Audio Tour - Stephane Kass (2010)

Because i'm the sound recordist I thought i'd concentrate on analysing the sound aspect of each of the examples we were shown in our session. So it made the most sense to start with this one, as the film has a continuous voiceover throughout.



 

It starts with a classical piece that really sets the scene of your typical art gallery. As the audio tour voice begins the background music fades so the audience can concentrate solely on whats being said, so they know it is important. After the first strange narration, the sound suddenly becomes quite hectic. There is childrens voices in the background when it is talking about the trunk and a bell/alarm and seagulls when mentioning the painting of the ship. The voice is edited in quick cuts between each room, to empthasize the characters panic.
Once she's outside the sound calms down again, using only tweating birds in the garden. Once in the streets, the tweating birds continue to be a quite prominent sound, however when the traffic goes past it is not nearly as audible. Not quite sure why that is. It could be to keep the audience in a tranquil state, rather than depicting the harsh sounds of the traffic. It also could be so that it doesn't drowned out the voice of the audio tour.
The sound of the bicycle bell is heard before the image is shown, this gives the audience a 'heads up' of what could be explained next. This could have been done so as to keep the audience in a calm state and not surprise them with the sudden apperance of a bike. Or maybe just to add some texture to the film. The bell/siren that signals the canal boat, seems to be an exaggeration of it's size, as from what I'd gather, that noise is normally used to signal the arrival of a big boat or ferry to either alert a to bridge it needs lifting, or to alert pedestrians of its whereabouts.
All the sound is faded when the audio tour is discussing the character 'Sophie'. This is to ensure the audiences attention on what is being said and also to emphasize the sad, depressed tone of her life. As she takes the headphones off, the sound of reality returns, with the voices final words distant. I think this is an effective ending, as it depicts how she was living in a strange fantasy type world for awhile, being told all about different things, yet when it told of her life and how it is a disappointment, it brought her back to reality with the harsh noises of the world.

I enjoyed this film, as it was an interesting, original idea that had comedic moments, but ended on a serious note. It helped us to take a different look at everyday things and how we, as individual people, may be perceived. It was interesting to note how diegetic sounds were almost inaudible but there enough to keep some realism to the piece.