Looking back at the Monster

by Piper Whitecotton

Storm begins with a typical horror movie intro. A couple is alone and isolated. The setting is gloomy and monotone with dull colors. The intro music is foreboding and hints that something unpleasant is to come. The plot begins when the couple hears an unknown sound and investigates. The strings’ vibrato creates suspense as the couple rushes downstairs. The music cuts out and the thunderstorm fills the background as the couple argues. Then a distinguishable thud incites the suspenseful music to resume and the couple to further investigate. The woman reaches towards the table and her hand hovers over a pair of scissors before grabbing onto a flashlight. Once again, the music cuts out when the man opens the door and the rain is the only ambient sound. When the music stops in situations like this, it creates anticipation for the audience with its eerie stillness. The viewer expects for something to jump out of that stillness, but the question is what will emerge and when. The music is generic as “composers of horror films typically avoid memorable melodies in favor of musical textures”. Researchers Meinel and Bullerjahn have also shown that audiences experience elevated stress, heart rates, and interest, when horror films contain music that is synchronized to the film’s images.

The thunder and music become one as the couple starts to panic as their house is bombarded with mysterious banging noises. The intruder circles the couple as if eyeing its prey and delighting in their fear. The woman glances over while the music crescendos.  Her eyes are full of fear and confusion: she doesn’t understand the intruder. Here the audience starts to question the nature of the threat and its identity. The couple does not exude the petrified fear that if a killer was chasing them, even having the nerve to try and talk to them and tell them off for following them. Every time the intruder relocated with a hard cut the couple identifies them. 

The director then makes an interesting creative choice: the terrified couple in hiding shifts the mindset of the viewers. The woman says, “they are watching us” and the man replies, “like in a movie.”  This completely flips the audience’s perspective. As an audience member, I had just assumed that the camera was acting as the eyes of the intruder, but with these words, the identity of the intruder became more complex. The woman knew we were watching her and breaks the fourth wall. The intruder, now known as the camera, follows them throughout their house as an all-seeing eye. The camera displays a quirky personality that loves to tease the couple almost in jest, adding to the comedic aspect of the film. While the couple tries to end the film by doing nothing to further the plot, the camera goes along with the idea by fading out the screen as if to end the film, only to return in full force with the music. The music seems to not have had the same revelation as the woman and is anempathic to the situation. The camera takes pleasure in the couple’s fear and displays voyeurism at its finest, stalking the couple and observing the couple’s stimulating story without their consent. They are like a predator, hungry for a story, and the couple is their prey. 

Now that the fourth wall is completely broken, the woman does not hold back, telling the audience and camera to leave as they have no story to tell. “We are just two ordinary people in the middle of a storm.” The couple becomes separated as they are transported to separate rooms, enacting the horror movie cliche of a couple’s separation. Lupkin’s critical essay refers to the cliche horror tropes apparent in this film such as this one. I agree that “when characters get separated”, it can “ heighten suspense” as part of the “mechanism that makes a good horror movie” and adds to the comedic element. The woman is furious with her situation and being forced into the plot of a horror movie.

She is bombarded with subtitles and forced into a classic horror filter. She decides to turn the tables and pursue the monster herself. She calls the viewers out for watching them and asks what they want from them; she exposes the viewers as monsters for being complicit with their treatment and taking joy from her pain. She tries to escape her fate and avoid picking up the scissors, but they surround her, leaving her no choice. In an ironic twist the scissors, which she grabbed to protect herself, led to the death of her lover. Satisfied with the pain caused and the story attained, the camera leaves the woman to her suffering.

Clocks are an invention; there is more to time than seconds

by Bryce Keslin

Daniel Zvereff’s short animated film Life Is a Particle, Time Is a Wave poses a time-honored question: what is time? At its most simple, the film is about an elderly widowed watchmaker who reminisces about his wife, seems to die, but wakes up in a hospital with a new lease on life. However, Zvereff uses this watchmaker to meditate cinematically on the nature of time, with music playing a crucial role.

At first glance, all these images seem both ordinary and random: a relationship, a profession, an illness, a fly. What could these concepts possibly have in common? To answer this question, we must first look at the title, Life Is a Particle, Time Is a Wave. What does it mean, and how does it relate to the story of the watchmaker?

Not surprisingly, Zvereff represents time in relation to life. In Silvana Dunat’s article on Time Metaphors in Film, she concludes that by manipulating time, films invite audiences to reflect on philosophical questions about existence and the nature of reality. Zvereff masterfully uses the manipulation of time in this film to get the audience asking: What is life, and what is time? The life of one person is made of many instances, or “particles.” According to Merriam-Webster, a particle is “a relatively small or the smallest discrete portion of something.” Every second of our lifetime represents the many particles that make it up. Therefore, our lifetime can be counted by the seconds on a clock. However, clock time runs out eventually. Life as a particle symbolizes how we experience life as a series of discrete events and choices that eventually end.

