The film follows the story of a family in lockdown experiencing a troubling pattern of domestic abuse. Told from the separate perspectives of two partners, the film uses the same set of words to tell two very different stories of isolation: one of a man, trapped in negative ways of thinking, with complicated emotions he never really learned to articulate; and a woman who is trapped inside her home with a man who is becoming increasingly volatile and unrecognizable to her.

As the COVID-19 pandemic wore on, Canada became one of the most locked-down countries in the world. This gave rise to another alarming problem: violent men were now stuck at home, and their families were trapped with them. Calls to police about domestic disputes increased by 8.2%, while calls to women’s helplines soared almost 400%. We created this short film to speak directly to men who are using (or at-risk of using) gender-based violence as a response to the stresses of COVID-19 lockdowns.

To contrast the emotional difference between their experiences, we approached the film’s score entirely through sound design. We started with the woman’s story first, utilizing natural, tactile environmental sounds and a high-pitched drone that pulls the viewer in uncomfortably close and builds up the underlying tension throughout. Then, we took her sound bed and applied post-processing effects and distortion to create a version with even more tension, anxiety, and harshness, so that his story felt more threatening, isolated, and disconnected from her world. This technique served the intention of the film by imparting a very different feeling to each of their stories, even as their words, scenes and sounds were mirrored. For chilling effect, the actors performed their own narration.