I started watching Apple TV's show "Calls", and I found premise of the show to be incredibly creative in immersing the viewer into the storyline. Each episode centers on a series of phone calls among a set of characters, and the only visuals are "sound waves" between each caller. Without any visuals of people's faces or surrounding environments like a typical show, "Calls" has to rely heavily on the audio element to convey the characters' emotions, their surroundings and what they're seeing and experiencing, and each characters' relationship to one another.
In addition to the dialogue, the surrounding sound effects play up the narrative and scenes for each episode. The sound of approaching footsteps evokes an image of someone entering the room. A muted wail conjures up a scene of a person in pain behind closed doors. Dull crunching emphasizes the graphic shot of a character's arms breaking off her body.
The visuals play a supporting role to the audio. Besides the captions next to each caller's "hotspot", the abstract visuals of the sound waves capture the characters' emotions, from worry to confusion, and from panic to grief. The sound waves grow larger, undulate more aggressively, and intensify in color to convey a growing sense of panic or doom. Sound waves fizzle out or flatline to indicate the loss of call connection or convey the image of a character getting hurt or dying.
The "panning" across the sound waves from left to right, or up and down, bring motion to the storyline. The viewer can vicariously run with a character while hearing their panting and quickening footsteps. The zooming in and out of the callers' hotspots create an illusion of people's distance from each other, which matches up with characters entering and exiting the call, or approaching one another.
With the audio alone, "Calls" would make a gripping podcast. The visuals, however, add a dimension that elevates the narrative and further hooks the viewer into the characters and their experiences.
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