Time, however, encompasses a wave of many moments. In Céline Roustan’s critical essay of the film, she quotes Zvereff saying, “clock time is an invented idea, and that time, that force that brings us ever closer to death is a more complicated and fluid concept – more like a wave than a ticking clock.” Time as a wave symbolizes how we experience time in our lives as a dynamic progression of highs and lows, with moments of stillness and moments of rapid growth. We look back on our lives not at the particular instances, but at the overall moments that define us. The images shown in the film; a relationship, a profession, an illness; represent moments in one’s life. The fly being eaten, turned into a ball, and rubbed into tiny particles, represents the meaningless in the particles of life compared to the moments of time.

This dual concept of time originates from the ancient Greeks. As Mckinley Valentine describes in her article defining the terms, they had two words for time: chronos and kairos. Chronos is chronological time. Kairos, however, represents moments in time. These terms can be applied to not just life as a particle and time as a wave, but directly to the watchmaker himself. It is vital to the story that the man is not just a watchmaker, but a musician. His watchmaker profession represents the chronos, mechanical time of his life. Adversely, his musicianship represents kairos, where time is fulfilled. In the first section of the film, the man is able to fix the watch, but unable to finish his score, due to a broken pencil. However, in the final section, he puts away the watches and finishes his score. By staring death in the face and seeing what mattered to him most (his wife, the kairos), the old watchmaker realized how narrow his view on time was, and how little of it he had left. In order to live the rest of his chronos time to the fullest, he realized he must create moments of kairos. He goes about this through playing music.

How to Score (in) a not so friendly contest

by Sarah McDevitt

In the short fictional film Crack Shot by director Alex Cohen, Justin Huang, a former junior squash champion, has retreated to teaching children at a private club. He is propositioned by Pierce Pruitt, a zealous father looking for a training partner to push his son, Tucker, to higher glories. Justin, who bears a scar on his right calf, is reluctant but eventually agrees. After intentionally losing the first match, father and son ridicule him for his lack of competitiveness. This ignites Justin’s previous fire, and self-destructive need to win.

Much of the potency of sound in this film comes from the game itself. The fast-paced popping of the balls combined with the heartbeats of the players and the shouts of frustration and satisfaction alike create what Rob Munday calls a “brutal loud dance” in his brief essay on the film. He notes the ramping up of intensity throughout the game. Claustrophobic shots from within the confines of the court combine with the music to render the growing ferocity of the match as it becomes a battle. The calf wound attests to Justin’s fraught relationship with the game. Researchers have found that sports often normalize injury and downplay the dangers of pain. Justin’s injury stems from impulses to self injury: using the racquet to hit his calf in outbursts of frustration.

When Justin notices Tucker’s calf injury, not unlike his own, there is a large shift in both his own play and the music. There is a quieting of the game soundtrack, emphasized by a short break in play sequence.  With fewer layers in the mix a screeching violin quietly hovers over the top, highlighting that something is wrong as Justin begins to throw the game. This resolves with a low, dark chord and a transition back to silence. Pierce’s words now have underscoring. Slow, double bass glissandos mark a shift in his character from unsettling to threatening. Twice, Justin is stifled with silence as he faces one of the Pruitt’s; both times being indirectly asked to choose if the money is worth the physical and psychological pain. The choice opens the discussion of money in sport. Does society allow compensation to drive mutilation? Music stirs this wound such that the silence is a ripped off bandaid, heightening the sting.

Prodigies are often proxies of ambitious parents whose desires become drivers of their children’s determination. As a result, a match becomes a battle for the players — not only against their opponent, but also against themselves. Parents as the payers become players in the game. In Crack Shot, Pierce is shot with angles that place him above both Tucker and Justin. His looming stance shows the psychological effect he has, pushing both boys to unhealthy intensities. Justin’s hesitancy comes from an extreme drive to win that has led to self harm. It appears that Pierce’s pressures are doing the same to Tucker.

Exercise can be a socially acceptable form of self-harm. Self-harm, or non-suicidal self injury, is intentional injurious behaviors performed in an attempt to cope with an overwhelming emotional state. When children are aggressively pushed by parental figures, perceived failures can cause great psychological distress. This mental burden can find an outlet in sports via overexercise or disguised by in-game frustration, as seen in this scene.

The music expresses this self-destructive shift by changing what could be a simple action score to one of horror. The first moment of silence in the film occurs when we meet the father. The sudden quiet sets the tone for the thriller. The father, heavily associated with the unsettling silence, is set in stark contrast to the volume of the squash game. The absence of sound, other than dialogue, is only fully realized when the layers are added back in one-by-one with a sharp pulse following Pierce’s proposal. First, the cinching of Tucker’s shoes, then the sound of the forgotten children from Justin’s lesson, each interspersed with string pizzicato. This transitions to a ‘ticking’ from the strings, alternating high and low pizzicatos creating an anticipatory clock counting down the seconds to the time on the court as the low notes descend. A brief moment of silence shows Justin’s indecision as the camera cuts to his previous students, and is broken with a door creak worthy of a horror scene that closes with great finality into a downbeat of the oscillating string pattern once again.

