A04

Evaluation

The task was to create a soundtrack for a moving image product, which
was for a doc horror trailer located in a school. The primary demographical audience for my moving image was age from 15-19 years old. The elements of a soundtrack that were required was dialog/speech e.g. scripted and unscripted, music e.g. theme tunes, music beds, pre-existing music and composed music, sound effects, wild tracks and silence. During this task I had to take into consideration the effects of these elements as the reasons for there use e.g. to explain an action, reinforce an emotion to the audience, to attract attention, to set a time period, to give coherence between shots, to identify the genre and have an effect on a specific audience. 

To create the soundtrack I used garage band to put loops together which enabled me to build my soundtrack. As a source I used freesound.org ( http://www.freesound.org/ ) , Freesound aims to create a huge collaborative database of audio snippets, samples, recordings, bleeps, ... released under Creative Commons licenses that allow their reuse. Freesound provides new and interesting ways of accessing samples. The samples that I got from freesound were the heartbeat and the male scream. The reason for this use was to have an impact on the product as both of these sound elements connote fear and suspense, the heart beat also identifies that their life could be in danger as the male scream at the end of the production connotes that he is. 

In research I have looked at several professional products such as ‘The blair witch project’, in comparison to The Blair Witch Project trailer, the soundtrack in my trailer contains a lot more dialog which helps explain the storyline. Also when researching The Blair Witch trailer it uses unsettling manipulated human sounds to explain the action in the trailer which also reinforces emotions and attracts the attention of the audience. When looking at the trailer I found these sound elements effective, as a result to this I used sound elements such as a voice over and eerie strings to also have the same impact as The Blair Witch Project. In the intro of the blair witch project tension is built and a mysterious feel which leads to your imagination as there is no dialog used which doesn’t explain the full content, as I felt this didn’t come across clear to the audience in that trailer . However I decided to use dialog in my trailer to explain emotionally how the characters feel the build up of sound and to make it clear to the audience to know what’s happening within the scene.  

Appeal to target audience 

I feel that my moving image and my sound applies to my target audience/ my primary demographic of 15-19. The reason why i think that this fits and reinforces particular emotions with the context of the genre such as i feel that my sound elements and the moving image builds tension and suspense, with the voice-over and the eerie strings which also create an uneasy atmosphere. The audience expectations in a horror film/ trailer, is that the audience would expect to hear suspense music that builds up to signify something is going to happen which builds tension and to help signify what is scary which is a convention in a horror film. You would also expect to hear sound elements such as screams, heartbeats, heavy breathing etc. which further builds tension and has an effect on the specific audience. The stylic conventions in a horror film is that you would expect to see low key lighting with dark shadows. The low-key lighting contrasts against bright lighting and shows deep dark lighting, which further creates rich shadows that serves to establish a certain mood/ atmosphere. The lighting that you would be expected to see in Horror films could be similar to Film Noir as the lighting makes the dark expectations come alive. To convoy this in my horror trailer i used a black and white effect to create this dark effect to create a certain mood to my target audience.The stylic conventions is used as an effect on the audience to make them feel scared with low-key lighting. The type of shots that you would expect to see in a horror film are close-ups and slow movements to build suspense and something bad is going to happen, which is also used by layering music which helps explain the story by the audience can identify the story distinctively. I have looked into the BBFC and have looked into the certificate ratings, i feel that my footage is suitable for a PG rating as there isn't any violent activity going on in my footage. In my trailer there is no use of violence that children will copy and the language used is suitable for this certificate category. I consider my trailer to be suitable for a PG category rating because there is used of language in  PG rating can contain mild bad language (such as ‘shit’ or ‘son of a bitch’), but the context and delivery are always important. For example, if the language is used aggressively or if there is too much bad language, a work may be passed at the next category. Using the criteria from the BBFC website there is used of mild language which is why i think it will be suitable for this category and not a U. 

