Planning Sound - Miss Miller

Sound is a important within thriller films, this is because without it the there would not be much tension or suspense and so the audience would not be able to stay engage in the film as well and would lose interest easily as the film would then be less scary. Therefore, planning is required to help us in producing our sequence as it mean we know what sounds will go where before filing our sequence, and so we know what sounds will create shock, surprise, suspense and tension. The sounds used need to link in with images seen by the audience on screen as if they don't this could cause the audience to become confused. Additionally, it could effect the suspense which has been creates from the previous sound, which could result in the audience losing interest and no longer benign engaged in what they are watching.

My Groups Sound Planning Sheet

The first sound me and my group have decided to use is on-screen sound. This is going to be used at the start of the sequence when the antagonist is in his room getting ready and is listening to the radio. We will then use a radio voice over to announce how young women have been going missing, this will then imply to the audience that he is the antagonist and that he is up to something and the camera will be on him when the voice over occurs. This is because the audience can infer that he is involved with the warning said on the radio and so the audience fear for his next female victim. The impact this has on the audience is that they feel sympathetic towards the victim also they build a negative relationship with the antagonist as they start to understand his motives for his next victim. This type of on-screen sound is conventional as it forebodes that something bad is about to happen.

The second type of sound we will use is silence, we will use silence when the victim is alone in the a dark alley way on her way to meet whoever left her the secret admirer note. She then notices pictures of herself hanging all around her in the alley. This shows that she is frightened and vulnerable as she does not know what is going on and that she is in danger. When the silence occurs it makes he audience feel sympathetic towards the victim as the silence can foreshadow her silence once the antagonist kills her. Additionally, this also causes a closer relationship to form between the victim and the audience as they fear for the innocent young woman's life. Silence is conventional in a thriller as it builds up suspense and as a result keeps the audience engaged.

The next sound we will use is diegetic sound, this will be used when the victim is sitting alone tied up in the corner of a dark room and she has just woken up from when she had been knocked out in the alley. The antagonist then enters and while slowly walking towards the victim he scrapes his weapon, the knife, along the wall. This diegetic sound highlights to the audience that the antagonist has power over the victim, which makes the audience fear for the victim life as they do not know what is going to do to her. Also, as the audience does not know who the antagonist is it makes them question what he might do next as he could do anything. This sound is conventional as it demonstrates to the audience that the antagonist is more dominant compared to the victim, which creates suspense and keeps the audience engaged wanting to find out more about the antagonists motives and wondering what he will do to the victim. 

The last sound technique we will use is contrapuntal sound, this will also be used when the antagonist is scraping the knife against the wall walking towards the victim, who is tied up in the corner and appeared to at the audience as being hopeless and vulnerable. The contrapuntal sound we will use is happy circus music, this will play in the background. This relate's to the theme of having a clown antagonist however, it contrasts with the fact he is preparing to kill the innocent victim. It shows that the antagonist enjoys killing and kidnapping females after obsessing over them and that he gets a thrill from it. This use of contrapuntal sound builds a negative relationship between the audience and antagonist, as they know what his motives are for the victim and what is about to happen to her The use on contrapuntal sound creates tension for the audience, making this conventional to the thriller genre.

To conclude, i think that the type of sound techniques me and my group have decided to use will be effective in our sequence as they will help to build suspense. This will help in keeping the audience engaged and wanting to watch more to find out what will happen. The sounds we are using are conventional the the genre thriller, this is because they create the main elements: shock, surprise, suspense and tension as well as an enigma. I found it helpful in planning the sounds we are going to use in our sequence, this is because we now know what sounds we are going to use. Therefore, we know what element will be created by the sound, also, the characters will know how they should act to fit in with what sound is being used.