Learning aim A task 1 podcast

SERIAL- Season 1 Episode 1

Time life crime

Analysing Podcast

The repeated small piece of music which is incidental music is used at the very beginning of “Serial” podcast. The incidental music is used throughout whole show, to create feeling of tension. When the incidental music starts at first there is no other sound except of music to show that its begging of the show, however after couple of seconds women starts introducing the story, incidental music still playing in a background. After reporter introduces herself she stops talking for a couple of seconds, however incidental music is still playing to grab audience attention and interest. The incidental music stops after each of reporter’s sentence on 01:28 to let audience understand that reporter’s information is important. The information that she gives is about story also herself. She talks about how much time she have spent on this story also that she only now found out that details are important, she uses irony and rhetorical questions to refer on a story. She talks that it’s hard to remember what you have been doing every day and what you talked and with who, and when she says its word ‘hard’ music starts playing again.

The show uses interview on 02:19. The reporter interviews some teenagers to try remember what they done 6 weeks ago. When the reporter asks what they did on that Friday music stops and dialogue begins. The quality of the interview is not perfect, there is some background noises like laugh that makes audience understand that the guy who was interviewed wasn’t alone. After the interview there is still no music the reporter introduces the guy she just interviewed. After introducing him, she introduces the next person she’s going to interview and it’s her nephew, however she interviews her nephew through phone-ins. The audience can understand that it’s through the phone because sound its really bad quality. When she talks with her nephew there is no incidental music playing in a background, however when the nephew says that he actually didn’t go to school that day, incidental music starts playing again, it creates tension that boy can’t remember what happened on that specific date. However after that she’s interviews another teenager, she calls these interviews; experiment.

At 04:20 we can hear aural landscape which is way of designing sound to create a specific feel. The reporter talked about a girl that got missing for a long period of time and slow, quiet, instrumental music appeared to create feeling of horror also fear. While she’s talking about girls family and background because becomes louder to create tension. However when she says that girl was found dead, the music keeps playing in a same tone creating relaxing atmosphere which creates fear. When the reporter starts talking about girl’s boyfriend getting arrested, music becomes more intense and louder. When the reporter says “he’s been in prison ever since” she stops talking and loud music appears.

At 06:22 we can hear diegetic sound effects of gates opening. After that we can hear voice over of reporter speaking over the dialogue of her and the other women. It makes audience believe that what reporter is talking about right now is more important than dialogue in a background. After 06:22 incidental music stops playing to make audience focus more on a new character. The show follows to talk about new character and her investigation, still using some incidental music and dialogues.