Sound Analysis of the sniper scene from Captain Philips

I have chosen to use the sniper scene in the movie Captain Philips. In this particular scene the American Seal team have found the lifeboat and the Somalia pirates who are holding Captain Philips hostage, The Navy seals are right in the heart of the rescue.

The clip uses non-diegetic sound from the very beginning of the scene. The use of a soundtrack which sounds heroic as well as gradually increasing in volume as the tension rises in the scene. It gets louder and louder until we reach the absolute climax of the scene when the pirates prepare to shoot the captain. The seal’s jump into action and the soundtrack cuts out. The soundtrack may be representing the pirate and what he is feeling. The pirate is then shot and the soundtrack  “dies out” with the dead man. Prior to this when we think the pirate has control and will shoot the captain the soundtrack is very much alive, appearing to the audience to symbolise when a character dies as well as when a character survives to live on. The contrast helps to portray how closely linked life and death really are.

The first diegetic sound that plays one of the longest and more important rules in the scene is the dialogue. The initial dialogue we hear is from the navy seals who are in a completely professional zone and all focused on their job. Instantly we as an audience feel safer knowing they are taking control of the situation. The use of mise-en-scene such as the costume play a big part in setting the scene. They are in Navy seal uniform which is very patriotic and connotes heroicness and bravery the audience trusts them even though most of us don’t understand the fancy terminology to which they use, it sounds professional and that is enough to supply the watcher with comfort!

The dialogue then changes to the captain himself who is screaming but it is made purposely hard for us to make sense of what he is saying, this helps to convey his confusion about not knowing what is going on, and being unable to see this then translates to the watchers confusion of not understanding what he is saying. Very shortly after that the dialogue switches to the Somalia pirates who are shouting at one another in a panic, this is when we feel a brief moment of sympathy  towards the pirates as they realise their fate and try to blame each other. The last bit of dialogue is the navy seals giving the final command to “execute” the shot, This dialogue helps establish meaning for the audience by giving us all the information we need to piece together the puzzle.

We are then taken to a point of view which see's it through the perspective of the snipers head and the seal who shoots it. The use of the sound effect and the gun shot adds so much intensity to the scene as all we hear is the gun being shot, smashing through the glass and entering the body. Following the gunshot all sound is cut apart from Captain Philips who is screaming, shouting and crying. Beyond that the ambient sound of background noise when we  just hear waves hitting the lifeboat and the sound that echoes through the inside where the captain is tied up. The ambient sound helps to reinforce how lonely the character is in this moment in time, The contrast between all the previous action to nothing but waves crashing onto the lifeboat makes the audience feel the epic change in pace of the clip.

This scene uses lots of parallel sound for instance when the seals prepare to take a shot the soundtrack reaches its loudest and most fast tempo music to accompany the situation, This is yet another way of adding tension as an audience we link fast-tempo music to a build up to something, in this case the man being shot to his death.

In the clip they use the sound of the winch on the ship as a sound bridge from non-diegetic to diegetic this means as they stop the tow of the boat we hear a brief moment of waves then a gun -shot is fired. The change in pace keeps the viewer quite literally on the edge of their seats in anticipation for what’s to come.

Overall the sequence creates all sorts of varied emotions for the audience in a very short space of time. Through the use of non-diegetic sound we feel that our emotions are heightened. Then through diegetic sound we feel as if we are involved in the conversations right there with our hero Captain Philips even though in reality we are sitting on our sofa doing nothing at all. All these emotions are created by different uses of sound in the extract making it a great thriller scene forever keeping its audience alert and on our toes.