Category: LO3

Music

Due to having a very low skill level when it comes to creating music or scores, I will be finding music or ambient backgrounds to accompany my piece online. However I wanted to know what makes a music in films scary and what some of the most common tricks are when it comes to creating a tense atmosphere in films.

I listened to some of the most popular movie’s soundtracks and something stood out immediately, quite a lot of the best soundtracks were fairly minimalistic and relied on only a few instruments. Films such as Psycho used more traditional instruments such as the violin to create sharp, high tones that cut through and shocked the listener, whereas films such as Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street used synthesisers, mixing both high notes and an underlying bass note to create a sense of easiness by leaving the mid range frequencies blank.

Sound Effects

I will be creating certain sound effects during this project as well as sourcing them online. My original idea was to make the pieces quite effect heavy, however on my first attempt at editing together one of the pieces with sound effects, it didn’t add a lot to the piece and at points came off as quite tacky and forced, really taking the listener out of the experience.

I think the best option for me when it comes to effects is stick more to background ambience and only use sound effects when I really want to make an event stand out and pair it with the story. However, in certain horror media, it can be more scary when you subvert the expectations of the listener and start adding effects that don’t fit within the scene, building up tension and confusing the listener and then scaring them at a later part of the piece.

As initial research for my horror story based in Lincoln, I searched the internet for the ghost stories and myths associated with the area around the cathedral/castle in lincoln. I ended up finding a blog made by some previous students of the university going through some of the major ghost stories based in lincoln and gathered information from each of their articles. *1

I got the basic information from around 8 different ghost stories, the majority of which are situated right between the castle and cathedral. I did this research mainly to get an idea of what sort of things I could put in the story that I am writing for this piece as well as what sounds I am going to have to recreate to accompany the piece, for example, there is a story about a horseman charging towards the castle, So it is likely I will need to recreate the sound of horse hooves in this piece. It is also likely that the sound of ghosts will be present in the piece fairly often, due to them coming up in every story and all around that area of Lincoln that I will be recording.

*1 https://hauntedhistoryoflincolnshire.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/about/

There are many things that can make horror work well. As I am focussing on audio only and have no visual accompaniment, I can’t show the listener a scary image, so I must focus on making the story scary as well as adding scary sound effects and music. But there are many things I can take from horror movies and other mediums and apply to my piece.

One of the key concepts that I can take away from horror is the idea of tension and suspense.*1 Although I am creating short pieces (1.5 minutes), It is still possible to create tension within a short space of time through the narration and with background music slowly changing or gaining in volume. Also as a full set, I can change the pacing of the pieces to slowly add to the tension, culminating in the final piece.

There are common themes within horror movies that revolve around the speech/narration that I can take away and work into my story writing/telling. *2 These themes tend to involve the supernatural or a death in some way, which is something that will already be part of the stories as it is involved in the source material I took inspiration from. Plus, for the people that go to each of the areas and listen to the pieces, it adds a layer of creepiness, especially if experienced during the night.

In some horror media (usually lower quality movies) there are a few tropes that appear to scare people, the main one that I am tempted to put in one of my pieces is jumpscares. The basic way that I could do this is to just add a loud sharp noise that the listener wouldn’t expect. However, it may be a little too cliche and cheesy.

*1 http://www.fictionfactor.com/guests/scary.html

*2 https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cutting-edge-leadership/201410/the-top-ten-things-make-horror-movies-scary