Fight Scene from Movie Snatch (2001)

Here is a youtube link to the scene:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M28xmFhPt-A

In Guy Ritchie’s movie Snatch, there is a fight scene where Mickey the Pikey (played by Brad Pitt) has to fight a big boxer in an underground fight club. The fight scene is very intense because a group of gangsters and boxing promoters need Mickey to lose. As a gypsy, there is no telling if Mickey is going to listen to instructions and lose or do this his own way. Suspense is enhanced through the sounds within the scene.

The sounds in this scene are what make the scene what it is. Every single sound choice has been carefully thought out and attention to detail definitely paid off. Specific sounds stand out at certain points within the scene, helping to provoke a certain mood that matches the setting. There is an extreme, underground, fight club feel that is largely created as a result of the chosen sounds. Loud, rowdy, yelling, cheering crowds of men is a constant noise that fills the scene. Spitting, punching, heavy breathing, and the boxing bell are some of the main diegetic sounds that are stressed within the scene. It is when these noises are removed, that parts of the scene become more emphasized. An upbeat, rock tune is played as non-diegetic music and is constantly added and taken away throughout the scene. This choice of music contributes to the chaotic feeling of the setting, but also serves as a tool to change which character’s perspective the audience is paying attention to. When all of these emphasized sounds are played, single lines are more drowned out, suggesting they are not that important. For example, it is difficult to hear what the ref says before they fight; however anyone who has ever watched sports would have a basic idea.

The scene begins with Mickey entering the ring to the non-diegetic, upbeat, rock music accompanied by the ambient, cheering crowd of men in the background. This gives off a very disorderly feeling as the other fighter enters the ring. During the fight, the sound of the bell and the sharp punching thuds stand out among the layers of noises. It is clear that these noises have purposely been highlighted because in reality a punch would not be heard over a loud, cheering crowd. It is also interesting to see that within this scene, a powerful diegetic sound often changes the non-diegetic sounds completely. For example, when Mickey throws the first punch, striking the other fighter in the face and causing him to fall to the ground, the non-diegetic music stops immediately after the thud sound of the hit. The audience knows Mickey is not supposed to win, so the absence of music and distant sounding crowd adds to the tension of the moment. Eventually the slow motion returns to normal speed, however the sound layout is now different than it was before. The crowd is heard but the music is gone, creating a feeling that something important is about to happen. Since the audience knows the music should be there, suspense is created because the overall sound has not completely gone back to the way they initially was.

To enhance the feeling of the space being dirty, as it is a fight club filled with lots of men, beer, sweat, blood, etc. the cacophonous sounds stand out. For example, whenever someone spits, it is clearly heard over everything else just like the sound from the punches. By this point of the scene the sound has changed again. Mickey and the fighter jab back and forth until the fighter hits Mickey with a punch that is louder than the rest, again altering the non-diegetic sounds by triggering the rock music to disappear from the scene. Once again, these sound decisions change the way this scene is viewed. As the layers of noise were building up, so did the chaos of the scene. These sounds built up until the climax was not the combination of all the noises but rather the surprise of the rock music suddenly stopping again and the bell becoming the single noise that is heard. In a way the bell is sort of narrating that Mickey has had too much to handle. This would make sense because at this point, the scene takes another turn as the sounds once again change our perception of the situation. The sounds make it seem as though we are now inside Mickey’s head. This part of the scene is made up of fast cuts showing the fight and sharp quick noises that accompany each shot. The sounds are robotic noises that complement the idea that the fight is heating up. This change in sounds keeps the fight interesting by portraying it in a different way. The collaboration of these sharp, distorted noises and quick cuts of hits and punches cause the viewer to see the fight the way Mickey sees it. The change in sound style shifts the character’s perspective that the audience is thinking about. Since the crowd can’t be heard, you feel inside Mickey’s head, as he is not focusing on the people around him but rather the fast moving task at hand.

Again the bell serves as another sound transition point, causing the sounds to go back to the way they were before these fast-action, robotic sounds. Compared to the quick, robotic sounds, the noises now seem a lot less intense and drawn out. The bell brings back the non-diegetic rock music and we can once again hear the diegetic ambient crowd. It no longer feels as though we are inside of a character’s head. As the fight gets more frenzied, the sound of the crowd fades out until the rock music is the only thing that can be heard. People’s lips are moving, water is being poured on Mickey to wash off the blood, and Mickey even spits, yet these sounds are muted. This is due to the important line one of the characters needs to say, which needs to stand out from everything that has been going on in this scene. As the character says these important lines to Mickey, some words become echoed. The echoed words come in and out and sound distant, suggesting Mickey is not fully listening to the important instructions about botching the fight. Eventually the rock music becomes louder which draws our attention back to the actual physical fight. The sounds of the punches are echoed and nothing else (not even the crowd) can be heard.

