#3 Forbidden lies

The film can be divided into two parts, the first part is re-enhancement of the book, the second part is the reality when narrator and interviewees talking about the book. I am going to analysis the details  of the audio of  Forbidden Lies, Anna Broinowski’s 2007 film.

Re-enhancement

The beginning of the movie mutes the original ambient sound and dialogue instead of music. The background music has a love theme with a delightful melody and the lyrics singing love, it plays a significant role in the transmission of the plot and this scene looks like a music video. In terms of sound effect, the sound effects of birds are used to add edition tone and romantic atmosphere of the re-enhancement of the love story. Then there is a twisted screen transition to switch to the next scene and it combines a screen transition sound.  I guess the sound effect is made of at least two different sound in order to provide a rich frequency range of the sound, the first part of the sound is aeolian bells, and the second part is harp arpeggios. This sound effect is created by the sound designer and the sound is off the scene that is not really there. The music fades out when the sound effect comes.  This sound is matching the background music we hear. Overall, there is no gap between them and it is natural.

Then the sound effect of the car is added in the post-production stage, but I did not hear the sound of cars in the next shot because the director may want to make the next sound effect standing out.  There is a whoosh sound when the actress drops scarf, the sound is not really there. The sound designer may shake fabric when recording the sound and when it comes to post-production stage, the sound designer increases reverberation making the sound more three-dimensional. Then the scarf falls on the ground, there is a hit sound, apparently scarf falling on the ground must not have a sound of heavy objects falling and hitting sound, perhaps it is to highlight the sense of relief.

Then it cut to the scene of dessert, there is the windy environment sound effect. Next, the actress walks to backstage, then she disappears with the sound of opening the book. After that, the film cut to the reality plus a clicking button sound and the music stops without fade out, which wakes the audience up off the dream.

Reality:

The film switched to reality,  a woman presents the book then cut to the graphic of the book cover with a transition sound effect which made of the sound of the bell. The rest of the film uses documentary recording technique which is sync recording. Furthermore, the ambient sound is used during the interviews. It contrasts the unrealistic sound in the opening scene.

In 1 minute 40 seconds, the film uses sound as well as the visual transition by using cut across technique, which two characters have the same action .  Moving map uses whoosh sound and it is similar to the sound of dropping scarf, which makes the moving action more interesting.

After 2: 26, there is a lively music with a bright and spirited rhythm showing the pass of time, combine some simple little sound such as camera shutter sound, whoosh sound, the coin dropping on a wooden table and the rolling sound, the sound of the cigarette lighter and the sound of opening the book.

In 3: 16, the cartoon-style sound helps to transit shot as the narrator talks about bars, later on, the reverse shot of the building construction uses animated sound as well, which adds a sense of humor of the documentary. All of the sound effects help to build a storytelling style.

#5 Taxi driver analysis

I am writing a reflection of the scene from the 1976 Martin Scorsese film taxi driver in RMIT building 100.

My tutor Paul has selected this scene from20:06 to 23:30, it is talking about the driver Travis walking into Betsy’s office and interrupt a conversation between Tom and Betsy. Travis tells to Betsy that he wants to volunteer to her and then invites Betsy to have a coffee outside; at the same time Tom is watching them.

These are three Characters ：

Male officer: Tom

Taxi driver: Travis

Female officer: Betsy

These are screenshot to display every single shot.

Outside:

Shot 1: CU camera focus on Travis.

Shot 2: tracking across Travis, long shot, background noise sound effect of closing cab door. The sound of footstep: from close-by to far off.

Inside:

Shot 3: MS; Travis comes into office. The camera is tracking him. Background noise phones ringing people talking sound of the footstep.

Shot 4: Travis’s view, the camera moving towards Tom and Betsy and stops at CU of Betsy. Medium angle.

Shot 5: dirty OTS; MS; low angle, three people in one frame. Then, tom walks away out of frame.

Shot 6: CU

Shot 7: MS; tracking in. Tom is moving out of frame.

Shot 8: OTS CU

Shot 9: MS, Tom is watching a while as background and moving towards Travis and Betsy then walking out of frame.

Shot 10: bird eye looks down of the desk.

Outside:Shot 11: MS; tracking across, Jazz music.

It is very interesting that Tom shows up in the background for three times during the dialogue between Travis and Betsy.

I am wondering how they set up cameras and How many times the actors performing If they shot only one time how they mise-en-scene.

This is my guess about the camera setting.

I did research before I start writing this reflection and shot by shot analysis, I watched this movie online with Chinese subtitle which gives me a better understanding of this film. After that I took screenshots of each shot, then I analyse the scene by using this method.

There are several movements of cameras which include tracking in/out tracking across, multiple types of shot like over the shoulder shots, and angled shots like bird eye looks down of the desk. The film editor combines different shots（angles, types, sizes）together to show both sides of a conversation between Travis and Betsy.

In terms of clothing, Betsy and Travis all wear red color which is warm. On the contrary, Tom wears cold blue color. It is easy to distinguish two main characters and warm color makes them stand out of the frame.

Lines: the lines of Travis shows that Betsy is his love interest.