Already, the intro scene shows the hesitations Justin has about playing at a high level once again. The ominous countdown paired with haunting sound effects emphasize the unease, and is made more potent by the breaks of silence. The next moment of silence comes after a gradual ramp in intensity during warm-ups. Once again, the abrupt emptiness is brought forth by Pierce. This stillness allows the viewer to realize how intense the music had become, something easily relegated to the subconscious while focusing on the game. It also heightens the discomfort in the ensuing conversation between Justin and Pierce. Justin attempts to keep the training session casual while Pierce insists on game-like formalities. The music brings the viewer into the game while the silence raises questions; when is violence and injury dismissed in the world of sports? The discrepancy between the expected genre of the film and the tone of the music breaks the fourth wall, drawing awareness to the severity and seriousness of the scene beyond the expected suspense of an action scene.

Through the discrepancy of film and music Crack Shot opens a hermeneutic window to reanalyze the ways in which society consumes and normalizes athletic violence and the role and morality of parental ambition in competitive domains of sports and beyond.

Animating Animals

by Thomas McMahon

Fx Goby’s animated short To Build a Fire is actually about the failure to build a fire.  A man, accompanied by his husky, braves the cold and wilderness of the snowy tundra. After his fire has been extinguished by a snow drift, he tries to relight it after but is unable to do so.  In the final scene, he is slumped against a tree, having given up.  Zooming out, we see the dog trotting away, presumably toward a settlement indexed by smoke behind the horizon.

The story is a simple but powerful parable of human hubris.   The sound of ice cracking beneath the man and the dog is more than a warning.  It symbolizes the fragile balance between human determination and nature’s overwhelming force.  The man’s dismissal of this sound as he presses forward reflects his sense of superiority, while the dog’s hesitation reveals its primal instinct.  The refusal to acknowledge the dangers leads to the man’s downfall, while his dog survives.  Humans can be foolish, animals are wise. Growing up with my Bernese Mountain dog, Taya, I’ve always felt a special bond with her as a fellow creature .  Her quiet presence has been a constant source of comfort.  Taya has shown me what loyalty and understanding really mean.  While watching To Build a Fire, I kept thinking of my dog and how she communicates without words.  Like Taya, the dog in the film is more than a companion.  She cares.  The dog represents a deep connection to the natural world.

To Build a Fire tells a broader story of that world, where humans and animals exist side by side and together.  But each has a different relationship with the environment.  Animals such as the dog have existed longer than humans and will likely live long after us.  The man ignores  the harsh Yukon to his detriment, while the dog survives following its instincts and reveals how we must respect forces larger than ourselves. 

Goby utilizes the cinematic animation to anthropomorphize that is, to attribute human characteristics or behavior to animals.  The dog displays subtle human-like gestures and expressions, such as hesitant movements or a quick knowing glance.  This approach makes the dog not only a symbol of nature’s resilience and deeper understanding, but also suggests a connection with a fellow creature.  Its closed eyes suggest a deep inner knowledge.  An ability to exist in harmony with that natural world, which is something that humans often overlook.

Anthropomorphism is a technique that has been around since the beginning of animated film. The word animal and animation share the same root of the Latin animalis (“having breath”) which stems from anima (“breaths”) which explains its meaning as “soul.”  By anthropomorphizing animals in animated films they are given a  soul of sorts.  Mickey Mouse and Winnie-the-Pooh are both textbook examples of Anthropomorphism.Their long-standing tradition is continuing today in top animated movies today such as Zootopia, Finding Nemo, and The Lion King.  Why did film makers turn to animation in order to create stories with humans and  animals turned into one?  

Animation created a new canvas for innovators to illustrate ideas that they were previously not able to achieve.  They are able to reveal the limitations of humanity’s dominance, by holding up a mirror to us.  As Paul Wells has suggested, filmmakers use “animation as an art almost inherently offers pertinent comment on humankind’s delusion that it manages and controls life anyway.”  Unlike traditional filmmaking, animation’s malleability allows the animator to create worlds where the boundaries of reality and fantasy can come together.  Films can then dive deeper into human conditions that might go unnoticed.  

One instance occurs during the final moments of the film.  As the dog leaves the man behind it smiles at him before walking towards the village.  This sphinx-like  smile seems to say that even though the man believes that he is in charge the dog knows of a larger force.  The gesture is seen as a reminder of how nature will always have its own laws that must be respected.  Animals (even animated ones) operate within nature’s boundaries instead of attempting to defy them, unlike the man who severely underestimates the environment’s power.  Here the dog’s position aligns with the perspective of the story’s hidden narrator, whose voice is channeled through the music.

As the dog walks away from the man the screen rolls to the credits, and we hear the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Mathieu Alvado, create a sublime atmosphere.  The violins and flutes’ mournful sounds taps into the sense of tragedy, reminding us of the man’s failure and isolation in nature.  But on a larger scale the orchestra’s rich sound adds a sense of awe to the film, which makes the man’s struggle feel small in the grand scheme of nature’s power.  The music is able to render a “divine” perspective, almost as if we are viewing his predicament from above.  He has become just another part of the vast indifferent natural world.

The music becomes more than just an accompaniment to the story.  It actively shapes how we are able to understand the man’s journey and it offers a transcendental angle.  The grandeur and scale of the music emphasize the enormity of the force’s he is up against.  The human struggle for survival feels small within the broader, unrelenting natural world.  Here the orchestra reinforces not only the fate of the individual but also the recurring cycle of life and death—a knowledge similar to a divine entity.  Life exists in cycles of birth, survival, and death.  Throughout this cycle every living being to ever exist is subject to forces beyond its control.  By elevating the struggle to an existential  level, the music connects the man’s experience to a deeper knowledge of creation. 

