Sound Design Evaluation

For this task we were asked to film some footage of around 30 seconds in length, the footage could include anything of our choosing. Once we had recorded our footage, we were asked to add in our own sounds such as sound effects and some music to set the mood. Alex and I found this particular task rather easy as Alex already had some experience in using GarageBand and I quickly learnt the basics of the program. We split our roles between us, I was to edit our footage and Alex was to come up with an eerie atmosphere to add to it. The editing was incredibly easy as we have used FinalCut numerous times already so my task was finished fairly swiftly. As I had finished, we thought I should also try to find some sounds to add to our footage and then see which one we should use. We quickly decided on which sounds we were going to use. Fitting the sounds to the footage came as a bit of a struggle for me because I couldn’t get the timing of certain effects right. However, after we were shown that we could open our footage in GarageBand and fit it to the timeline of our music/effects, everything was straight forward from then onwards.

Thriller Audience Analysis

The History of Thriller

Thriller first arrived within literature; the first pieces were poems such as “Epic of Gilgamesh” and “Homer’s Odyssey”. In the Odyssey, the main hero, Odysseus, takes on a dangerous journey home after the Trojan War, overcoming incredible obstacles to be reunited with his wife, Penelope. These pieces were written in times of the Ancient Greeks yet ideas are still written into films in more recent years such as Jason and The Argonauts (1963). Though this film was made first made in 1963, it was remade in 2000 as a TV film. Another example of a popular thriller story is “Little Red Riding Hood” which is a story of a psychotic stalker, which seems to be a convention in the thriller genre. Little Red Riding Hood was first a fairy tale story depicting a small girl travelling through the woods to deliver food to her sick grandmother. This four hundred year old fairy tale, despite its age, was recently made into a film in 2011 starring Amanda Seyfried.

  Following the period of fairy tale and poem thrillers, in 1844 there became thriller novels such as “The Count of Monte Cristo” in which a man is wrongfully imprisoned by his friends and then finds a way to get his revenge. This novel is another example of a thriller story to be modernized and made into a film in 2002. Following from literature, a man named Alfred Hitchcock created his third silent film “The Lodger” in 1926 (but would, in later years, be received as the first “true” Alfred Hitchcock film), which was a story about Jack the Ripper. This film established his role in the film industry and gave him the themes that he would use in later films such as the innocent man on the run, fetishistic sexuality and the feeling of being hunted down by society. David Ondaatje later recreated this film in 2009 starring Alfred Molina. Alfred Hitchock’s next thriller film was “Blackmail” which also happened to be Britain’s first sound film.

 The German thriller film entitled “M”, directed by Fritz Lang, recreated the story of a serial killer named Peter Kurten who preyed on the lives of innocent children.

 Following Hitchcock’s classic films of the 1950’s, he released “Psycho” about a loner mother-fixated motel owner. This film shortly became one of the most popular films in this particular genre and has produced some inspiration to more modern films in this genre.

 In the 1990’s there were a lot of thriller films released such as Unlawful Entry, Single White Female and Misery, to name a few. Throughout this decade there was a common theme to thrillers, obsession. In Misery a writer is “rescued” by an obsessed fan and terrorized, in Unlawful Entry a police officer becomes obsessed with a woman that he saves and in Single White Female the main character’s roommate becomes obsessed. Despite this trend with obsession in the 90’s, there was one other common convention, FBI/Detectives hunting for a serial killer. In Silence of The Lambs, an FBI agent is in the middle of a psychological war with the cannibalistic psychiatrist, Hannibal Lecter. Se7en also has this theme, where a detective hunts for a serial killer who re-enacts the seven deadly sins.

 Even today, films are still using elements and themes from past thriller although in the more recent years, to avoid repeating the exact same ideas, it has become more towards the side of the horror genre; having more graphic storylines and imagery, sadistic criminals and an increasing amount of blood and gore. Recent films that have taken this idea on board include Eden Lake, The Last House On The Left and P2.

Taken Film Clip Analysis

The first shot in the sequence is a mid-shot of the daughter. She is about to answer her phone to her father but the music is too loud. As she walks away, the camera tracks her from the front and follows her into the bathroom where it shows a mid close-up of her to show that she is worrying, as she has lied to her father. This shot makes you feel as if she is in some sort of trouble. This develops the story because it puts her in the situation that would allow the main character to gain some sort of goal in the story. This shot makes you feel as if she is in some sort of trouble.

The next shot shows a close-up of the daughter as she watches her friend being kidnapped. This has been used to show her reaction to the kidnapping and makes the situation intensify.

 The next shot I chose was a close-up of the father frantically pushing things aside to get to a briefcase which contains a recording device to connect to the phone. This shot was probably chosen to show how anxious he is about hearing that his daughter is in danger.

The next shot is a close-up of the father with his eyes closed as he tells his daughter she is going to be taken. This is used to show how uncomfortable and worried he is about the situation. This can create some emotion and let’s you know what his emotions are.

Next I chose another close-up of the father but this time he looks concentrated as he gives his daughter precise instructions for her to follow. This was used to show how much he knows about how to deal with these situations. This could create some sort of tension through the sequence.

The next shot is another close-up of the daughter while she is hiding under the bed. She is burying her head into the floor and crying. This shows us how terrified she is about what is happening. The story can move on from there because it shows us in how much danger she really is as her father is just as scared.

The next shot is another close-up of the father as he listens to the kidnappers voices to try and distinguish which nationality they are. This is used to show how focused he is. I have noticed that there are a lot of close-ups in this sequence; this is probably because there is a lot of emotion to show in such a traumatic event.  This helps with the narrative because it gives us an idea of the kind of people the kidnappers are.

The next shot is a low level medium close up of the kidnapper’s feet as they move to where the daughter is hidden. This is used to show that the level of danger she is in has escalated and it makes us feel tense.

Again there is another low-level medium close up of the kidnapper’s feet as they leave the room after searching for the daughter. This is used to show that the immediate danger to the girl is moving away from her. This makes us feel relieved that she is safe.

After this there is a close up of the father as he hears his daughter screaming over the phone whilst being kidnapped. This helps progress the narrative because it gives the character his purpose in the story. This shot is used, again, to show his emotion and reaction to this traumatic event. This makes us feel sad for the character as we can see how hurt he is from what is going on.