Car Scene CoM (Children of Men)

The Elements of Sound during The Car Scene are intense and encompassing, the use of camera takes place in the car itself and using sound to fill in the rest of the scene.

This Immersive use of sound surrounds the audience and installs them with the same amount of fear that the characters are induced with.

The Film has a unique and wonderful use of Sound Effects and Music,each particular sound and every piece of music is carefully thought out, similar to Edgar Wright’s use of music to connote a happy, energetic scene, the use of pace in the music is constant and unnerving in contrast to the clearly chaotic, tumultuous scene taking place in the space of 4 Minutes.

During the Scene the sounds are layered in a realistic and disorderly fashion which fits in incredibly to the visual assault the viewers are receiving and that the characters are going through.

Throughout the scene the dialogue between characters is realistically adapting to the scene, the endearing earlier parts of the scene are accompanied by upbeat, melodic music which seems to haunt them during Julianne's Murder and continue the Frantic Pace of this scene.

Children of Men’s two biggest pieces—a surprise attack on a car that’s holding revolutionaries who are escorting the first woman to become pregnant after a decade of worldwide infertility, and an extensive battle within a bombed out building—required days to set up. For the car chase, the crew had the location for that shot for 12 days. 10 days were spent getting the camera axes correct on the car rig, placing the attackers in their proper places to enter the shot after launching a fiery roadblock, charge the car, back up the car, send a motorcycle toward the car to fire, crash and then pan back around to reveal one of the most shocking early deaths of a well known actor ever filmed. That doesn’t even include the beginning portion of the scene where two former lovers, Clive Owen and Julianne Moore, play a charming parlor trick involving a ping-pong ball to lull the viewer into feeling safe before the attack.

The Scene is a relentless assault on both the eyes and ears, unforgiving gunshots, maniacal screaming and the furious sounds of engines competing are haunted by music which moments before conveyed a peaceful and positive bonding scene and is now adding to the smorgasbord of sound and chaos. The Battlefield Scene is unremitting visually however makes a larger impact in sound due to a random mass of loud diegetic gunfire, explosions, war cries, screams of anguish and a singular non diegetic tone played throughout adding more to the unfaltering chaos.This Long Tone signals the impending doom that envelops Leo during the battle and like the motives of each faction the sounds of war are unwavering and resolute, Bullet Ricochet, Tank Shells Firing, Crushed Walls and Flying Debris immerse the audience in the Uprising taking place, the continuous cut challenges the audience almost daring them to away, holding their gaze in a nonexistent game of chicken further daring the audiences bravery and will.

The movie almost shoves the violent military and tragic reality of today with the realistic threat of mass infertility into the audiences face.

It almost doesn't leave much to the imagination when compared to a real battlefield similarly scattered with bodies of soldiers, civilians and like the film littered with the stricken families grieving severed limbs, dead relatives and screaming into the endless void of war for the lost or dead.