the intro, the music is heard behind the sound effect of the man shining his shoes. In the end/credits, the music is placed at the foreground, which isn’t uncommon.
The music doesn’t really add to the plot of the story itself, it is used to signify the end of the film since it only plays in the beginning and then at the end.

Overall, since each sound heard in the film is exaggerated and the forefront, it is the entirety of the drama in the film, especially since no one is speaking at all.
Since the film is in black and white, it is clear that the purpose of the piece is to try and remove as many visual elements as possible from the viewer, so that the viewers really focus on the sound. With a lot of our senses taken from, the sound is really how we interact with this film. So when the sounds are really annoying, we will become much more easily provoked to this sound. Given that the setting is some sort of stay in the hospital, these types of sounds may, in fact, upset the main character of the film more easily, so but making it easier for us to feel the emotions the sounds give us, it is easier to relate and feel the same frustrations as the main character.
The nature of the sound effects themselves is what created the style of the motion picture. This was a piece where we experienced a day in the life of the main character. The fact the sounds were the main focus of the piece let us know that something about sounds is what motivated the character of the film in the first place. The colors of the film didn’t matter, it was only the sound information and basic visual cues we needed.