Planning Sound - Miss Miller

Sound plays a vitol role within the thriller genre, even-more-so than any other genre, as thriller films revolve around suspense, shock and exciting scenes and sound is involved heavily in creating these specific emotions. Thrillers usually heavily feature non-diegetic sound such as sound effects and music rather than diegetic sound which are more significant within the majority of other genres as they rely more on dialogue to influence the narrative. This huge impact on the film means that the sound within a film has to be planned and this planning process plays a vital role within the planning process as it gives the film maker a clear idea of what sound they will use for each frame and its affect on the audience and narrative.

Within my opening thriller i will initially use a lot of diegetic sound to set the scene, this lack of music and other sound effects also adds suspense as it makes the scene extremely quiet. For example as the car drives down the road at the start of our sequence the audience will only be able to hear the car engine and the car radio. This creates a normal atmosphere and lures the audience into a false sense of security before the following chaotic occurances. It also is very relatable for the audience as they have often been in these situations which helps create a relationship between the characters and audience. This sound effect is often used within the thriller genre as it creates a sense of normality as they can decipher where the origin of the sound is and therefore are not left confused by it and can focus on more significant elements.

Following this initial diegetic sound a significant use of a car alarm will be used. This is another example of on-screen diegetic sound as the sound is caused by something which can be seen within the frame and is not added within the editing process. Hopefully this use of a car alarm will shock the audience as we will had previously used numerous other elements to create suspense, this means they will be on the edge of their seat and enticed into the calmness the scene has created, this calmness contradicts the car alarm whcih will be loud and hopefully shock the audience.

As the narrative progresses the pace of the scene increases. Sound will play a crucial part in increasing this pace and creating excitement within the audience, to do this we will use fast paced music which is a example of non-diegetic sound. This music will reflect the action on screen and will therefore get the audience heart racing as the music will be loud and fast and in context with the visual. This technique is often used within numerous film genres as well as thrillers as it successfully creates excitement and can be adapted to suit numerous different scene's. Fast paced music is conventional to the thriller genre as it enhances the excitement within the audience dramatically and can therefore successfully get the audience's heart racing when necessary.

During this fast paced scene we will include a sudden decline in pace before using the same fast paced music again. During this brief slow section we will include parallel sound as we will include the non-diegetic sound effect of a heartbeat. This sound will reflect the noise from footsteps as well as the protagonists heavy breathing. This will make the audience empaphise with the charcter as these particular sounds of  a fast heartbeat and heavy breathing suggest that she is in distress and scared. Within the thriller genre parrllel sound is not particularly common and raely features but when it does it is also used in similar situations with similar sounds.

To conclude we plan to use numerous different sounds effects to create scenes which create suspense and contrasting scenes which create excitement. This will make our thriller more conventional as films within the thriller genre often use similar sound effects and music to evoke the emotions of suspense and excitement. The sound we plan to use will emphasise the effects we created on-screen this means that it will engross the audience in the narrative.