Surprise is created when; again, the rock music stops abruptly without the prompting of a diegetic noise. The scene is filled with the fast cutting style of camera shots that was used earlier, but the sounds are more brutal than the first time’s robotic sounds. This time, vile breaking and cracking sounds accompany the fast cuts, making the punches appear to be at their most painful yet. Finally, one of the punching sounds is contrasted against the fast cuts by being long and drawn out. An echo holds this sound as the scene turns to slow motion, following Mickey flying through the air as a result of the powerful hit. Once again, the contrast of fast sounds to a slow sound provides suspense. This is because the audience now has to be patient immediately after being excited from the fast action fight. There is anticipation of the painful sound that will be heard when Mickey hits the floor. Since the shot does not show how far off the ground he is, Mickey could hit the floor with a loud ‘boom’ at any moment. Again, we are surprised when the sound of Mickey hitting the floor is the exact opposite of the sound expected. This keeps the scene exciting and interesting. The sound of Mickey hitting the floor is a soft splash as the image changes to an abstract shot of Mickey falling under water. The sounds that play as he is under water are completely opposite to the main sounds that have played throughout the scene so far. Under water, the sounds are calm, deserted, bubbly, echoes.

This part of the scene is very interesting because quick cuts back and forth between Mickey under water and the fight are shown and are strongly contrasted through the different noises they consist of. It creates an interesting comparison between inside Mickey’s mindset and from an onlooker’s point of view. The calm, underwater echo is so different from the loud, obnoxious crowd and punching sounds.

Guy Ritchie uses sound to manipulate the point of view in which the viewer sees the scene and the perspective they are focused on. Although they don’t see exactly through Mickey’s eyes (because they are still able to see him) the sound allows the viewer to understand what he is seeing and feeling. Ritchie uses sound to let the audience sympathize with perspectives, understand moods, see the scene in many different ways, and notice things in a scene that one wouldn’t normally notice. In this scene, sound emphasizes things through its relation to other sounds.

The final punch of the scene begins with the echoing sound of Mickey’s wind up and hit, but is intensified through the cut off of the remainder of the echo. It is cut off by a silence for the line, “Now we are fucked.” This has to be emphasized because the audience needs to be aware of how much trouble there is going to be now that Mickey knocked out his opponent and won the fight.

The sounds in this scene have all been carefully thought out and placed with an understanding of their relation to both the visual aspect as well as the other sounds of the scene. They helped make this scene extremely entertaining and powerful.

Griffintown Soundwalk

I went to do the soundwalk on a beautiful, sunny Thursday afternoon with a group of soundwalk classmates. At first, we were not too excited about this assignment, as we were already frustrated by our troubles with finding the starting location. We had accidentally walk

ed up a hill in the completely wrong direction only to realize that Griffintown was on the very other end of the Peel. Being slightly bitter by the time we actually started the soundwalk assignment, it was hard to get into the excitement of the assignment. We had no idea what the point of this walk was, why we were doing it, or how it related to sound class.

Things changed when the people on the tracks began to tell their stories. I immediately became absorbed in the history and energized about the idea of this walk. It reminded me of when grandparents tell you stories about their childhood and you are forming a picture in your head, only in this case you don’t have to worry about the image because you are surrounded by it. I found that this gave me more freedom to focus on my other senses such as sound. Since I was actually immersed in the setting and u

sing what I saw to picture the past, I still needed to imagine the sounds, which was more difficult than one might think. This is because the speeding cars and large trucks of today are much different than the noises that would have been carried out in the exact same location many years ago. Back then, I imagine horse hooves on cobblestone, children laughing and running in the streets, and adults having friendly chats as they pass by each other on their way to work or the store. Today Griffintown is very abandoned and there are loud cars rather than horses, which changed the imagery of the stories told in the soundwalk.

I enjoyed many of the stories that were told. You could really feel the emotion in the storyteller’s voices as they recounted the stories from their past. For example, when the man told stories of hanging off of the edge of the brewery or getting candy bars from Lowney Chocolates, you could hear the joy in his voice from remembering his mischievous childhood days. This also meant you could hear the sadness in their voice when they spoke of memories that were not so cheerful. For example, the story of the church being torn down was clearly emotional for the storytellers, which was a

strong indicator of how much they loved that church and how much it was apart of their life in Griffintown. One of my favourite stories was the one about the plane crash. I found it so fascinating that every single narrator could remember exactly what he or she were doing at the time of the crash right down to the detail of the colour of the pot they were picking up when it happened, “I picked the teapot up, it was a green teapot.” It reminds me of the way that everyone remembers exactly what they were doing when 9/11 happened. This story was interesting to listen to and I found that I was listening to every person tell their side of the story word for word.