 http://www.bbfc.co.uk/what-classification/pg  

A heartbeat and footsteps are used at the intro of my soundtrack which is used to build tension and to grab the audience’s attention; the footsteps also explain the action as the actors within the moving image are walking on concrete pebbly ground. Then we are introduced with a voice-over with the scripting of ‘when the sky begins to roar it’s like a lion at the door’, with a suspense low register jingle of ‘Duur, Dun’ which is a typical horror sound e.g. in jaws in this case this is also used for the same reason which is to grab the audience attention and to build tension within the scene, this identifies the genre of a horror. Also in the background is a owl sound that is a sound element found in iMovie this also

 adds to the atmosphere and has an effect on the audience as the owl is almost warning the characters about danger by the ‘hoot’ sound.   The dialog of the characters within the trailer is used to explain the action. The ‘Suspens…cents 02’ and the ‘Emotional piano 02’ sound is used to attract the audience’s attention, the other sound of the ‘suspens…04’ suggests that something bad is going to happen which identifies the genre which has an effect on the specific audience. The voice-over comes in again with scripting of ‘and when the door begins to crack it’s like a stick across your back’; layering the voice-over is ‘eerie strings’ which is used to identify the programme, attract the attention of the audience and to have an effect on the specific audience. The eerie strings create an unsettling feeling and builds tension, which shows that something is going to happen. The footsteps sound identifies what’s happening in the shot and to give coherence between shots. Then the next part of the voice over comes in with the titles on the screen with scripted words of ‘and when your back begins to smart, it’s like a penknife in your heart’ in an echo sound which has an effect on the audience, which makes them feel like they are on edge and nervous about what’s going to happen. The next part of the voice-over ‘And when your heart begins to bleed your dead, and dead and dead inside’, this is said in a more sharper tone with an echo effect of the word inside which attracts the audiences attention and reinforces emotions of fear, which also identifies the genre of a horror. By the style of sound elements used which are used to reinforce emotion, attract attention, explain action, have an effect on a specific audience which will also identify the genre. The sound effects used in my trailer work in harmony with the visual as the sound elements create a spine-chilling effect as the visual is in black and white which helps create the atmosphere of a doc horror, the sound effects used work well with this as there is used of heartbeats, footsteps, eerie strings and screams which build tension and identifies the genre, which attracts the attention of the audience and reinforces emotion of fear, suspense and builds tension.   

I edited the sound quality by layering different sound elements together to build to the suspense. For the voice-over I adjusted a delay like effect to create an echo effect to give it a horror feeling. 

I think that the one of my strengths of my soundtrack is the voice-over as this adds to the atmosphere with the echoic effect. However I think the weakness of my soundtrack and what could be improved could be the use of silence as this is use to build tension, as I didn’t use silence. Silence is also use to grab the audience attention however I used other sound elements to create the same effect. I have adjusted relative levels in order to create tension and suspense within my moving image, this also created attracted attention and reinforce emotions. I adjusted the voice-over by giving it a echoic effect by adding in different sound effects and levels, which added to the horror conventions furthermore this reinforced emotions and attracted the audience. 

The equalisation of my sound was adjusted with certain sound effects, for example i adjusted the voice-over by lowering the pitch to give it a darker sound which created a more coherence sound between different shots which had an impact on the audience. I used eerie strings by adjusting the pitch to sound higher in order to create an unsettling atmosphere and connote that something bad is going to happen within the moving image. By adjusting the equalisation this effected the overall sound quality by the levels and the pitch of each sound element. 

The effects that i used in my soundtrack was layered to make sounds louder which were not adjustable in terms of changing the equalisation adjustments, the impact that the layered sounds had was the footsteps which explained the action of the walking and running of the characters within the moving image. Other sounds that i have layered was eerie strings which identified the genre by the unsettling atmosphere and also this had an effect on the audience and attracted there attention by the high, off key pitch. By layering the eerie strings this made the sound louder which furthermore gave an impact on the audience and made the sound element stand out. I also layered the voice-over also help identify the genre and attracted the audience attention by the pitch and the echo effect of the words said. By using a different range of effects and sound elements this has allowed me to show case different skills and broaden my sound and create different impacts on the audience. By using sounds from different sources from iMovie, garage band, free sound and my own sound recorded this has allowed me to use diegetic and non-diegtic sounds within my footage showing different effects on the audience. Another sound effect that i used was a car screech which was used when the titles of the voider-over appeared on the screen, this sound effected was used to grab the audiences attention. 


