The Fly (2014) Analysis

The Fly is a 5 minute dark comedy directed by Jack Doolan. It tells the story of a driver for a bank robbery waiting in a car for the robbers outside the bank, whilst getting extremely irritated by a fly. For this short, I want to explore the use of sound. The film uses almost only diegetic sound (much of which is off screen) through out - so there is not music to create a mood or feeling in the film. Instead, they use heightened diegetic sounds to create tension in some places (rather than tense music) such as the increased volume of the wind, a dog barking or the tapping of the drivers fingers on the steering wheel. This created tension helps to convey the feelings of anxiety and impatience the driver in the car is experiencing. The main way in which sound is used, however, is to show the presence of the fly. The buzzing sound of the fly is much louder and more irritating than usual. This is to show that the fly is still there after each time the man tries to kill it (as it is hard to spot on camera because it is so small), which creates a kind of comedy because of how annoyed the main character \ is getting each time he realises he hasn't killed the fly. The sound of the fly is almost a way of rubbing that in the drivers face. Also, the sound of the fly's buzzing could possibly be to mimic how the man is hearing the sound of the fly as much more annoying and loud because of how stressed and tense he is. Therefore we are hearing it the same way he is. Finally, there is no dialogue in the whole film. I think this is a good choice, as it means other sounds such as the fly and smaller noises that are used to create tension aren't lost to speech, and our attention remains to the other sounds to help keep up the underlying tension throughout the film.