Analysing sound.

SOUND ANALYSIS OF THE THRILLER SCENE.

I’ve chose this thriller/horror scene for the analysis, because, however it looks rather poor with sounds, I was interested of how much I can actually take out of it.

0:00 – 0:20

 From the very beginning of the sequence we can only hear diegetic sounds – footsteps and opening of the elevator’s doors – this makes a scene look very realistic and natural, so that the audience has a feeling that same may happen in real life with them, what is subconsciously more fearful. We do not hear any non-diegetic sounds at all at this stage. This creates a feeling of loneliness and isolation and establishes the woman being on her own waiting for the elevator.

The editors, wanting to achieve tense in this scene, might have put a creepy soundtrack to make audience expecting ‘something bad’ to happen due to how mise-en-scene is set – loneliness, slightly grey lighting and woman by herself. But instead, they’ve let the scene flow without any music, what looks much more naturalistic and allows reaching the state of great tense, when the audience even tries to hold the breath in order to hear what is happening in the scene. I would even argue that the silence is exaggerated for greater effect on the consumers at that moment when the woman is looking at the cameras – we can’t hear even her breath, no sounds at all, what kind of makes it a pleonastic sound. The unrealistic and exaggerated absence of sound makes it a sound. Similar to us thinking that actual darkness exists, but in fact, darkness – is just a complete absence of light.

How the absence of the sound makes an ordinary scene - a thriller scene?

00:21 - 1:14

At the seconds 00:21-00:22 we can hear a non-diegetic sound for the first time in the scene. Very tiny and unnoticeable music begins to accompany the picture. IMHO, it’s one of the best parts of this sequence, which really does the major job in creating tense and making this scene – a thriller scene. It’s great when you can create a piece of work which is able to frighten the audience, but not let them notice the reason for such their response. I believe it’s a very clever use of sound. In that part of the scene quiet music is interrupted by two strangers running into the elevator – the unexpected sound drags the audience out of the “trance” and forces them to forget about the mysterious man in the elevator for the moment. So this feeling of relief, when you see that the main hero of the scene is not isolated anymore and there is life around her, juxtaposes with the previous feeling of tension and the following part of the scene when a man and a girl leave and the hero is on her own again. Music is still quietly playing and other diegetic sounds like footsteps or elevator are mixing with it.

Do the diegetic sounds bring in naturalism?

1:14 – 1:30

After the nice naturalistic moment when two characters have jumped into the elevator, what have defused the tension, we are dropped into the new wave of fear where all the sounds disappear completely again. The main character is slowly trying to see if there is anybody hiding inside the elevator which has just opened - we see the mid shot of her face and then the POV shot, showing what she sees inside. This sequence is quite stressful as the audience expects the worst part to happen now, and the absence of any kind of sound perfectly accompanies the idea, creating a perfect ensemble.

Point of view shot - who is hiding in the elevator?

1:31-1:32

For the second the screen goes black and you can hear only one diegetic sound – the elevator closing its doors, which is arguably a pleonastic sound, what suggests the audience that the main character has entered inside. This second is a perfect example to show how important the sound is in the film industry. Although, we didn’t actually SEE the character entering the elevator, we KNOW it’s happened, as we’ve HEARD it. Furthermore, we can even distinguish the sounds of the elevator ‘opening’ and ‘closing’, because we’ve already heard both in that sequence previously, so our brain subconsciously understands which of those sounded now and links it to what had happened.

The woman comes into the elevator - do we SEE it?

1:33-1:51

The absence of non-diegetic sound continues to emphasize on the realism of the situation. However, now we have one more very interesting diegetic sound added – we can hear her breathing. That’s quite smart of editors not to put it before - it connotes she has not been afraid or worried before that particular moment, but now she’s found her brave enough to enter the elevator with something supernatural trapped inside, however her deep breathing reveals her real emotions – she is scared.

I’ve noticed the sound of human breathing really works well in creating a feeling of tense and expectancy in a lot of movies, and it did work well in this seen also. You really get that realistic feeling while watching, as deep breathing is linked in our brain with running, tiredness, stress and trying to calm yourself down. You breathe deeply when some trouble has just happened and you are struggling to overcome it, you also breathe deeply when you are in pain, so when you hear such sounds you instinctively replicate the emotions of the human being reproducing it, what forces you to go through the stress of the situation with the main character.

Heavy breathing - an indicator of fear?

1:52 – 1:55

This part contains the first proper, loud, noticeable non-diegetic sound in the scene. You hear a sharp sound as the shot quickly changes from close-up of the reflection of the ghost-man in the elevator’s wall to the mid shot (or two shot), where you can actually see him oddly standing behind her back. The rapid change of the camera shots is accompanied by this sound to emphasize on the man – it’s the first time in the entire sequence when she is standing that close to him and the first time the sound is so loud and so ‘on age’, what may have a deeper connotation of her being frightened, not expecting to see him there, having a real panic inside.

He came out of the blue - what the sound does to emphasize on it?

To conclude, I’m really happy I’ve chosen this scene to analyze, because it gave me a real idea about that you don’t have to put lots and lots of sounds to create a really good thriller scene. 
It’s more about how and when you use it, and sometimes even the silence – can be much more terrifying than the loudest screaming.

* * *

P.S.: Just take a listen to that lovely piece "Silence"(which is just 'bang in theme' of my blog:) by Beethoven, because you are probably tired after reading all those blogs *-*