Appropriateness for the moving image product:
The sound effects that i have used was to have an impact and to create a certain mood than conveyed with use of eerie tones/ instruments, which worked with the moving image. I have use sound elements to add layers of intrigue to the visual action, such as footsteps which identifies dietetic sound elects as this is what you would expect to hear if you was in the shot, furthermore this has been used to also show coherence between shots by the sound element still playing while the cutaway shots were cut and put together. By layering different sound together this had an impact on the audience and made the moving image product more appropriate by the impact that it had on the audience. By doing this, this made my sound elements accentuate visual aspects of the visual action. Furthermore the heartbeat and the footsteps showed the action of running and the heartbeat connoted a fast pace, scared, that there life may be in danger. 

compare with professional soundtracks  

Structure of kill bill trailer:

Sound is introduced before visuals
Sound of characters with voice over of narrator giving a back story
captions breaking scenes up

The clips are in chronological order of what's happening, the film narrative. There are a lot of action sequences, same tone as genre itself, the scenes are exaggerated which gives the film a comical effect. By the feeling and the characteristics of the film you get the style of violence and sex. All the  characters are introduced which are all woman. Diegetic and Non-diegetic sound effects to enhanced the story, sound of a flame- which connotes danger, this instantly attracts our attention and gives coherence between shots. Main character narrates the dialog. There are moments of silence and then a change in music pace which builds tension. Cool sense of music, context is explained and the problem is introduced, change in score and pace in music. Excerts of sound, actually sounds & dialog from the film.


The Blair witch trailer
Mystery and tension at the begging which leads to your imagine because the dialog isn't explained in compassion to the kill bill trailer and we don't know as musch, Non-diegetic sounds are used which create tension. There is a sense of authentic element which gives it a real effect/ believable.
We get silence, interviews, testromony, whiteness accounts, news reports, Non-fiction elements used to seem realistic. There is a video diary- confessional opinion which seems realistic and creates an eerie atmosphere. There are stretching sounds which is synthesised music to show the typical horror genre. There are sound of wind and echo sounds which are muted which are sounds that are unsettling, manipulated human sounds to explain action, and to reinforce emotion and attract the audiences attention . There is a police interview and a sting which makes it believable and adds tension to the trailer.


Furthermore by these notes and looking at the structure of other film trailers this has helped me to look at the structure and wok out what is positive and what is negative. By identifying the sound elements in the following trailers of Blair Witch and Kill Bill, this has made me think what each sound element does and the impact that it has on the audience for example silence builds tension and attracts the attention of the audience which also use of silence also identifies the genre. Also another film that i looked at which is shown in A01 is 'Let me in' the intro of the film starts with a heartbeat that has a low based register that sounds like a deep drumming sound which sets an eerie and tense mood. This is having an effect on the horror audience, because they understand the horror conventions, the deep drum eerie music is a media code which connotes danger. The audience de-code this as they understand the code. The code also represents a heartbeat, somebody's life is in danger. Then a foghorn is introduced and adds to sincere anbiounce and suggests space and isoloation and hazard. The weather comes in, which is wind which suggests danger and hazard; then a police car sound fazed/ blends in, which attracts the attention of the higher pitched of the sirens, and by theses elements explains the genre. This remains in a wide shot with the sirens in the background which shows that they are dealing with the matter/ taking action. The police and ambulance are zooming/ you can hear  the reving of the engine and the slush against the road.

Furthermore by looking at these professional soundtracks this has helped me compose my soundtrack by thinking about each sound element and the effect that it has on the audience, and having an effect on a specific type of audience by identify the genre and reinforcing emotions by the sound elements.

In order to identify if this is successful or not I create primary research of questionnaires this allowed me to know weather this would appeal to my primary demographic audience of 15-19 years old.  

There is no elements used in my soundtrack that could be offensive material or in my voice-over however in my video there is use of language that may not be suitable for younger viewing.  

Overall this soundtrack could be improved as the facilities that was provided wasn’t a high quality as a real film set due to the budget. However overall I feel that the facilities that were provided had a good overall sound.