The sound effects that were implemented into the tracks were very helpful when it came time to appreciate the value of each location in Griffintown. They accompanied the narratives very well as they emphasized the feeling that storyteller really wanted you to feel. Every once in a while, it was nice to stop and take in my own present day sound effects just to contrast to how lively Griffintown must have once been. Even though looking at Griffintown from a present day perspective is interesting because it makes you curious as to how people went about their everyday lives in this community, the narrative does an extremely great job of helping you realize that it was a bittersweet place to live. It was wonderful, yet it was a difficult place and time to live in. For example, I really liked how it was a small community where everyone seemed to know everyone. In part 8 one of the women explained how, “the women used to hang out the window, like this, and talk to each other.” I thought this painted a great picture of the beauty of everyone knowing each other. Yet, the poverty is also clearly noted and reminds us of how lucky we are today.

Overall, I thought this walk was extremely interesting, exciting, and entertaining. It was very educational as I learned many things about the little, deserted community of Griffintown, as well a lot of history about Montreal. I also liked how for once, when a story is being told, you are actually immersed into the setting of the story and the imagery you need to create is already taken care of. This leaves room for the imagination to explore the possible sounds that could have taken place and compare them to the sounds of today. Besides the sounds provided through the headphones, much is left up to the imagination depending on where you are looking, what you are focusing on in the area, and what you are thinking about. This was one of the most interesting assignments I have yet to do, and I feel that I have learned a lot from it.

Sound Assignment 1: Summary

The general area where I recorded my sounds was NDG. My first sound walk was on a cold, calm day in a nearby park, in hopes of recording simple, natural, ambient and isolated sounds. Although I was able to record cars whizzing by and snow crunching under my feet, I realized that in the winter everything is very dead. Thus, I decided that a lot of the sounds on this walk needed to be provoked by me. Throughout this walk, I rustled garbage bags, tapped on fences, and kicked empty cups. I noticed a trash-theme throughout my sounds, perhaps because trash is partial to the area. After all, the park is located near a school full of children, a playground full of families, and possibly homeless people at night.

Although I was able to capture many noises, I struggled with understanding if these noises were isolated or ambient. Many noises that I intended to be isolated had other faint background noises that made them possibly ambient, and the ones intended to be ambient, I wondered if there mixture of sounds were enough to make them ambient. In Stanley Alten’s “Part One: Principles” article, he mentions that, “Sound is omnidirectional; it is everywhere.” This idea backs up the fact that pure, isolated, outdoor sounds are difficult to attain.

Since I still had questions and doubts about my sounds, I set out on another sound walk along the busy, main street of Sherbrooke Ouest. The wide variety of unique sounds drew me to this location. The main sounds I captured on this street were the obvious ticking crosswalks and driving, honking cars and buses. I was also able to capture unexpected noises such as telephone booth sounds, shopping carts, water trickling into a sewage system, glass bottles, etc.

In both locations a lot of talking and ambient voices could be heard, which was a hard obstacle to work around. A sound that I would have liked to capture but did not was wind because I found this one to be a challenge. My recordings of it always sounded like a mistake as if I was trying to record another noise that just wasn’t there. Even after my second sound walk, I did not feel confident in my library of sounds. I felt that they were too typical. I wanted rare noises that are not always heard every time you step outside. I started thinking through the perspective of a homeless person because they would be very familiar with constant, outdoor sounds of the city. I brainstormed a list of sounds that I believed a homeless person might notice daily but we forget about such as, dropping coins, the click of a lighter, rustling newspapers, clinking metal, etc. After getting all of my sounds from the park, the street, and the perspective of a homeless person, I felt that my NDG sound collection was complete!

I was always cautious of the microphone placement when recording, since these outdoor sounds were already sensitive to other noises. I wanted to avoid microphone handling as much as possible and therefore found that using the grey clip on device to hold it by was helpful in terms of keeping the microphone stable. I also found that getting isolated sounds outside was difficult. At times I was tempted to take portable sounds that could be heard outside and record them inside so they could be heard best, however I thought the ones recorded inside would be distinctly different and ruin the flow. They would be missing faint components such as background wind that provides an outdoor feeling.

All of my sounds’ timing is based on the middle of the day. If recorded at night instead of day, the busy street life and human-provoked sounds would not be as frequent. Some sounds, such as a glass bottle being kicked, would have a different feel because of the change in other factors surrounding it. For example, the dead sound of the night would most likely make the sound more creepy or suspenseful.

