Sound
The purpose of Sound within trailers (or movies for that matter) is to create pacing, suspense, and atmosphere. The purpose of sound within Horror especially is to create a foreboding atmosphere and eerie vibe, allowing the audience to be empathetic with the characters of the movie and share the fear that the characters are experiencing. Music can also evoke several emotions, whether it be joy, confusion, or suspense. Sound effects such as gun shots or footsteps are also usually added in during the editting phase, as crisp sound quality is essential when creating a high quality product whether it be a trailer or movie.
When researching sound, we decided that it would be best to look at and research different horror trailers to enable us to see the common conventions of sound within different genres of horror trailers, and also the various techniques used. Therefore we decided to look at a trailer for the movie: 'The Crazies'.
This trailer started off with a soft piano cover, slowly transitioning into an ominous drone sound when a serious scene when the infected man begins to walk into the baseball pitch. The sound of crickets chirping is also audible throughout the entire baseball scene, however it stops as soon as the gunshot occurs. Hard hitting 'domino' sound effects are also used to support the change of scenes within the frequent montages. This allows the trailer to control the emotions of the audience, allowing them to feel calm, and then plunging into a flurry of action scenes. This trailer is a perfect of example of sound allowing pacing and control of the emotions of the audience.
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Another trailer we researched for sound was the Saw 7 (3D) trailer. At the beginning of the trailer a non-diegetic 'whoosh' sound can be audible. This is to match the sped up movement of the camera as it pans around, creating a fast paced atmosphere. There is also an eerie bell clang after every caption that resonates through the following scenes, which sets an ominous pace to the trailer. Various foley sound effects such as knives slicing, breaking glass, and various mechanisms activating can be heard also to intensify the brutal scenes within the movie. The iconic SAW sound track is also playing when the action scene montage begins, stops for the final, and then continues when the final credits roll. We liked the idea of the sound track stopping for a brief moment to add suspense so we decided to implement that into our trailer for the final scene.
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Foley
Foley is the process of recording and using sounds to enhance the audio quality for films, songs, or advertisements. These sounds can be anything from a door creaking to glass smashing. Foley is added by what is known as a 'Foley Artist' and is a part of the post-production phase. Foley was essential when creating our product as we wanted to get the best quality of sound possible.
To gather foley effects such as foot steps, gun shots, blood splatters, etc. we used the program soundtrack pro.
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Soundtrack Pro is a music composing program created by Apple. It is used for everything from creating music to constructing sound for films and advertisements. It also has an enormous library of foley effects, which is why it would be ideal for creating a trailer.
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This is a screenshot of a section of our audio layers when editing our trailer. As you can see there are an enormous amount of layers, with each layer consisting of a different sound. There were in total around 25 audio layers altogether, and having separate layers for different sounds allows me to blend different sound effects together and have them overlapping.
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This is the raw sound for our trailer without the footage. Following the common conventions of most horror trailers, we decided to add a deep bass thump sound for each caption that appears, as it draws attention to the words on screen and makes it seem as if the words written down have more of an impact. We also added an ominous drone sound that plays throughout the entire montage, stops, and then carries on throughout the final scene. This is to show that whenever this sound is playing, danger is present.
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This is the final scene of our trailer, and it is a prime example of why sound is crucial when creating a horror trailer, as through the combination of the heavy breathing, static glitch sound within the camera, and ominous drone loop we are able to create an atmosphere of suspense and fear, all leading up to the final scare, which is a common convention shared by almost all horror trailers ever created.
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