Sound - Ethnicity - Hotel Babylon

The first time we watched the clip, we only listened and didn't watch the visual, therefore we could understand how important sound is in creating a mood. We made notes on diegetic, and non-diegetic sounds we could hear.

Diegetic- dialogue-information, footsteps- running, kitchen- knives/frying, hoover-movement in scene, door- immigrants being safe.
Non-diegetic- fast pace, mechanical like music at the beginning- creates tension, music throughout but got quieter when dialogue happened, but kept tension high through out.
Volume of the soundtrack suggested the scene, eg music was quiet in the cupboard, but was loud on the hotel's bedroom floor.
At the end of the clip the pace changed to slower to emphasis the sadness the characters were feeling.

These sounds suggest things about the problem of Ethnicity in the clip:

• Soundtrack created tension and suspense, making the viewers anticipate something is about to happen. This help people watching relate to what the different ethnic groups are feeling while being looked for.
• The diegetic sound of footsteps and running with the characters voices talking over suggests panic. It shows that immigrants are the ones having to run and hide- inequality.
• The dull diegetic sound of Ibrahim's hoover suggest that he is working a low skilled job, therefore different ethnic groups are not able to get good jobs.
• This theme is continued when a man in the cupboard, Adam, as he is able to save the diabetic women- "I wasn't always a cleaner" this suggests that immigrants are not able to get fitting jobs.
• The non diegetic soundtrack of sad music, suggests desperation and a sadness for Ibrahim as he is going back to a country that is going to kill him.
• The digetic noises of people talking in the canteen shows the different accents and ethnic groups eg Asians, Eastern European, African.