For our project (two minute opening to film genre of our choice), we had to think of the different types of sounds to use in our film to convey separate messages to both the characters and the audience. Firstly, we obviously already had the sound of the music box in our clip but we realised that this was not enough if we wanted to get enough music and examples of how sound can be used in order to relate it to a typical horror. We went back to the four films that we studied and specifically concentrated on the types of music used. We found out that for a horror to work, you definitely need some sort of sound or music because this element of media plays a huge role in most films but in particular, horrors.
A common factor with the ways in which music can be used in horrors is that the mood of the music can change very suddenly or gradually change at a speed that keeps up with the situation going on screen. For an example, if somebody in a horror movie was being followed/stalked by a killer, the music may start off very quietly and slowly but gradually build up to the climax where the music can be very fast and 'highpitched' where on screen, the killer has met his victim or the victim runs away.
In terms of the sounds that can be used in horrors there are many examples. Alot of modern day horror films use a technique that is called 'non-diegetic' sound. This is where you see a scene of a film but the sound you hear cannot be seen on the screen. For an example, a voice-over can be used to talk about a flashback or narrate someones story in a film or in a horror film, the use of non-diegetic sounds is usually the screaming of a character being killed but what you see on the screen is totally different. We wanted to use non-diegetic sound in our film because we wanted to keep as close as we could to the horror genre.
This is the fight scene at the end of This Is England where before it gets violent, Combo and Milky are having a great time talking about families and meals and laughing but the background music is a piano playing sad music to convey to the audience that Combo is getting angry but Milky has not noticed. This scene is an example of contrapuntal sound as it is contradicting what is going on in the scene.
Another common use of sound in horror films is asynchronous or even more commonly contrapuntal sound. This is where a piece of music or a sound is played over the top of a scene that contradicts what is going on in the scene. For an example, if a couple were arguing but it started to escalate violently, the director might choose to tone down the dialogue and play ambulance sirens over the top to signal to the audience that everything is not alright. We liked this idea so we chose to make the music box the key to the use of contrapuntal sound in our clip. We decided to use a scene where Chloe's character is having a violent break-down but the sound of the happy music box is still being played to contradict what is going on.
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