Planning Sound

Intro:

Sound is essential within films as it creates effects, with out it the film would be ineffective and the audience would find it difficult to follow and understand.  Sound effects, music and human voice is essential to include within films, without these 3 elements, images within the film that are put together wouldn't work and would struggle for the film to make sense. This is why sound is so important within thriller films, in order to create suspense, you need elements such as music and sound effects to build tension. Therefore in order for my group and I to produce an excellent sequence, sound is essential.

Sound Techniques:

Non-diegetic sound - We as a group decided to include fast paced eerie music, this will be included after the murder has happened as the antagonist walks away from the murder scene. The effect created by the fast pace of the music will cause the audience to feel tense and in a heightened state of shock. It will also make the audience feel as if they have to keep up with the quickly developing storyline. This is conventional to the thriller genre as the eerie music can make the scene seem scarier than it actually is due to the build up of tension it has on the audience.

Diegetic sound-  We decided to use diegetic music in our thriller sequence as this is essential in order to create for a sequence to being successful. The scene starts off with upbeat music playing on the car radio, with the two girls singing along to it prior to the car breaking down. The effect that this will create is that it tricks the audience into thinking everything is okay so when the car does break down the audience are surprised. This is conventional to the thriller genre as it gives the audience an understanding of what the girls are thinking, you can tell that they are in a panicked state by their shaky voices, this gives the audience an insight to both of the girls nights going terribly wrong.

On screen sound of car engine- Engine noises are heard as the audience see the car come to a holt. The effect of this makes the audience nervous for the two victims and will question what is going to happen next as they are portrayed as vulnerable at this point. The audience suspect that things are starting to take a turn for the worst. This is conventional as it leads from one bad to thing to the next, nothing good can come from what is unfolding within the sequence so it prepares the audience for the worst to occur.

Diegetic & Parallel sound- This is on screen sound of the antagonist walking through the leaves on the forest floor prior to the murder. We are using this type of sound as the camera is switched into P.O.V. showing the antagonists feet crunching through the forest just before he murders the victim, Gemma. The effect that this will generate is tension for the audience as they question his purpose for being in the forest and whether Gemma and the antagonist will encounter each other.

Conclusion:

Overall, we found that planning the sound that we are going to use was helpful as it gave us a chance as a group to decide what kind of sound to use in each parts to the sequence. The has to be planned ahead in order for our sequence tone successful as when it comes to filming it on the day, if any thing didn't fall into place we can make a few tweaks and changes to what we have discussed. If we went in to filming with no plan what so ever our sequence would end up falling part as everything would be rushed and out of sync. I feel that using these 4 types of sound will help us to create more of an effective sequence as they are all conventions of what a thriller should contain.