Despite having Labour Day and making us miss our Monday class, it wouldn’t really be uni if we still didn’t get homework over the long weekend.

This time, we were tasked with finding parts of films, TV shows, etc. that didn’t use dialogue to tell the story. The example that we were given was a sequence from the animated film, Up (2009), which is a montage of Elle and Carl’s relationship.

(you can watch that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2bk_9T482g)

I thought that this was a really good example as it depicted (although brief) the entire timeline of their relationship from start to finish without any dialogue. However, the sequence was supported by music which played a role in supporting the visuals and the shifts in the mood (for example, the score became a little bit somber as they aged and Elle ended up in hospital).

At first, I thought that this would be an easy task since I knew of a few animated short films that have little to no dialogue (and will share later on). However, if we’re looking at live-action, there wasn’t many that came to my mind straight away that would be as exemplar as the example we were given.

After much soul (read: film) searching, I finally stumbled upon Children Of Men (2006), a film that I haven’t re-watched since Year 12 (because Year 12 Media memories). Anyway, I recalled a particular scene in that film that had very little dialogue and I thought would be a good example to share. This film is about a dystopian future where the world is on the brink of infertility. The scene I have chosen is where a miracle cease fire occurs when the sound of a baby crying echoes through a war torn environment (watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBzWTIexszQ).

The scene does include a small piece of dialogue where a solider yells, ‘Cease fire!’, when Theo Faron and Kee evacuate the building with the baby. But aside from this, the scene relies on the layering of diegetic and non-diegetic sounds. As the trio navigate through the rundown building, we can hear gunshots from the war outside, people fondling over the trio, as well as an operatic score. The sound layering helps to move the scene forward as we watch the trio silently and carefully evacuate the building while being approached by other civilians and soldiers.

Something I would like to discuss real quick is audio-visual story telling with lack of dialogue and the difference in applying this in animated and live-action films. I think that the reason why animated short films were the first movies that came into my head when I found out about this task was because to me, it seemed easier to apply this notion in animation than live action. Something I realised was that, with animation, you are in absolute control of the characters and the environment, and how they interact with each other and in their space since it’s all computer generated. They’re not real.

Whereas with live action, you’re dealing with real people – actors – whose job it is to bring these fictional characters to life. There’s less control here because actors are able to, and often expected to, have their own interpretation of the script. So having next to no dialogue makes it easier for people who make animations to control the overall presentation of the film. But with live action, there is room for improvisation while filming, which means that a word or a short line of dialogue can be sneaked in.

Anyhow, to finish this post, I’d just like to share the animated short films that didn’t make the cut. The following are links to animated shorts that contain little to no dialogue. Enjoy.

• Paperman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRl2OlyNMuc 
• Tamara: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4frsp-rR6c
• In A Heartbeat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2REkk9SCRn0