Sound Discussion - Miss Miller

Sound is important within a thriller because it suggests a feeling of a character or leads the audience into feeling a certain emotion. Often within thrillers, sound is used in order to add to the shock factor for the three S', these are Shock, Suspense and Surprise. By allowing this it makes the thriller affect the audience more and leave an impact. Sound gives a lot away about genre, for example eerie music will be used in a horror/thriller, cheerful music in an adventure film etc. My group and I have lots of ideas on what sound techniques to use in order to achieve a powerful reaction from the audience and these include:

• Non Diagetic
• Parallel Sounds
• Diagetic
• Off Screen
• On Screen
• Controversial Sound

We believe that using diagetic sounds during our opening sequence will emphasise how our character is feeling. For example, when our second victim, 'Dave' arrives home and is about to come face-to-face with his killer, the loud beat of his heart will be beating which will convey the idea to the audience that there is a strong sense of fear within the scene. Having a loud heart beat over the scene show's that the character is nervous which will gain the audience's sympathy at this point because it's showing a character in a vulnerable position. My group and I have decided to place this diagetic sound at this point within the scene because we felt that by this time, there is a stronge sense of enigma which indicates that this is conventional to a thriller film because thrillers like to give off the theme of fear and create a tense atmopshere aswell enigma in order to trap the audience into feeling how the character may be feeling.

Another sound technique we are using is controversial. We felt strongly about including this into a thriller because when we include this in our opening sequence when Dave returns home to see an empty downstairs, with the audience unknowing that something bad has happened, the audio of a radio playing an up beat song such as 'Mrs Robinson' creates the sense that everything is bad. My group and I believe that by including this within our own opening sequence it misleads the audience and confuses them because the scenes of which are happening are disturbing yet the upbeat music makes everything appear good and positive, therefore confusing the audience makes them unsure on how they should feel about a certain character. Also, despite what the effect this may have on the audience with relation to how the character is feeling, this sound technique can also represent the personality of our victim. The upbeat music portrays a happy and jolly side, which we felt would be a strong piece of music to use as it could allow the audience to infer from this that the character of 'Dave' is a jolly person. This is conventional to a thriller film because it's allowing the audience to subconsciously build a relationship with the characters and get to know what kind of personality they have. Further more my group and I felt this would be a good use of controversial music and feel that by using this, it will set the audience up for shock when something bad happens during the misleading music.

Off screen sound is another sound technique of which my group and I believed to be strong within our opening sequence. We will use this particular sound effect when Dave is on the phone to Stacey, and we are unable to see Stacey. This indicates to the audience who the character is speaking to, and allowing the audience to hear who's on the other end and what the conversation is about means that we are able to gain focus from the audience on the character on the other end of the line to show the significance of the other character. By allowing the audience to divert their attention to a different character, it is allowing them to pre-meet them the character and get an idea for their personality. Though this sound effect doesn't convey any emotion of the characters, it does allow a sense of knowing because it is involving the audience into knowing what the conversation is about showing a sense of trust and allowing the audience to build a relationship with the characters. This is conventional to a thriller film because it is allowing the audience to become attached to each character therefore meaning that if anything happens to them, the audience will be sympathetic towards the characters.

My group and I feel that by including Silence in our opening sequence will help produce a tense atmosphere amongst not only the scene but also amongst the audience. We will use silence when Dave is searching for his dead wife, Stacey, and before coming face to face with her, there will be a long pause of silence. The reason for this is because often where the is silence, the audience will be waiting in anticipation to see what has happened. This is conventional to a thriller because the audience will be in pure suspense, it also makes a sense of unknowing and therefore my group and I thought this would be useful to use in our own opening sequence.