The use of sound in films

What role does sound play in film-making ?

Sound plays a very large role in the film industry today. We cannot underestimate the importance of sound in films . There are three different types of sound used in film : The human voice, sound effects and music. Sound is used in film to heighten a mood, provide us with information about the location of a scene, advance the plot and tell us about the characters in the story.

A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film.
Some films which are considered to have the best scores/ soundtracks are: Lord of the rings, The Sound of Music, Saturday Night Fever, The Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs etc.

In the short thriller film I will be making I will be using a variety of different sounds to create different moods and effects throughout, and to provide us with detailed thorough information about the characters .
For example we will be using dialogue in the film to provide clues and information about the characters. This is also to prevent confusion for the audience. The dialogue spoken will be used and expressed in different tones . For example words may be spoken with more aggression than others because it is a thriller and tension will want to be made to entice the audience to continue watching.
In our film, diegetic and non-diegetic sounds will also be used . The type of non-diegetic sounds that will be added will create a sinister effect. This is the type of effect we would want the audience to experience as it fits the story plot of a psychological thriller and will make their nerves tingle.  These sound effects will add to the mood of the audience and will provide us with more detailed information about the location at where it is being filmed. For example at the end when the van door shuts quickly, we want their to be a very loud bang which will create a mysterious effect of being trapped.
The type of music we have planned to use in our thriller film will hopefully make people fall to the edge of their seat . We want the music in our film to be very successful . We ideally want the music to change throughout when different things occur to create different moods. For example when the girl gets captured in our film and people are hunting for her , we want the music to get deeper and faster . This is to create an effect for the audience of a gloomy and mysterious atmosphere. We also want the music to help signal to the audience that she is in great danger .

ONE PAGE PITCH

One Page Pitch

Working title: Behind the mask

Length: 120 minutes

Deathly Wish Productions

Thriller type:  Psychological thriller

Target Audience: 15-40 years old and both sexes


Even though we have a specific age category for our film, it is oblivious to know that people in society won't follow it, meaning that some people below and maybe the majority above will more than likely watch it . We know that ere will be people from a range of different backgrounds, cultures, lifestyles, incomes and levels of education. Potentially our audience is mainly going to be from a high level of education as we understand that generally the higher educated are mainly more mature and will process the meaning of our film and the seriousness of it . Personally we don't think our film is for a serious film goer who goes to film festivals and occasionally the art-house theatre as it's a really serious matter that occurs frequently in society life today.

Our tagline will be : Will she ever return?

We have chosen this tagline purely to put the audience in suspense and to leave them with the rhetorical question, this creates a red herring and a narrative enigma, and this could build up more tension for the film itself let alone the topic.

A what if ?

What if a murderer escaped prison and he ran to Pilsley through Tupton where he becomes quite manipulative and can persuade people to follow and do things for him, then suddenly a survivor or an escape has reported his crimes and caution has been taken.

The story synopsis: Receiving nasty threats, all on oovoo talking about the stranger who is messaging her . I meet a random male and then out of no where a man drives up to me in a van . The male pushes me and mugs me . I get kidnapped.

Visual Realisation: We know of many different films that have explored the territory of the psychological thriller 'Lovely bones'. This is where we get our main ideas from as it involves kidnapping .  However ours won't take be situated around a school, as we will be situating ours in many different places such as Pilsley, the 5 pits trail, a van , etc.

The reason we chose this specific topic for our film is for many reasons one of them being that it is incredibly important that we get across to civilians in society that messaging/meeting people is very dangerous in real life today . We chose to do this as a film rather than a TV series because I feel like there are many TV dramas in this period and some previous, illustrating the point we are trying to tell everyone but attempting mix it up a little . Even though this particular matter is always reiterated by many different film production companies and TV dramas, but we feel that by young children creating and thinking o this serious matter shows that potentially even though the younger generation don't show any interest in the subject, it doesn't mean they don't take into account the seriousness of the situation.

Lighting

Lighting in film

There are many different types of lighting used in the making of films. This is to create certain feelings for the audience and effects. Different types of lighting are used in different types of films, depending on what genre it is . For example, some types of lighting are listed below:
- 3 point Lighting (back light, key light, fill light)
- Artificial Lighting
- High Key Lighting
- Low Key Lighting
- Back lighting
- Underlighting

As a group, we managed to take some great pictures of some different types of lighting :

NATURAL LIGHTING

Natural light is just the lighting that is beaming down from the sun, enabling everything to stand out in fabulous colours and tones.

LOW KEY LIGHTING

The lower the key light the more shadowy the effect. The shadows created by LOW-KEY LIGHTING work well in mysteries and horror films such lighting has become a convention of those genres.

ARTIFICIAL LIGHTING

We used a blue lense to create this shadowy, mysterious effect on our model Lauren. It is a deliberate use of lighting to achieve a practical or aesthetic effect.

HIGH KEY LIGHTING

High Key Lighting is used to create a brighter effect . High key lighting is often used in comedies and musicals to enhance a sense of liveliness and happiness.