The role of sound in creating suspense and anxiety

 I will claim to have settled into a more comfortable genre for my short film , psychological, since I’m trying to put the audience inside my protagonist mind, posing them to understand and make sense of their decisions. Connecting it to a previous post I have made, analyzing the movie “Carrie”, I want to achieve a similar feeling of understanding of the circumstances, but without falling into a horror or a tragedy, more like a neutral view. With this decision in mind, another aspect I choose to visit before my official start with scriptwriting and practicing is the sound. I can understand how sounds play into our brains, since I tend to get annoyed or distracted by the faintest of sound, but I’m still unaware of what sounds I could include in film to get a similar feel without it being “forced” or too low to hear.

This short clip shows the diagetic, inside of the world of the film, sounds. Even though it is for the psycho-thriller genre, I feel like they would fit into my story, since there are similarities between the genres after all. I found it helpful since it is easier for me to remember and register these sounds as a list than it being not organized, having a auditory cue for each, a guide of how they should sound. Another helpful aspect to it is how many of them can be easily reproduced in a non-traditional setting, having someone sob or whisper into an audio recorder, banging feet in the floor or scream, very accessible to be done in my own or with the help of someone in my house. The non-digetic sounds may be more difficult to achieve and I do not plan to include many in my film, since I feel it would take out of the experience of the intimacy and feel artificial. I may use a badly played piano, having one at my disposal, for a non-digetic sound effect if I feel it is needed and would not take out of the immersion. 

Another issue with the idea of sound usage is how the pitch and cutting of the film comes into place. I have discover and noticed how low pitch is used for dramatic purposes and pauses, while high pitches are to increase the anxiety of the viewer over what’s happening. Showing asynchronous sounds can show the actions of things happening before.showing it on screen. 

Sounds play an important part into how people will react, mostly relying on dialogue and what it’s left unsaid to show character’s emotions. I’m more comfortable working with that aspect of sound, but it has been interesting to understand how the more subtle sounds effects play such an important role in the audience. I hope to integrate them adequately and be more comfortable using them and considering them when starting script writing.

Citations:

Peter’s, St, director. Iconic Sounds of Psychological Thriller Genre . YouTube , 2014, youtu.be/Iwypdk5zTXk.