Analysis/Reflection 4 Film/TV 2 Question 1

In this clip from Forbidden Lies, Anna Broinowski’s 2007 film: describe in detail all of the audio, how it may have been recorded/sourced and how you think it has been edited / layered in post. (You do not need to describe how the music was recorded)

 

To first analyse the audio used in this excerpt, i feel it is important to distinguish between the two distinct segments of the excerpt; The first being the dramatic reenactment of Nourma Khouri’s story and the second being the commencement of the interview segment.

For the reenactment, it is clear that Broinowski utilised a musical score as the background track for the reenactment with additional SFX sounds to embelish and dramatise key moments of the piece that work as poetic devices for the story being reenacted. Such moments were the sound of birds chirping, the ‘twinkle’ sound shown in conjunction with the animated twinkle on the main character’s teeth, the revving sound of the car as the couple drive off into an unknown space, the throwing of the lead actresses’ scarf and the sound of impact it makes. It is clear in viewing the placement of the sounds and the exaggeration of their sonic elements (such as the heavy thud of the scarf, the desynchronised revving of the car with its motion), that the sounds added to the reenactment were most likely recorded elsewhere and concurrently added to the piece in post. They were most likely sounds of foley recorded separately or sourced from a sound-bank.  In editing, they would have most likely been layered over the music track with a larger proportion of the mix volume being allocated to their presence.

 

The final signifying transition to the interview segment utilised this pattern of SFX implementation however there is a distinction when it transfers over to the interview segment (with the sound of the clapped frame and the disintegration of the actor in the desert background). In the interview segments, the similar SFX sounds used are clearly distinguishable as non-diegetic sounds as the stand as almost accentuations of key moments in the interview (such as the interviewer making a dramatic point). In layering, it seems imperative that the interviewee’s dialogue is layered primarily as the backing track, most likely being recorded from the premeditated interview segments shown at moments through the piece. The use of the SFX is layered in such a way that it is synchronised with the visual transitions  during the sequence (such as the jump from the interview to image segments showing excerpt images of the book’s cover) However, an additional layer of sound heard is the general background noise that is shown at certain moments of free-form filming; one such moment being the interviewee’s movement in the outdoors. This layer of audio is clearly distinguishable from the SFX due to indicators such as sound quality, mix levels and intelligibility. As such, it alludes to the possibility that it has been recorded live on set during the free-form filming moments.