Lance Mann’s Flickerman is a radio drama harnessing foley and sfx to build and release tension as well as influence the emotions of the listener. From 8:47 to 10:38 Lance Mann uses many different sounds to create tension, starting with heavy breathing towards the beginning of the excerpt. Heavy breathing is associated with a high heart rate, which happens when adrenaline is pumped into the blood stream. The listener might relate this sound to feeling scared since being scared is one of the feelings that releases adrenaline. Mann also uses very heavy, metallic bass synth drones to create an ominous atmosphere that almost evolves over time, becoming thicker and more intense the longer the drone sustains for. Feedbacking noises are used to create a sense of chaos, the high screechy frequencies alarm the listener, as well as the crashing of cymbals to the same effect.

Mann also uses effects to influence the listener. At 10:36 the peak of the tension he has been building up is about to be released, the audio becomes louder, more crackly and a whooshing sound adds to the listener’s anxiety before a sudden silence. I believe Mann has produced this by turning the gain up causing the audio to become louder and slightly distorted. The whooshing noise may have been created by adding reverb or delay to the track before cutting out.

A startling silence follows afterward, all audio is cut off apart from the narrator’s barely audible breath. This serves to prep the audience for the oncoming explosion. The length of the silence, no longer than a second, allows the audience to take a breath and relax thinking the tension has been released before the explosion erupts into the speakers taking the listener by surprise. I think if the silence was too short, the listener may not necessarily have time to process the silence before the explosion happens. If the silence was too long I think the continuity of the tension built up leading to this point would be lost.

Response

In our lecture, we were tasked with creating a short composition based on Flickerman, using a short piece of recorded script and SFX supplied to us by our lecturers. I decided when making the piece that the script felt rushed and needed space for the listener to focus on the SFX. I felt playing the script and SFX at the same time without any pauses or breaks could be overwhelming and cause sensory overload, not allowing the listener time to process the individual sounds. Having the SFX of the action narrated in the script beforehand was a conscious decision. For instance, at 1:12 I had the sound of the man reeling a fish in before the script describes what is happening. I decided to do this because it gives the listener the opportunity to come to their own conclusion before listening to the scene being described. Listening to blind people describing how they interact with sound in ‘Touching the Elephant’ by Rockethouse productions was a big influence on this choice. A blind lady describes how sighted people often overlook sounds. This was my attempt at bringing the the listener’s focus onto the small sounds that might get overlooked when listening to the recorded script with the SFX underneath.

We were given 50 minutes to create this piece, and with more time I would’ve liked to add an overdriven bass drone that increases in thickness and modulation over the last half of the script when there is tension between two characters in the story. Furthermore, I could have used silence to vary and release pressure just like in Flickerman at 10:36.