Music and Sound

After shooting our opening for the first time, I began experimenting with various pieces of music that would compliment our footage well and fit into the horror genre. I wanted to find music that featured eerie and uncomfortable sounds that would put my audience on edge when watching. When watching, I want them to feel uncomfortable and scared and music will help in doing this. 

For inspiration, I have researched a variety of slasher horror soundtracks. This helped me know what music I was looking for. I learnt what was needed in a horror movie soundtrack for it to be frightening, for example, staccato. All soundtracks are discordant and jarring which is what will put the audience on edge and make them feel uncomfortably scared when watching which is what I aim to do as I feel music plays a big part in scaring an audience. Below are the three major slasher soundtracks I researched, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween.

Friday the 13th

A Nightmare on Elm Street

Halloween

From these soundtracks from popular slasher horror films Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween it made it easier to know what soundtrack I wanted for my opening. I searched for copyright free music on www.purple-planet.com and found some that I thought would match my footage well. Below are 3 soundtracks that I considered to have in my opening.

Insidious: This soundtrack begins to set an eerie atmosphere but as it goes on, uncomfortable sounds are introduced making the piece more harsh and discordant. This matches my footage perfectly as I want to create an eerie, creepy atmosphere at the beginning of my opening when Sam finds the newspaper article about the masked killer, then I want the music to turn more jarring with the use of staccato when Ben enters the forest and the Masked Killer is shown for the first time. I ended up choosing this soundtrack to be the one featured in my opening as I feel as if it would match the footage just as I want it to.

Sepulchral: I liked this soundtrack due to the distorted piano as I feel as if it could make the audience feel uncomfortable with fear and suspicion. The piano could also link to the vulnerable and child-like nature of Sam as he is scared when he finds the newspaper article about the masked killer. However, I do not feel as if this piece would compliment my footage just as much as I would like it to. Also, I believe this distorted piano soundtrack would sound better in a paranormal horror film, not a slasher as slasher films tend to be a lot more jarring and fast-paced, like the three existing examples above.

Executor: Similarly to the first of my chosen soundtracks, this one features jarring and discordant sounds to make the audience feel uncomfortable with fear. However, I prefer the first one in the way that it builds up instead of starting jarring straight away. I do not feel as if this would match my opening at the beginning when Sam and Ben are speaking.

After receiving feedback from my draft opening, I realised I needed to feature more sound effects. As a result I have since added some sound effects to make my footage look more effective and to conform to the slasher horror genre. Before, GB turned around when he was in the forest however there were no noises as to why he did turn around, so I added a sound effect of a twig snapping. Furthermore, I added a sound effect of the Masked Killer breathing through the gas mask over the POV shots to make it clear that it is a point of view from a killer and at the end when he kills GB, I believe this has made the ending of the opening more scary for audiences.