Curious Ear: Meat Factory Ear Worms

Click here to listen to Meat Factory Ear Worms

Director: Richie Beirne 
Producer: Ronan Kelly. 

The narrative for this piece is the story of an Irish man who is stuck in his job at a meat factory who uses songs that get stuck in his head, Ear Worms, to keep him going through the day at work and escape.  

This piece is very authentic and personal, I really like the variety of different sounds layered up to create the different emotions, for example the use of speech, atmos, music and moments of silence. The uses of each of there elements all work together to create the overall feeling of the piece and with out one there wouldn’t be a continual narrative. Even the music was part of the narrative and not to just fill gaps and time. There is a lot of use of repetition throughout the piece indicating the repetitiveness of his days. 

There is really strong juxtaposition in this piece. Throughout you have the ambience of people working in the factory, machines working and the harsh sounds of knife being sharpened to build up the image of an unsavoury working environment. In Contrast to this you have his voice over as if you can hear him in your head, much like an ear worm, with his soft and warming voice and the romantic ballads.