   If What We Do in the Shadows were to meet Only Lovers Left Alive, the result would be something like Out to Run: A Tale of Blood Velvet by James Berry—a gory good time full of heart and humor. Berry’s short film opens with a montage: open drag brunches, socializing, and people strolling through inclusive street markets. Two lovers, Cole and Jessie, enjoy a romantic evening, discussing the next stage of their relationship. But their rendezvous takes an unexpected turn when Jesse investigates a series of abrupt knocks at the door, only to be consumed by vampires. Before Cole can meet the same fate, he is rescued by an amazeballs lesbian vampire-slayer named Cass Celinski in a breathtaking fight sequence, leaving Cole bewildered. This film encapsulates the perfect blend of humor and horror— “dark humor”— stemming from combining sonic, visual, and rhetorical techniques to recast today’s depiction of queer vampires.

What’s Funny…

Much of the humor in this short film is undetectable due to how Berry cleverly plays with queer tropes, creating a strong sense of social-awareness. Some of these tropes, scattered throughout the film, are too niche to register outside of the LGBTQ+ community. However, the humorous take on queerness is central to its comedic tone, initiating that contrast between severe vampire lore and larger-than-life elements in the characters’ depictions. 

Cass Celinksi serves as a prime example with her exaggerated physical characteristics. Sporting a pixie-cut and living in a trailer are almost exclusively associated with the “tomboy” persona often stigmatized as the lesbian identity in films. Her self-proclaimed “lesbain vampire-slayer” feels both empowering and kitsch. This embrace of a subversive and almost absurd character reflects the type of humor often embedded in queer cinema—characters who challenge traditional norms while also reclaiming their outsider status. 

The title itself contains an oxymoron, juxtaposing the violent imagery of blood with the sweet, sensual appeal of velvet. The very notion of blood, which in horror is associated with violence and death, becomes a medium of desire and allure. This contradiction is explored in the scene where the vampire is feeding on Cole, where the gruesome act is romanticized through rich, sultry tones of ASMR-like sound effects. The biting of flesh, typically horrific, is transformed into something erotic, distorting the audience’s visceral reaction to the scene. 

Moreover, Berry employs a warm color palette to further evoke sensuality and danger. The opening scene, which depicts Cole and Jessie’s romantic evening, are awash in vibrant, warm tones that conjure the feeling of intimacy and passion. However, as the climax unfolds, these colors deepen to a more concentrated and aggressive red, underscoring both the violence and overstimulation in the moment. This is where we see the genre of horror come into full effect, setting up the subsequent moments of horror and humor blending.

Ironic, Isn’t It?

The film’s irony is central to its unique sense of humor: it subverts historical representations of vampires, queerness, and heroism. This plays into the subtext of Victorian-era literature, where vampires often served as allegories for repressed desires, queerness, and transgression. Additional evidence includes fictional characters such as Dracula and Carmilla, vampires embodying the fear of the unknown and the tabooed practices of the time, which were both alluring and dangerous. Out to Run flips this subtext on its head, giving queer characters protagonist roles, and offering a fresh take on the genre that acknowledges but ultimately debunks the long-standing association with vampirism and sexual deviance.

Berry explained that he wanted to create a movie “that was fun, witty, and subverted your expectations while building toward a knock-your-socks-off conclusion that made queer characters the heroes.” This ethos is captured in the duality of queer protagonists as victims and heroes. As literary historian S. Brooke Cameron explored, in her book Queer Gothic, many narratives in this subgenre configure queer vampires as the antihero–someone who defies conventional morality or perpetrates societal norms. Berry’s complete one-eighty turn on this narrative adds a layer of humor through this irony.

The closing sequence, where “Freedom! 90” is featured in the underscore, ties back to the film’s ironic approach to horror. This iconic, upbeat anthem becomes an anempatheic soundtrack to Cole’s internal turmoil. Of course, he was saved and was freed from his imminent death, but he is also grappling with the events that had just unfolded. The juxtaposition of the traumatic, near-death experience coupled with a cheeky, energetic song epitomizes how Berry blends these genres. In stark counterpoint to the visuals, the song highlights the film’s playful, subversive nature.

So Much is Happening!

As an honorable mention: Berry’s use of fantastical elements helps soften the horrific images and bring the humor to light. The film’s sound effects succeed in creating moments of absurdity, making even the most grotesque entertaining. The foley gulps of the blood during the feeding scene is an example, as is the epic and comical fight sequence between Celinski and the vampires with dramatic close-up shots of bloodshed. These instances of spectacle perfectly align with the film’s dark comedic tone. 

In Out to Run: A Tale of Blood Velvet, James Berry deliciously integrates horror and comedy using sounds, visuals, and irony to create an experience that is both gruesome and witty. The film’s take on queerness, both as a subversive force in the vampire genre and as a tool of cultural satire, reflects the tumultuous history of queer representation in media and literature. By employing sound effects, and anempatheic juxtaposition, Berry guides the audience through the tension of horror and the release of humor as well as shock and charm in a way that is both unsettling and entertaining.

