The Use Of Dialogue And Music In Our Thriller Opening

In our thriller film opening we used some recorded dialogue and a soundtrack to establish the scene and set the mood. We chose to play a soundtrack over the entire opening scene, so we could creat an eerie atmosphere. We also added sound effects to make the whole scene more realistic.

The Soundtrack

We decided that we needed a soundtrack that made the audience feel uncertain and fitted with the scence we had created. This meant that the music needed to be louder at certain times, to place emphasis on key points of the scene and also to heighten the tension and suspense. We discovered this technique from watching other thriller films, it seemed that an eerie soundtrack really added to the film and made them much more thrilling.

We searched the internet for a long time before finally deciding on the piece of music we used for our film opening. This was largely due to the amount of royalty free music available on the internet. We need to make sure there was no copyright restrictions to the piece of music we wanted to use. We eventually found a website - www.incompetech.com this site specialises in royalty free music, and there was a large selection of pieces in the 'eerie' section which was perfect for our thriller genre. We listened to a few of the pieces of music and then agreed on three we liked the best. We downloaded these three and imported them onto the Apple Mac so we could see which of the three fitted the opening the best.

In the end we chose a piece called Spider Eyes by Kevin Mcleod. This was because it fitted the footage well and even had louder parts which went with the action and really heightened the suspense. It creates an eerie atmosphere which was exactly the effect we were after.

Other Sounds

We used some dialogue in our opening scene in the form of a phone call. The ringing tone was an effect that we used from the IMovie library on the Apple Mac and we found that this was more effective and easy to do than using a real phone ringing in the scene. It also meant that we could play the conversation over the establishing shot that sets the scene at the very beginning of the film. This has two purposes, firstly it means that the beginning is more interesting and secondly, the audience can then be thinking who made the call? Why did they make the call? Was there significance to this call? This is a good technique as it means that the audience are already curious and interested in the film.

Phonecall Voiceover Script:

Babysitter: 'Hello'
Unknown Male Voice: 'Hello, is Mrs Anderson there?'
Babysitter: 'No sorry she's out at the moment, I'm just the babysitter'
(The line then goes dead and only the dialling tone can be heard)
Babysitter: 'Hello? Hello?'

The piece of music 'Spider Eyes' is played throughout the opening as mentioned previously, we also used the sound of dogs barking over the establishing shot. This effect was found on the Apple Mac in the IMovie library and it made the scene more realistic. The only other sounds are the actual sounds that match the action in reality. For example, the opening of a coke can and the pouring of the coke into a glass which like the dogs barking adds to the realism and enables the audience to relate to the situation more effectively.