Analysis of sound techniques used in the Face Off title sequence.

The following paragraphs are my analysis of the first 3 minutes of the movie face off’s title sequence. I chose to do only do the first 3 minutes as I though there where loads of interesting sound techniques used.

For the first minute or so of the face off opening sequence, we hear the soft and gentle sound of a diagetic instrumental child’s song in the back ground. This (being the first thing we hear) almost sets the scene of a calm and relaxed atmospheric place (like a child’s play area). It starts off with just a repeated music box, kind of affect but as we get in, instrumental sounds are brought in. This helps create a calm atmosphere. The sound of children’s laughter adds to the atmosphere being a calm place which we now know is a play area, but the echoing of the laughter gives the impression that it is a flash back or a past memory for one of the characters. The soft laughter of the child is also used to give the audience an idea of how happy they both are in this situation.

When the gun is pulled out by the third character which we are introduced to in the title sequence, the soft instrumental sound is replaced by a low pitch quires hum, which gives a religious and spiritual feel to the title sequence and introduces the character to be evil. The low humming sound is used to change the atmosphere of the scene and shocks the audience into thinking that a safe environment like a play area is not as safe as it seems and that now we have a rough idea of what is going to happen whiles the son and his child have no idea, making us feel as if we are now involved in the whole event, making them uncomfortable and on edge, long before they are shot.
Following that the diagetic sound of the humming, we hear the sound of the happy children’s instrumental music again but just a few seconds before the gun is fired, when he looks into the guns scope we hear a muffled gun fire which is used to prepare us for what is about to happen. We then hear a loud noise which is fades in, replacing the children’s music, and quite quickly becomes very loud. This creates another change in atmosphere and the audience now almost know what is going to happen next.

When the gun is fired we hear the loud bang from the bullet being shot and then the impact of the bullet into the father and his son, but then there is almost no sound for a couple of seconds apart from a very quiet echo of the impact. The affect of this on the audience is that almost in shock from what has happened, because all other noise is either taken away or muffled.
When the fake hours shrieks it gives the impession that we are in a battle scene, which again challenges the fact that it is a child’s play area. The hours shrieking also makes it seem as if the person being shot is almost heroically falling. This again introduces him to the audience as the good guy in the film, whereas when we are shown the person with the gun all music becomes dark and evil.
Following on from the hours, the only sound we hear is a loud high pitch violin. This could have more than one affect, the first being that the gun shot may have temporarily deafened the audience or more likely it could be trying to represent people screaming but muffled because they may trying to make it seem as if they are again in shock. As soon as we are shown the dead child on the floor, the main music which has been played mostly throughout the scene comes back again but this time slightly more dark (this being a quire in the background and a soft drum beat in the background.) this drum beat could represent the slow decreasing heart beat of the mans son, which slowly fades away into the dark music which also slowly becomes louder as the father starts to remorse over his son dying. The affect of the father crying on us as an audience is that we feel sympathy for the man.
After the man and his child are shot, we are bombarded with many sharp and un-natural noises which shriek and scream. This is used to confirm that this is the end of the battle and reflects on the horror which just happened, leaving us with the reminder of how things such as this can happen in a safe environment like a child’s play area before it jumps into the next scene.