By Andy Hearn

The Crossing Over Express is a fictional short film in which Hank, a middle-aged man, tries to connect with his deceased mother using an off-brand psychic who runs the business out of a truck. Directors Luke Barnett and Tanner Thomason use sound to create horror and unease by exploring the deep-seated human longing to connect with loved ones who have passed. Barnett lost his mother at 17 and had few things to remember her by. One year, he received an unsettling message from a friend’s father on his birthday containing a video of his late mother. Watching this video made him imagine what a final conversation with his mom might have looked like. 

The film shows Hank seeking out the psychic in an abandoned dirt lot. After paying her a bunch of cash, he enters the truck, having been instructed not to touch “the sheet,” which suddenly rises from the ground, suggesting a human figure underneath.  A one-sided conversation ensues. Hank talks, and his mother listens. A radio can be seen in the background emitting static sound. Hank apologizes to his mother for things that he did while growing up, such as doing drugs in the treehouse (fill in another example). Hank becomes increasingly emotional. The psychic knocks (time’s up).  Hanks says, “I love you,” and “It was great to hang.” The sheet collapses, and the psychic enters the truck.  Session over.

The film appears like a spoof of the Spiritualist movement that started in the 1850s when people thought they could connect with the dead through the medium of sounds and frequencies. During these interactions, the dead did not speak but seemed to be listening. These one-sided interactions prove to be beneficial for the person who is alive. According to Codee Spinner, “Spiritualist methods of listening depended upon an understanding of earthly life and the afterlife as distinct, distant cosmological spheres that could be broached by vibrational frequencies creating either audible or inaudible sounds.”. Spiritualistic encounters prove therapeutic for people, as they can afford relationships that might not have ended on good terms. People commonly search for these interactions to create a newfound connection with the deceased. Thomas Edison was a prime example of this, as his creation of sound emitters allowed him to explore ways of connecting to the dead through the medium of sound. Edison may have just been trying to profit off the spiritualist movement, but they had an interesting take on the afterlife, according to the History Channel. Marc Hartzman references Edison’s belief in life units and how they move to a different place in the afterlife but still could be reached.

The directors of The Crossing Over Express combined the sheet with the radio to set up a medium for transmitting frequencies between the living and the dead. These frequencies are rendered as radio noise or “static,” which occurs alongside the clichéd underscoring for horror films, with eerie sounds cueing the viewer to the potential extraterrestrial connections and more harmonious music, lightening the mood. The tried and true mix of comedy and suspense relates to the psychic “doctor,” who is portrayed as competent and wacky.  Smoking while talking to Hank and offering a beer to put him at ease, she seems to handle the procedure with irreverence. More interested in tracking treatment —repeatedly knocking on the truck door— than Hank’s transformative experience.   While Hank is overwhelmed by emotion, she sings him a “Happy Birthday,”  creating a moment of levity and dampening the underlying darkness. 

While the sheet holds importance within the film regarding connection, the radio is the foundation. As the sheet rises, one of the paramount rules for Hank is that he cannot touch the sheet. The psychic and her assistant mention this multiple times in the film, and we, as viewers, never truly understand why. Within most interactions between the living and dead, there is an absence of physical touch that creates a border between the two and limits the intimacy of the actual interaction.  Instead, we are greeted by the radio and the frequency it emits at the beginning and end of the interaction. The frequency in the film acts as the medium between the invisible connection and insights into thoughts of love and realness within Hank as he sees his “mother” rise under the sheet. Also, as we near the end of the interaction, we again see the influence of the static, and soon after, the sheet falls to the ground. As the sheet falls, Hank is filled with emotion and starts to cry, which is when the psychic returns with a humorous attitude. Finally, the interaction between Hank is amplified due to the lack of technology in the surrounding environment. In the truck, the only technological device is the radio, which only emits static frequencies and doesn’t show a solid signal while Hank is in there, which furthers the thoughts of a phantom spirit. The radio allows Hank to foster thoughts of truth and authenticity towards his interaction with the sheet that is potentially his mother, despite the suspect environment and operation of the psychic. 

As the film progressed, we saw Hank and his mother interact one-sided, with the sheet and the radio acting as mediums. This can be connected to the spiritualist movement and Thomas Edison’s thoughts on life units. The psychic also offers a humorous, loose attitude to the experience, which helps downplay the emotions and significance of this experience for Hank. The connection between life and death will always be an intense debate within society, as people search for the concepts of love and connection. Still, this film offers a slight insight into sound’s potential theme and role as a medium of death communication.

A Widow Journeys into the Past to Reconnect with Her Late Husband

by Ava Skubic

ZZZ is a thought-provoking sci-fi short film by Felipe Vargas about a grieving old widow, Ella, who seeks out an unauthorized “Sleep Dealer” to reconnect with her late husband, Sebastian, who had died in a trucking accident many years ago. The story unfolds across two states: reality and dream. The transitions between these two worlds render the widow’s emotional struggle, creating an immersive narrative for the viewer to  experience the emotional complexities with music serving as a fulcrum for both the loss and the desire to bridge the divide between life and death.  

