Death Scene Non-Diegetic Sound Creation

For our film opening, now that we have almost finished the visual side of editing, we now need to think about the audio, diegetic and non-diegetic sounds. I decided that, for the death scene, I wanted to create some music, similar to that of Se7en and American Horror Story's non-diegetic sounds to play throughout the scene. To do this, I needed to find a form of software that would easily allow me to create good quality music with little training needed before hand- something key for this to work, as I initially had no previous experience with sound creation software.

In the end, my friend recommended Garage Band, a software already installed on the Mac's at school, to use for this particular project.


Using this YouTube tutorial as a guide of how to use Garage Band, I started the process of creating my own composition for the death scene, relating to my research on non-diegetic sound that I have previously done, and making sure that it is appropriate to the visual stimulus that the audience will get- linking it to the footage.

Initially, I tried creating the non-diegetic music from scratch- not referencing the two sounds that I had taken inspiration from, including Se7en and American Horror Story's sounds. This, however, as shown below, turned out very badly, producing a randomly spread set of sounds that didn't work together to create the desired effect.

To solve this problem, after quite a few hours of work, I scrapped what I had done, regarding it as a trial practice. I needed to do this in order to re-focus the sound I was creating, and make a good quality piece rather than a mediocre one.

Wanting to take inspiration specifically from Se7en's non-diegetic sound, I insert the downloaded soundtrack onto  the GarageBand timeline. This, I decided, I would try and copy with my own sounds, and then manipulate to be more appropriate to our footage, and more original- not sounding like a "copy" of the original.

Using Free FX, a website that I found that allows users to download sound effects for free, I started playing around with the music that I had a my disposal, trying to re-create Se7en's sound but changing it slightly to be original and appropriate to our footage.

At this point, initial point, this is what I had created:

Now that I have created my initial sound, of which is shown in the audio clip above, I need to "tweak" it and finish it so that it matches the audio. This, however, I cannot do this until the footage is completely edited- so that the audio is exactly how we want it. At this point, I now need to re-focus on the footage again, perfecting the video so that I can then perfect the audio.

This being said, I am pleased with the non-diegetic sound that I have made so far, it linking both to my inspirations- Se7en and American Horror Story's non-diegetic sounds- and the content of our film openings visual stimulus- the gore, blood, etc.