Homework 7 (DYM) Sound Analysis of a Title Sequence

The opening of this title sequence establishes the location, with just city diegetic sounds that you would expect to hear in this location: nothing out of the ordinary. We then hear a train passing and suddenly the volume dramatically increases and we see the train up close, and are then therefore brought into the film and are more involved than when we were watching the establishing shot.

The Bee-Gees famous track "staying alive" starts to play and so from 40 seconds in the audience know it is a musical due to the disco track being played loudly. The first diegetic sound after this is Tony's footsteps, and he walks in time to the music, giving a sense that he can almost hear it too, even though it is non-diegetic. As we watch more, we presume he is a dancer. This is also because his outfit strongly matches the disco music. 

As the music starts to get louder at around 1 minute, we start to hear noises other than Tony's footsteps, showing that he is not alone. He is still however very central in both visuals and sound; he is in the centre of the shots and his footsteps are louder than would be expected. We hear the lyric "I'm a woman's man" and from then on we see Tony turning around to stare at them, and other related actions which make us sure this lyric is about him. 

The conversation between Tony and the Pizza Lady show that he is a local and that he is known around here. By this point the audience have a strong sense of this character. This is enforced by his conversation with the man in the phone shop, he is confident, laid-back and he knows what he wants. This is the same for most of the rest of the scene until returns to work. 

We hear the car horn go and we presume he has run across the road because he is running across the road in the shots before and after this. The music quietens down as he enters work and his footsteps no longer match. The music plays very quietly under the diegetic conversation and Tony acts less how we saw him acting in street when he is at work, so we get the idea he doesn't really belong here. However he is still in his comfort zone when he tricks the woman into thinking he is giving her "a dollar off"; he is a very confident person.