Sound functions as a bridge between these two realms, transitioning from the mechanical hum of the Sleep Dealer’s devices to the melodious non-diegetic music of the  dream space. Silence is also strategically employed during these transitions, amplifying their emotional weight. The cinematic technique and concept of “dissolve”  provides a framework for understanding these transitions. Dissolves have long been used in mourning films to symbolize the blending of memory and reality, life and afterlife. Non-diegetic music, such as the widow’s grieving song, immerses viewers in Ella’s emotional experience, offering an escape from her grief.

Film has long been used for its unique ability to move between worlds and times with just a simple cut, often bridged—or “sutured”— with sound. Charting Ella’s emotional journey, the real world is grounded in mechanical and diegetic sounds, such as the hum of the Sleep Dealer device and the widow’s breathing. The muted, dim lighting and stark visuals mirror the widow’s isolation and grief. 

Vargas sets up a stark contrast between a dark and depressing field-hospital-like atmosphere and  a vivid dream-like state which seems to mix memories of  past reality with fantasy, characterized by vibrant colors, soft lighting, and ethereal soundscapes.

A turning point in the film is when the police arrive and the Sleep Dealer device malfunctions, eventually severing the connection. This glitch spotlights the limitations of technology in assisting human memory and mitigating loss. Since its invention, cinema has long nurtured the fantasy of preserving and bringing back the past. The Sleep Dealer, whose device appears to function like an internal projector meant to bridge the gap between the living and the dead—ultimately fails, leaving the widow even more isolated and alone.

A central element in forging this connection has been music. As in Casablanca, where Ilsa asks Sam to play “As time goes by” the song featured during the dream sequences and closing moments carries significant emotional weight, representing a shared memory triggering the widow’s longing and nostalgia. The haunting melody serves as a bridge between the past and the present, connecting the widow’s memories of her husband with her current reality. 

The song’s deployment in the Sleep Dealer is akin to music’s role in traditional mourning rituals. Many cultures used laments, chants, and instrumental music to express collective sorrow, honor the deceased, and provide solace to the grieving. These practices demonstrate music’s timeless role in processing loss and creating shared emotional experiences. In the study “Music as Consolation—The Importance of Music at Farewells and Mourning,” researchers found that music associated with positive memories of the deceased can facilitate active engagement in the grieving process. Ella and Sebastian’s song serves that purpose, providing an emotional outlet for her and a sense of comfort and healing. The study also highlights how selecting music together can be consoling before or after a loss: “their song” symbolizes Ella’s persistent efforts to process her grief through the virtual farewell facilitated by the Sleep Dealer. Drawing on his own experience with loss, Vargas taps into a universal language of emotion and allows the audience to connect with the widow’s experience on a personal level. 

The film also points to the fleeting nature of digital memories compared to the enduring power of tangible objects. The radio, with its intangible electromagnetic signals, represents the transience of modern communication. By contrast, the drum’s pins plucking the comb in the music box are analog triggers for Ella’s recollection, even at great risk. Memory literally matters.

The closing credits extend this motif of blurring boundaries, echoing the film’s central theme of murky lines between reality and dream state. As the credits roll, the screen fades to black, and images of sand gradually encroach upon sentimental objects, symbolizing the fleeting nature of material possessions and the passage of time. This image is another example of “dissolve”, blending past and present as the sand swallows these objects in a manner reminiscent of memory fading into obscurity. 

Sand evokes a sense of timelessness and decay while serving as a tactile analogue for the amorphous affect that undergirds more specific emotions. This physicality of sand underscores Ella’s journey from personal feeling and grounded experience as she grapples with receding remembrance of her husband. As she navigates her grief and seeks to find meaning in her new reality, the sand symbolizes the passage of time, the decay of memories, and the inevitable drift to the ephemeral.

By blurring the line between the past and the present, the film and its closing credits invite the viewer to reflect on their own experiences with loss and grief. The sand, a timeless symbol of transience, serves as a reminder that all things must eventually fade away. However, the film also suggests that even in the face of loss, there is hope for healing and renewal. As the widow comes to terms with her grief, she begins to find solace in the memories of her late husband.

By blurring the line between the past and the present, ZZZ invites viewers to reflect on their own experiences with loss and grief. The sand, a symbol of transience, reminds us that all things fade, yet the film offers hope for healing and renewal. As Ella finds solace in her memories, the film contrasts the limitations of technology with the enduring power of human connection. Through its evocative visuals, moving music, and emotional depth, ZZZ creates a profound exploration of grief and memory. As the credits roll, viewers are left to contemplate the connection between loss, remembrance, human resilience.

Throughout the film, sand served as a recurring symbol of transience- used as part of the Sleep Dealer and the dream state where the widow meets her deceased husband in a desert. 

