Thriller Planning - Soundtrack Ideas

For our Soundtrack, we must consider creating an atmosphere through the music that matches what is going on in our sequence. At the start of our sequence, the man will be walking through the street, and he will encounter a young girl, and so we would want an eerie, mysterious atmosphere to be created through our soundtrack. By contrast, at the introduction of the "Shade" characters, we would need to create a faster paced, more suspenseful atmosphere, and the music will be vital in creating this. This post discusses inspirations from other Thriller films, already released instrumental tracks and sound effects and when we could use similar sounds in our soundtrack.

Inspirations:
For the flashbacks that occur throughout the scene we like the noises from the opening tracks for Prometheus and Requiem for a Dream. In these, loud bangs are sampled, which we could use. These will create the sense that the flashbacks are important and also take the audience by surprise through heavy bass and little treble in the sound effect. This can be easily replicated using editing software such as Audacity that personally I am very familiar with after using it in ICT GCSE and outside of school in my own music projects. We also like the uncomfortable tone created in Insidious, which would create tension and uneasiness with the audience and therefore reflecting the characters emotions. An alternative to these is camera shutter sounds, however we wish for the sound to last longer during the flashbacks, making camera shutters hard to use due to their small length. A prolonged bass could be used here to effect, and could also be repeated every time a Shade appears on screen to build suspense.
 
For the middle of the scene, which incorporates the "Chase" scene or the Detective fleeing from the passive Shades, we are interested in music similar to the famous piece used in Jaws. The increase in tempo and pace draws parallels with our characters increase in anxiety and also shows progression and creates tension. The instrumentals, "Pyres of Varanasi" or "Depuis Le Debut" by rock band 30 Seconds To Mars are similar styles to this. The instrumental sections of the track both slowly progress to reach a crescendo. I could use editing software Audacity and sample certain aspects of these tracks but if I did so the track would have to be completed re-invented; I wouldn't simply copy and paste the track and perhaps shorten it as it would still be copyrighted material. By taking a single note and adapting it, perhaps using the technology of a more developed production software such as Fruity Loops Studio or Logic by myself I could edit the particular aspects of the track to our desired needs. Of course we would still have to partially acknowledge the use of copyright material. A less complex method could be to use tracks that are not copyrighted or from an unknown artist which would also be possible, our we could use copyright free tracks from the internet. However whichever method we decide the pace of the music will have to increase and progress to show the characters' fear and anxiety during this section.


Referring to the beginning and the end of the scene, our group liked the idea of using a slow piano piece to create an eerie atmosphere. As I missed a lesson I further researched music that we could use here at home during what would've been the lesson and concluded we could use this in conjunction with an acoustic guitar to create the effect of loneliness and enhance perhaps more psychological aspects of our thriller - played in a certain way , the guitar could have more of an effect than the piano we first decided on. Ideas for tracks here came from Clint Mansell's piano piece "Together We Will Live Forever" from the film "The Fountain", and from two unheard artists with very few people knowing of their work, the band Progress in Color for a piano piece and instrumental band This Will Destroy You. We could emulate the guitar effects discussed in simple software such as Garage Band or by the same editing method I detailed earlier.


These pieces would help create an atmopshere that could draw many parallels with thriller films that use similar music to match locations used in thriller films that have inspired us - for instance, the slow, eerie guitar will be used in the streets, similarly to in the "Dark Knight Rises" where the streets are deserted at the end, and the music will pick up in the forest, similar to the score in "Shutter Island" where DiCaprio is escaping the police in the forests. This results in a correlation in our scene and score meaning we can conform to genre conventions. We will signify a thriller film through the soundtrack by refraining from using exceesive sharp noises that could possibly indicate a horror and not a thriller - these pieces will focus more on creating the element of mystery and suspense within the scene and so we need to re-create something of a similar standard to make our piece successful.

Inspiration for creepy, slow paced pieces of music also include music from the films Scream, Dawn of The Dead, The Uninvited and The Ring. The links to all of these audios can be found through the links below. Thanks to Ellie for discovering these particular pieces and bringing their attention to the group.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPf4xjabi_0 - Piano piece that could be used at the start of the sequence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ7RZzEG_7s
Scream, Dawn of the Dead, The Uninvited and The Ring music are featured in this compilation video of "top horror soundtracks". From watching this video we can see what our audience on YouTube thinks makes a good soundtrack for a film, although these films are horrors, not thrillers.

Camera shutter effects:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgBxQX-dQsc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMI6yys_yKo