Sound Preparation

We might think of film as an essentially visual experience however, we cannot afford to underestimate the importance of film sound. A meaningful sound track is often as complicated and effective as the image on screen. This is one of the most important aspects of a horror film as it is helping the film try to create a specific mood to the scene. The effective use of music will help promote even more emotions to the audience. Even though there are a lot of diverse ranges in the music that has been used throughout different horror films, some of these common conventions include:

• Isolated instruments are often used just before a key event occurs, which helps link the idea of vulnerability to the audience.
• Long suspenseful notes often help to contrast with short sharp notes to help shock the audience.
• Extreme but intentional changes of pitch tones. For example, low notes which suddenly change to very fast high pitches notes to make the audience feel immediately tense.

The entire sound track is comprised of three essential factors; the human voice, sound effects and music.  Non-diagetic sound is used to add emotion and rhythm to a film. In addition to this, background music often foreshadows a change in mood. Furthermore, background music may aid the viewer’s understanding by linking different scenes together. For example, a particular musical theme associated with an individual character or situation may be repeated at various points in a film in order to remind the audience of these ideas. Synchronized sounds are those sounds which are synchronized or matched with what is viewed. For example, if the film portrays a character playing the piano, the sounds of the piano are projected. Synchronized sounds contribute to the realism of film and also help to create a particular atmosphere whereas asynchronous sounds are not matched with a visible sound on screen. Finally, dialogue is a real person telling the story/the words that the characters speak.

I decided to do some research on different sound editing software that we can use to edit the sound that we will be used in out trailer. We also decided to record some sounds that could possibly be used within our trailer. We recorded sounds of:

• ·         Doors slamming
• ·         Footsteps
• ·         Doors creaking
• ·         A teddy bears picnic
• ·         “Lucy-Don’t go in the woods”
• I researched the Pros and Cons of the following sound editing software; Audacity, Wavepad and Waveshop.

Below, you will find the sounds that Beth and I recorded. These sounds will be scarier when edited to how we want it to sound:

Overall, after weighing up the advantages and disadvantages of each sound editing software, Beth and I decided that we were going to use garage band to edit our sound within our trailer.