Sound Effect Analysis - Drive

In the scene with have to analyse a get away driver is hired to wait as two criminals commit a burglary. The driver always gives each person 5 minutes to do the Job and get back in to the car or he drives away. 

 There are many reasons for why diegetic sound use is used to create the purpose in the scene for example to build suspense. Firstly it can be used to establish the genre for the audience e.g. an easily recognisable song played on the radio and the person singing along to it could shows that it is a comedy. Secondly it can give the audience a little bit of information for example you hear on the phone that he will arrive in 5 minutes and he shouldn't be messed with tells the audience that the next guy we see on the screen is a dangerous man. Finally it can be used to simply create suspense and to entertain the audience.

In the scene there a four main sound effects which create purpose for the scene. The first effect is the ticking watch the driver puts onto his driving wheel. This creates tension as it continuously ticks down. The tension is created by the the loudness of the watch as its becomes the loudest sound in the scene. As the watch ticks down the sound gets louder as it indicates that time is nearly up for these two robbers. Gradually the sound becomes sharper creating a feel of panic in the audience as they don't want the driver to be caught by the police. 

The second effect is the police scanner. This is used to tell the audience about the police.  This should create tension among the audience especially when they hear on the police scanner that they are only 2 minutes away from the drivers location. This creates the feeling that the cops might actually catch these guys which makes the audience members start to worry for the driver. The sound gradually gets louder for the police scanner which can indicate that the police are getting closer.

The third effect is the radio. The driver turns on the radio and changes the station until he gets the basketball game. Once he gets the game he turns down the police scanner to listen to the live score. This was done on purpose to highlight the basketball game and to show that it may in fact be important later on in the movie. The basketball game is louder than the police scanner because its more important for the audience to hear the basketball game.

The fourth and final effect is environmental sounds. We have the burglary alarm which you can hear quite loudly indicates that the robbery has just started and its time for the driver to start his timer. We also have the police sirens in the distance gradually getting louder which gets both characters and audience members worried as the police are coming.

The sounds blend together very nicely as it creates this huge tension within the audience. First we start of with the music which dies down while he is strapping his watch to the driving wheel. This is unnaturally loud which indicates that this will be important soon. Then we hear the sound of the lock braking followed by the burglary alarm. These are both louder then the music which indicates the audience and the driver that the it has begun. Finally then we have the police scanner and the radio which are constantly befriended by the sound of the watch clicking.

All these sounds blended together are supposed to create tension and meaning for the audience. This is done by adding multiple sounds such as the police siren and the police radio to tell the viewer that the police are on there way. Overall the sounds are blended like layers for example the loudest (most important sound) on top and the least important sound e.g. music at the bottom. This is done to show the audience the importance of each sound in a certain scene.