Evaluation of the Death Scene Non-Diegetic Sound

Having almost finished the final version of our film opening, I wanted to evaluate the non-diegetic sound that I created for the death scene.

Linking with the footage, I feel that, though the music is quite "action" themed, it adds tension and depth to the visuals in the clips of the gore that is shown. It's also a good way to get the viewer encased into the clips, the music being stimulating rather than too repetitive or boring making it appropriate for our film opening.

It also links to the target audience of 15 years and up, 15 being the age rating that we would give the film, as it relates to the type of music that people of that age range listen to. Rock music, of which it takes a lot of inspiration from, is the type of music that people in their late teens to early twenties can relate to, making it current and relevant to the viewers.

Being a slasher film, the non-diegetic sound of the most graphic scene within the film opening, the death scene, also needed to link to the preferences of the viewers, looking at the social groups that would like to watch this type of film genre- slasher. Being a low tone, techno-rock sound, the non-diegetic music also gives a feeling of intensity to the film opening, building up to a peak and then finishing off the extract nicely.

To conclude, the non-diegetic sound within the death scene, I feel, is very appropriate, linking to the footage, genre of the film opening, the target audience and the social groups that would watch a film of this genre.

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.

Practical Investigation: Non-Diegetic Sounds

For my practical investigation, I decided to look into using a music software called 'Logic Pro' to create some examples of non-diegetic music, with help from my friend who took GCSE Music.

For our current idea of our opening, I was thinking of where we could include non-diegetic music and if it would be effective or not. The beginning chase scene would be the most likely place for us to have diegetic music but it could work just as well if we had it quieter with diegetic sounds like heavy breathing and footsteps.

If we are going to have a lot of opening titles then sometimes it can be quite effective to have non diegetic music playing over the top as generally nothing that important happens during the opening titles. Contrary to this, in our opening we are planning to have our villain murder a pregnant girl (although not that much gore will be shown) but I like the idea of blending in the opening titles would make it more like a film opening and also less shocking, almost as if he does it everyday and it's the normal routine.

First of all, to get used to using Logic Pro, I decided to try and edit a well known tune to sound more creepy, I chose 'Frere Jacques' and played it slower than usual on the simple Grand Piano option.
I then played around with the different instruments and sound effects to create the ominous rumbling sound below and then after that merged them together, editing the timing so it sounded more sinister and creepy, I especially like the ending part as the rest of the song is building up to that moment.




My friend also played a quicker yet still kind of creepy version of Frere Jacques

The only problem is that it would be quite difficult to explain why Frere Jacques would be relevant to our film opening as it doesn't really have any links to what happens.

Non-Diegetic Chase Scene Music Creation:

I had originally planned for the chase scene to have the music I mentioned in the previous post but after a discussion with my group we agreed it didn't really work with the atmosphere we were trying to portray. I then decided to look into, with the help of my friend, making our own with Logic Pro and keeping it similar to the one I had chosen while making it more intense and more fast paced.

However I encountered problems when trying to get the simple piano setting up on Logic so I decided to switch to GarageBand which in my opinion is more user friendly.

We started by trying to create a similar sound to the original music with the idea of adding layers to it to make it more intense, but by building up to the moment at the end through the use of volume, pace and pitch.

We recorded a simple regular pattern that would serve as the base for our music and we would create all the other layers around it by changing the pitch and making it an octave lower or higher.

We then added to it, repeating the same pattern but with a higher and lower pitch so it was the same sound but at three different pitches, making it more interesting rather than just the one sound level.

We also added a drone sound effect by having a low note playing for a few seconds at regular intervals.

We then realised we didn't like the way it began and moved everything to a few seconds later so we could include a beginning pattern that would then lead into the big build up of sound.

We then continued to add more and more different sounds and patterns that we thought sounded effective and would increase the tension in the scene and highlight her desperation as she's trying to get away.

We used the fading out technique to see if it would be better to cut it off completely and then have the heartbeat sound or to fade it out slightly and build in either the heartbeat or other music that would be used for the death scene. After trying it out we decided it didn't work and left it at staying at the normal volume as the amount we had recorded would be too long for the chase scene so it would have to be trimmed down on Final Cut Pro.

After consulting with my group and our teacher, we realised it wasn't as effective as we had hoped and it didn't really work with the footage, as to cut down the time of our opening, a lot of the clips had been sped up and this made the scene look slightly comical and like a 'silent movie'. In order to use this piece of music we would have to slow down either the footage or the music and that could make it lose the urgency factor which is key for our opening.