Sound Analysis: Blog Tasks :)

 Sound Analysis: Blog Task

This scene from 'Station 19' has always fascinated me because a captain that they all loved and respected sacrificed his own life to save the rest of the team. The song that is being played in the background as he is trying to break through the roof repeats the lines "Time's running out" and "You can keep running" which strongly suggests that it is inevitable that he is going to die because he is sacrificing himself for the rest of his team. However, once he falls through the roof, the music stops which successfully replicates the way his life stopped and it tells the audience that he has died. There is no music playing as the men discuss this death but a new song starts playing once the team he saved safely exit the burning building- which is a much slower and melancholy song to represent the mourning of the firefighters that lost their captain. There is repetition of the word "Love" throughout the second song which emphasises the love they all had for this captain which only accentuates the feelings of grief for the firefighters. The only non-diegetic sound we get from this scene is the music in the background but all the rest of the sound is diegetic: for example, the alarm sounds that were coming from the firefighters or the talking coming from the walkie-talkies between the firefighters. It could be said that there is contrapuntal sound in this scene because we wouldn't likely expect the song that was playing first to have many lyrics, we may expect a more slow and instrumental song to play to allow us to pay full attention to the scene instead of the lyrics of the music. The song plays as the scenes transition through all the different characters during the time of the scene: it plays while a doctor is helping a patient and while the captain was trying to break through the roof and while the firefighters were trapped inside the burning building to show that his actions were affecting everybody and everybody cared about him. There are no voice overs used in this scene and that is likely due to everyone being immersed in the captain's actions and nobody wanting to draw the attention away from the tragedy and loss they are experiencing. There isn't much dialogue in this scene but there still is a little bit- most of the communication in this scene is through facial expressions which reduces the need for dialogue (which may draw attention away from the tragedy). Even though there is only a small amount of dialogue in this scene, all of the dialogue is based around the captain's decision to sacrifice his life for the rest of the team which successfully emphasises the high significance of this moment and how their lives will revolve around him and his death for a while. Some of the sound effects in this scene could include the sound of the axe going through the roof or the fire truck sirens in the background.