Danielle Blasse 7010 - Cloe Pace-Soler 7352 - Rebecca Holloway 7279 - Natasha Welch 7399
Townley Grammar School - 14109

Friday 25 October 2013

Use of sound in psychological film

Use of sound in psychological film

A beautiful mind

The use of non diegetic sound throughout the trailer begins with an extremely thin texture of sound. It sounds as if a riff played on a xylophone is playing and then gradually builds up to a thicker texture of a full ochestra as the trailer develops, revealing the mastermind that John Nash (the protagonist) is. If we wanted to incorporate this into our trailer we would have to think of ways to manipulate the music to suit the needs of our trailer. For instance, this music sounds triumphant at the beginning however it does not hint at a disequilibrium within the plot. If anything it sounds intriguing and inviting which invites an audience in. Digetic sound is also used, highlighting the predominant scenes in the movie howver, we would not be able to do this as it may take away a big part of the realism of our trailer. The non diegetic sound is also ongoing and develops into a more percussive and chaotic manipulation of the ochestral music as the schizophrenic element of the trailer becomes more apparent. Silence is also used in combination with a black screen to draw on a digetic line from the film itself. This is almost used as a soundbridge to link the disequilibruim and recovery of it together through sound as the non digetic sound switches from a spontanoues percussive sound to an uplifting orchestral sound that carries the trailer to the end.





Clean Shaven 

Layering of individual sounds are used at the beginning of the trailer to create a disorientating element. It also mimicks the sound of someone dragging or scraping something along a floor or hard surface. It also manipulates voices together to create a chaotic and busy mind. A montage scene is also used and repetition of voices and sounds of traffic and other daily ambient noises are used to get across the protagonists loss of grip on reality. Similarly to A Beautiful Mind diegetic dialogue is used too and draws on the line " it's not healthy to sit inside all day" again drawing on the concern of otheres about the protagonists mental wellbeing. As this diegetic sound comes to a close, we can hear ever so quietly in the background the use of strings to create a sinister sound.
 Unlike A Beautiful Mind, this trailer does not use a continuous track and it unlikely to have been scored as it sounds as if improvisation was used to produce the sound as some sounds would have been produced due to the manipulation that editing provides or playing the instrument differently. We can achieve a sound like this, possiby by layering sounds on top of each other such as various voices repeating phrases, ambient sound such as traffic etc.



The Soloist
The non diegetic sound used in this trailer starts off as being jazzy and soulful, with this it forms an accompaniment of the lower stringed instruments, such as Nathaniel's cello playing. The non diegetic sound becomes a lot more developed into the plot as Nathaniel is introduced and the sound becomes entirely focused on him as he plays his cello, showing his talent. Nathaniel's playing becomes the non diegetic sound for a few seconds as Mr Lopez looks into his story and we learn a small bit of context about Nathaniel. Diegetic is used too as a character asks whether Nathaniel is schizophrenic. As the trailer reaches the end, classical music takes over acting as a continuous soundtrack for the film. The trailer ends with diegetic sound of Nathaniel's playing. A creative element of sound that has been used in this trailer would be the contrast of the use of diegetic and non diegetic sound as it switches a number of times. Additionally, it also combines a flavour of music genres such as jazz, soul and classical music. Although our trailer does not have a focus of music as this one does, we can always bear in mind what different genres of music offers and layer them to create a continuous track that suits our trailer, as it's quite specific. 

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