I
have taken one of the final scenes from the film se7en as the sound is both
diegetic and non-diegetic and the sound also helps to build up the tension and
it hugely effects how the audience feels in this scene. There are also other
sound methods used in this scene.
At
the start of the scene there are many diegetic sounds such as the wind gently
blowing and the crickets in the background. The director also effectively uses
a pleonastic sound effect of the knife being opened this also then proceeds
into the sound effect of the box being opened. There is also dialog between both
the villain john doe and also the detective. There are other diegetic sounds as
well such as the helicopter just before the non-diegetic music starts, the
helicopter can also be faintly heard during the scene as another diegetic sound
as a background noise. There are other noises in this scene that tell us that
they are somewhere completely isolated. These include the sound of an old metal
fence or the telephone wires around them. We can also tell that they are
isolated from how there is no noise of traffic in the background.
Once William Summerset (Morgan Freeman) has
realized what has happened to the other detectives, David Mills’ (Brad Pitt), wife
then the non-diegetic sound comes into play with the sudden violin noises. This
excites us as the audience as we know that this kind of sharp pulling of the
strings and high pitched noise in music means that something exciting is going
to happen.
It
carries on like this building the suspension in the scene. This also has a
contrapuntal effect on the scene as it is quite off-putting how calm the
villain is in this event and in the circumstances that he is in considering
that he is being held at gunpoint. We also get an idea of this at the start
before we know that he has the upper hand. We can also start to guess that
something else had happened from the way that in the music there is the slight
sound of clicking. This is both disturbing and intriguing to the audience like
there’s something in the back of your mind but you don’t know what it is.
As
the scene proceeds we get more dialog but at one point we hear it the radio of
the helicopter to show us that if we were looking at it from just this scene
then we would know that the helicopter was working with the detectives. We can
also see at this stage that although Summerset is shouting and the
Doe is talking, Doe is still louder than Summerset's shouting in the background. This
firstly tells us that Summerset is further away but it could also be seen as
how David mills (Brad Pitt) is not really listening to Summerset and is instead
focusing on Doe and what he is saying about his wife. This effect also
makes us as an audience focus om what he is saying rather than Summerset helping
us to understand the situation better.
The
music in this part of the scene then proceeds so it is not as jumpy as before
and is instead it becomes more fluid this could represent how Mills is suddenly
realising what may of happened and it was all coming together. However, once he
has found this out it goes back to being the sudden pull of the strings except
now it is much more urgent and we know as an audience something else bad is
about to happen. This is repetitive throughout the scene with constant changing
between the sudden use of the strings to build up the tension and when
something happens it then goes much more fluidly. This happens repeatedly but
each time it becomes louder and more powerful to us as the audience building the scene up for the finale. 
The
director also uses contrapuntal sound again when Summers slaps the villain. He
does this with the sudden sound effect. The music in the scene also becomes
increasingly louder helping to build the tension. The high pitched strings in
the part when Mills has his gun pointed at the villain also increase in volume
dramatically this builds the tension a lot in the scene and engages us as the
audience again. When the high pitched noise increases towards the end of this
scene it also makes us as the audience feel uncomfortable as it isn’t a nice
noise and it is even more uncomfortable because of how in control John Doe is
in and how comfortable he looks.
When
the first shot is fired it seems to be a lot more dramatic than the others this
is partly due to the increase of suspense in the scene. The remaining gunshots
don’t seem to be as loud due to there not being as much suspense in the
build-up to the end. This is also because these shots don’t have as much effect
and meaning.
The scene
then ends of the music still playing telling us that there might still be more
to come. It also finishes with the helicopter explaining how what has happened and also the severity of the actions taken.
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