REFLECTION Q1

In Clown Train they use sound to create a tense and stressful atmosphere. In the film we can clearly see that the main character is scared and feels wary of the clown and his actions. The music helps to emphasise this and helps the audience to understand that the clown is something to be feared. In this film I heard the screeching sounds of train tracks in the beginning to establish a known setting, whilst the screen remained black. The pairing of the screeching train wheels and the black screen immediately pinpoints to the viewer that there is something not quite right, quite shady, to come. They pair silence and dialogue together to create emphasis on the words being spoken by the two characters and this also helps to describe the tension and singularity the boy feels being alone with the clown in the non-moving carriage. Along with diagetic sounds of flickering lights and outside trains tension is built through the reality of the atmosphere and the situation. Slow, ominous sounds and small amounts of music are played in the background when the clown speaks of confusing and suggestive things towards the boy and this creates a unique filmic space because it draws you in to what he has to say and makes you, as a viewer, feel just as eery as the boy is feeling.

Other films genres that use these techniques are generally, in my opinion, thriller and horror movies. They use the same techniques of silence to create tension and diagetic sounds to pull the viewer in by creating a filmic space that can be assimilated to reality.