Breathing life into balsa

by Kieran Larkin

Stop-motion animation is infamous for how time-consuming it is to produce and famous for its unique ability to render three-dimensional bodies tangible. Unlike drawn animation, stop-motion offers opportunities for stylization and world building in not just the shapes, textures, and colors of characters and sets, but also in the special affordances of materials such as clay (known as claymation) or felt.  In their short film, Alan, the Infinite, directors Dan Ojari and Mikey Please use balsa wood to construct their characters, giving them a playful yet stiff appearance to cast their type. The film also features a “bipolar” soundtrack of contrasting style to emphasize the difference between the potential and imagination of youth and the rigidness and monotony of adulthood.  To play on Marshall McLuhan’s famous dictum “the medium is the message,” in the case of stop-motion, the material is the message. 

The story follows Alan and Prea on their first day at a lamination company, eager to make their first strides from inexperienced novices to becoming like their lamination expert supervisor, Gary, super-set in his ways (not unlike the rigidity of the product of his company).  But things quickly take an unexpected turn when Alan accidentally releases a magical particle in the workplace.  The particle randomly turns all the objects it touches into something else, creating a chaos for Alan that remains inexplicably inconsequential.  The point of the parable appears to be that there isn’t one: the story is a mere pretext for an exercise in ‘play-mation’ matched by music.  The metaphysically grave matters that occur are treated with an anarchic levity, deflated of seriousness by opening and closing instances of flatulence. 

Similar to the random plot, the soundtrack is topsy-turvy. The film opens on a supernatural note in a mysterious lab underground, where a seemingly magical particle is summoned before escaping.  The first sensory stimulus as the image fades in from black is a gradual swell from low strings at a fifth interval, one often associated with space, the grand, and the mysterious. 

The kalimba then enters.  It introduces the foundation for a pattern which is expanded upon with fiery drums and quirky high string pizzicatos.  The pattern creates a soundscape without a recallable melodic line, evoking emotions of curiosity without standing out apart from the images.  

The norms established from this opening scene hold throughout the film, as less traditional lead instruments, such as the recorder and the xylophone, take center stage for the younger characters and the chaotic particles.  This starkly contrasts the instrumentation used for the score when it underpins characters that exist free of creativity.  The other employees of Lamin-8 are backed up by strings, piano, and woodwinds.  The different styles of instrumentation used for separate characters contributes to the film’s overall juxtaposition between the mundane and the possible.  While Alan, Prea, and the particle have not yet had their creativity squashed by society, their coworkers have allowed themselves to be molded into a cog in a system.  As such, the children are represented by whimsical instruments orthogonal to any traditional orchestra.  

In the sound effect track, the style of sounds used also take a binary approach.  In Paul Taberham’s article “A General Aesthetics of American Animation Sound Design,” he outlines four approaches to animated sound design: syncretic, zip-crash, functional and poetic authentication.  Alan, the Infinite finds itself selectively using both zip-crash and functional sound to build its world.  Zip-crash sound is characterized by “sound effects [that] are both flamboyant and incongruous,” that prioritize conveying the meaning of something through sound rather than representing what sound something might realistically produce.  This approach is used when building sounds for the magic particle.  Its signature sound effects are the high-pitched pluck of a string as it hops along the office floor, as well as a xylophone hit when it changes an object into something else.

 

While these sounds are certainly not the true sounds an imaginary particle might make, it adds to the wonder and mystery of what the particle is.  For other aspects of the film, a functional approach is used, where sound effects are meant to immerse the viewer by way of realistic and plausible sounds (Taberham 140).  This is because outside of the particle’s shenanigans, the Lamin-8 office is the definition of stodginess, with nothing fun or whimsical of note.  As a result, the whimsical sounds are reserved for the particle. 

The visual stylization of the character design adds to the juxtaposition of mundanity with possibility.  The interns and the particle, yet to be corrupted with society’s rigidness, are rounded and curvaceous. 

Although they are made of balsa wood, just like their adult coworkers, they are far less defined and still have room to be shaped.  The adult employees are all square with sharp edges and corners.  They have been molded by society and no longer possess the literal and psychological fluidity that the interns do.  When combined with the sounds, the audience may notice that while all the interns are visually round, only Alan and Prea are backed up by zip-crash sound effects and quirky instrumentation.  This is because the other interns, Susan and Neil, are more prepared to ‘drink the Kool-Aid’ and surrender their individuality to society in the name of advancing toward adulthood. 

While adulthood is physically inevitable, some of the monotony associated with it seems to deeply concern the filmmakers.  In a workplace defined by the boss’s overt aversion to change, hence the importance of the permanence of lamination, the only source of interest is a particle that forces change on anything it touches.  Perhaps Alan should not be so eager to define himself as something for his life, and should be open to the prospect of a journey through life.  Maybe his experience with the particle will show him that not only is change inevitable, but can be wondrous too.  The final poof renders everything a spoof. 

How horror films rely on audience identification to conjure discomfort and fear

by Alicia Melotik

In the 8-minute meta-horror short film Storm, a couple wakes one dark and stormy night to the sudden slamming of their door and finds themselves trapped within all of the typical tropes of a horror film.  Isabel and Malcolm are aware of their place as characters in a movie and recognize the camera watching them but are nonetheless subject to being manipulated by its power. Directed by Lena Tsodykovskaya, the film includes the audience as a character via the camera’s POV to produce a sense of uneasiness and guilt at causing the characters’ distress.