The weather also impacts the results of my sounds. Since none of these locations are sheltered, a very high wind would majorly affect these sounds. Luckily, my sound walk days had very calm winds. Also, since many of these sounds were human-provoked they could not always be guaranteed to be present if someone else were to take the same sound walk route. For future recordings, the time of day, weather, and what objects one might come across on the walk are major factors for future recordings.

Though my narrative was initially intended to be the day in the life of a homeless person, as I used this perspective when I gathered some of my noises, the narrative ended up sounding like an average person getting off of a bus, coming across an empty bottle, throwing it out, and then attempting to make a phone booth call. Though simple, I think it depicts a day in the life of a good person!

Important Noises In My Daily Routine

It is a funny thing when suddenly your brain clues into the sound of a subconscious noise that has been recurring in your life for as long as you can remember. In fact, it is almost annoying as this realization spawns an epidemical awareness of the exact sound that assists this habitual daily activity. I find that these realizations of certain sounds are usually provoked by the sudden detection of certain characteristics such as repetition, volume, exclusivity, etc.

I have noticed that in the morning, there is a noise that my brain seems to automatically listen for. No, I am not talking about the loathsome, pitchy jingle of my phone’s alarm waking me up, but rather a noise that is quite the opposite due to its deepness in comparison. This obnoxious sound is the loud slam of my bedroom’s door. Living in Hingston Hall with heavy doors and echoing hallways, it is difficult to avoid the loud smashing noise of metal slamming on metal as you let the door go. Of course one could always hold the door and slowly shut it, attempting to confine as much noise as possible, but this act is often a hard one to remember until the damage of a loud noise is already done. The quiet mornings only emphasize the sound, isolating this noise in my series of morning noises. By standing out, it is safe to say this is an important noise in my life. Every morning this noise grabs my attention in two ways. Firstly, as I leave my room for the bathroom, my groggy state allows me to forget the loud, smashing echo that is to come once I am a few steps from my room. Although my phone physically awakens me, it is this screaming resonance that mentally tells me to ‘rise and shine.’ This sound is important in my daily routine, as it has almost become a necessity to my mornings. Secondly, the recollection of this noise fills my thoughts as I reenter my room, in hopes of not ever letting it happen again. Although I promise myself to gently close my door for the rest of my life, I have come to terms that this sequence of events and thoughts is inevitably going to happen again the following morning.

Due to the amazing technology of our day, blackberries have made the sound of little typing keys a constant noise that is carried out in my daily life. Blackberries provide us with the ability to access friends and family not only through phone calls but as well, through texting, facebook, e-mail, blackberry messenger, etc. It is amazing to think that if one form of communication fails, there are always several other options my cellular device has to offer. Unfortunately, this increases the amount of time spent on my phone, therefore increasing the faint noise of clicking buttons underneath my nails. The sound of little clicking keys on my blackberry is an interesting noise due to the amount of times it can be heard throughout the day. It was not until I was in a room where someone was quietly napping, that I realized even this subtle ‘tick, click, click-click, tick’ sound can gain significance not through volume but rather repetition.

The high beep that is triggered by my access card when held next to the lock to get into residents is one of the most important sounds within my day. I enjoy this sound because it represents success. This smooth beep lets me know I have been accepted! It has recognized my honesty and is rewarding me with admittance to my home. I feel relief from its approval and comfort from the fact it is always exactly the same pitch. This pitch is almost like a friendly “HIII” in a beautiful G/F# (if I had to guess), like a kind mother welcoming her child home. It is the absence of this noise that is extremely displeasing. Thankfully, I am lucky to say it has never failed me (as long as I introduce it to my access key).

The pounding rhythm of my feet against the treadmill is important to me as it plays an important role in my workout routine. Sometimes it helps to pass the time when you play the game called ‘match-your-running-rhythm-to-the-beat-of–the-music’ playing inside the gym or in your head. Although there is the repetitive thud of my running shoes forcing themselves upon the surface of the moving conveyor belt, the pattern of my running feet is forever changing throughout my run. The rhythm of my feet is always trying to match the beat of the song that is playing, and the volume of the thud is dependent on the speed and weight of my step. This means that this sound that is present in my daily routine is unique everyday, since the factors are altered with every workout.

The buzzing hum of my refrigerator at night is a calming sound to go to bed too. My room is quiet and therefore this noise seems to stand out in contrast to the silence. I enjoy listening to this drone as I think about the wonders of my day and slowly drift off into a dream full of imagined noises. The low buzz of my fridge is an important part of my daily routine because sleeping is the final step of my daily routine. This faint hum is a key noise in my set of daily noises, because it means I have finally ended me eventful day. I can only hear this noise once I am safe and sound in the comfort of my own bed, as its ability to be heard is only possible when paired with complete silence.

These five noises demonstrate the care, innovation, success, exercise and rewarding rest that all contribute to my daily life.