Use of Diegetic & Non-Diegetic Sound in Film

Use of Diegetic & Non-Diegetic

Sound in Film:

Unit 1101

Production of Soundtrack

By J.Taylor

Go

Music by BT

A black comedy tracing the outrageous misadventures of a group of American delinquents. Starring Katie Holmes, Sarah Polley and Desmond Askew. The film is set in America in the late 90's; a young girl tries to solve her rent problem by selling a few ecstasy tablets for a friend. The film takes you through an evening's event but from the perspective of 3 different people, each revealing different parts to the same story. The scenes take part in various raves, parties, cars and houses. The film contains lots of electronic dance music and uses no orchestra. Almost all the sound in the film is diegetic, for example the music heard is the music the actors are listening to at the party or the music being played across the radio. The music is however cleverly faded in certain scenes from being the music heard on the radio, to becoming the music to build hype and excitement in a very dramatic car chase. This same effect is used quite a lot in the film. When the story is told form the different perspectives, the mood of the music changes slightly although it is always electronic and usually hard techno. When the story is being told from the vengeful drug dealers view, the music is hard and aggressive showing he's on a violent mission. One character in the film eats two very strong pills and becomes extremely intoxicated, very fast erratic music is played at first to show his rushing feelings and his hyperactivity, which then turns into the Macarena as his state changes and becomes more psycodelic. This music is nondiegetic and represents the changing moods. This is one of the very few examples of nondiegetic sound in this film.

The music in this film is well produced and uses some big names, like Massive Attack. It shows the moods and the culture/society the film is set in well.

Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones

Music by John Williams (& London Symphony Orchestra)

'A Jedi Shall Not Know Anger. Nor Hatred. Nor Love.'

Anakin Skywalker shares a forbidden romance with Padmй Amidala even while his teacher's investigation of a separatist assassination attempt leads to the discovery of a secret Republican clone army. The film stars Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi, Natalie Portman as Sen. Padmй Amidala, Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker, Christopher Lee as Count Dooku/Darth Tyranus & Samuel L. Jackson as Mace Windu. The film, as with all Star Wars films, is somewhat of an epic. It has the same memorable sound as the others. It uses huge orchestras throughout the film. The music is a very important element to this film and it would be empty and not nearly as dramatic without it. Almost all music in this film is nondiegetic, in total contrast to Go, except for one or two scenes set in some alien bars with subtle freaky jazz going on in the background. The nondiegetic orchestral music in this film is virtually constant, I can't think of one point where there was background music. It blends seamlessly from scene to scene and it changes key to use the same tune to convey a completely different message. The music builds in scenes to highlight