As Tsodykovskaya states, “when watching Storm on a big screen, I did feel uncomfortable, as if caught red-handed, which has always been my goal”. By singling out the camera and thereby the viewer as the threat to the couple, we feel like we are the ones perpetuating their misery and are to blame for their pain. A sense of guilt is evoked as we realize they are living through these horrific tropes because of something we did-because we want to watch.

Why do we derive entertainment from watching these characters suffer? When watching horror films, we as the audience observe at a safe distance, unable to be touched or harmed. The soundtrack provides a layer of separation through non-diegetic music, differentiating our world from that of the film. Thus, we are left as an outside observer, free to indulge in the guilty pleasure of watching something intriguingly taboo. We don’t need to help the characters nor fear for their safety (since we know they aren’t real), so we take pleasure in voyeuristically watching their pain without them knowing we’re observing. However, like Kord describes, “forcing us into the killer’s perspective invites us to enjoy the violence, which – if we do – makes us feel guilty”. When we find amusement in the spectacle of horror, we then feel guilt for enjoying “the destruction of another human being” since that enjoyment presumably misaligns with our morals.

The film’s action begins with a door somehow closing, likely by the doing of the film, which alarms Isabel. Right after the door closes and Isabel awakens with a gasp, a short, ascending melody is played to convey that the film’s tension is beginning to rise as well. The film then ends the same as its beginning, indicating that they are stuck within the film so long as the audience chooses to watch them suffer. Each time we play the film, they relive the horror again and again. As long as we give into our voyeuristic impulse and the guilty pleasure of watching the couple, they will suffer. We are the escape: we can let them out of this horror movie by pausing or closing the video, but we choose to pull them away from the door and watch the film again. We force them to suffer for our own pleasure.

Sonic Codes of Narrative Perspective in Rally

by Bridget Lewis

Created with the ubiquitous Unity game engine, Rally is a 10-minute animated thriller short about two smugglers transporting a hostage across a heavily guarded border. Driver and co-pilot communicate sparsely in a vehicle outfitted to evade detection. At the border, they trip a sensor and lose power before falling under attack. The co-pilot is shot just before the driver regains control and speeds away to complete the mission. He delivers the hostage, is paid for his efforts, and dumps his partner’s body. 

The relationship between video games and film hinges on how the audience plays a role within each medium. Video games require viewers to participate as agents within their narrative, while in film, viewers are audience members. In Rally, we cycle between looking through the eyes of the driver versus those of a “narrator”. This prompts us to consider the points of view, and therefore audition, which shape a viewer’s experience with the film. From the video game perspective, we as viewers inhabit an avatar, the driver, through whom we experience the pressure of this dangerous journey and the regret from its devastating aftermath. In the cinematic authorial view, we are to understand the wider implications of the world being built by the film and how it devalues human life. The non-diegetic music aids the image track in developing the dichotomy of these embodied and disembodied views by sonically coding the two perspectives through symbolic instrumentation. 

Within the first minute of the film, the sound of a flute becomes a trademark of the point of audition for the driver. Understanding the mechanics of the flute brings added value to the image track, especially to understand the several internal moments of the driver. In these shots, the camera closes in on the eyes of the driver, before our view shifts to the driver’s own perspective. These internal moments are accompanied by only the driver’s breathing, all other sound is stifled.

This introduction is accompanied by wider shots that showcase the environment and remind us of the broader implications of the driver’s journey. As we watch him dump the co-pilot’s body, the organ connects us to a more public style of mourning, like that of a funeral. The darker, gritty visuals that we are introduced to exhibit the external influences within this world that may have led the driver to his path. After all, the purpose of the journey was to transport a hostage.

Although we are no longer in his avatar, the cinematic perspective gives us a broader look at how he grapples with the loss of his partner. As he takes the money and drives away in the final scene, we question our own complicity in the death of the co-pilot. Yet, now we can only watch at a distance and speculate on the mark the co-pilot’s death will leave on the driver. Will he be haunted by visions of his bloody hands and privately mourn, or will the brutal influences of his world, bent on trivializing the value of human life, cause him to leave his mourning behind at the scene of the co-pilot’s “public” funeral?

The film toes the boundary between game and story through its changing narrative perspective. We are left with an ontological paradox in which we are the driver and we are a spectator but we are also neither the driver nor a spectator. This ambiguous interpretation matches the simultaneously interconnected and disconnected nature of video game and film media. This phenomenon can be analyzed through the idea of ludonarrative dissonance, which as contended by Grasso “describes the tension between […], what we as game players are motivated to do by the rules of the game and, […] what the story tells us about the characters and the world they inhabit”. Our avatar of the driver has to follow the rules of his game by fulfilling his mission, no matter the cost. We often feel participatory in this, while the wider cinematic moments are meant to help us understand the harsh world he is living in and how this will impact his mourning process.

Video game influences in the film feel somewhat ironic given the subject matter. There is little mourning while playing video games since one trademark of the medium is the ability of a character to regenerate and subvert death. It is clear the film is self-conscious about its own medium and as such questions the value given to life within ludic worlds. The use of wind instruments to do this, particularly the flute and the organ, helps illustrate the driver’s mourning from both the private perspective of video games to the public perspective of cinema.