In anticipation for the upcoming season, I’ve recently revisited Westworld. This particular scene occurs twice within the season, and in each version, the stakes have changed. The scene depicts the outlaw Hector and his gang robbing the saloon – an integral narrative the characters repeat as an attraction for the visitors of Westworld. In the first robbery happening early in the season, the characters are premiering the robbery performance. In the second, the stakes have changed and the characters have become aware of the stakes, and this time the robbery is part of a ruse – their performance is trivial. I will analyse the way the use of diegetic and non diegetic sound in each clip illustrates this shift in narrative.

FIRST ROBBERY

In this robbery, we open with a cover of Paint It Black by The Rolling Stones as the menacing gang ride in to the town. The foley artists would have had a field day with this show, the gunshots along with the clinking of cowboy boots along wooden floors brings me back to The Foley Man video we watched in class. As the song builds, there in an incredible moment where Hector shoots the sheriff in the head – this action drastically changes the music and vision. The gunshot is both diegetic and non diegetic; its unsure to say whether the clash is an echo of the shot or a deep bass drum when the music begins its crescendo. The vision slows and we enter a slow motion unfurling of the mechanics of the heist. This slow motion breaks when Armistice begins firing rounds at the townspeople, nearly matching the beat of the song. Paint It Black creates a fearsome and calculated performance perfectly interwoven with action and diegetic sound.

SECOND ROBBERY

In this clip the stakes have changed as the characters are now to perform their same heist but under new circumstances. This clip is intended to make the performative duties of the park’s hosts appear trivial to the viewer at home. Thus we hear a new, less fearsome ballad – Carmen Habanera – Georges Bizet, 1875. The build of this song brings a much lighter, even comedic sense to the robbery. The producers are showing us the same scene again, but far less fearsome than the original. The action as a far slower pace, completely a slow mo, and offers more focus on the park directors. This is intended to show that the hosts are manipulating the directors right under their noses.

The use of diegetic and non diegetic sound in these two clips produce two incredible examples of how sound creates tone, even in the most similar of circumstance.

For this weeks video journal we were asked to actively watch television, and analyse any formal conventions at work. I decided to watch TV from my TV set rather than on my laptop. The physical aspect of a television is less of a ‘box’ to me, but more of a frame holding a moving image. I’ve wondered what would happen if you used a tv as a digital photo frame that never changes it’s image; would the image degenerate after burning through the LCD? Isn’t that what screensavers are for? Screensavers are also an interesting result of the constant stream that is television, as they didn’t exist until DVD. Even static is moving.

The TV sits in the corner of the living room in my sharehouse, covered in dust. We had a brief slew of watching the tennis earlier this year, but it’s main function is for background noise when my family comes to visit. Something about being in a living room with them without the tv in the background is awkward. What I focused on in my analysis was the adbreaks, more so the construction of an adbreak. I was watching channel seven at primetime when I noticed all of the adbreaks were bookended by a promotion for a network series. The sound during an adbreak was so engaging, as ads are intended to reengage the viewer who has momentarily broken their attention. I noticed that these breaks cater to our short attention spans and I wondered how many stories or how much information can we fit into a two minute adbreak? When does it become overwhelming?

Ads for me are so visceral, and the result is a huge wave of nostaliga for adbreaks from when I was a kid and actively participated in watching tv, which I no longer do. This adbreak from 2002, when I was seven, is an amazing example of the connection to tv I fondly remember but no longer experience. The ad with the butchers dancing at the end brought back a bunch of memories; the Persian carpet in our lounge room, the bulky television monitor. The same bookending conventions are at play even in the adbreak from 16 years ago.

Can we feel empathy with a television set? I think I get that feeling of when you finish a book and hold it to your chest. The book hold stories about characters you love. Do we feel the same about a television set? Holding the memories of our childhood? Are we the last generation to feel akin to a TV? Probably!