The Sound of Horror

I met up with Gareth (my lecturer) on Thursday to discuss my major project ideas.  I found the meeting very useful, as I had three fairly good project ideas, but I couldn’t make up my mind which one to concentrate on.

After going over these ideas with Gareth, it was finally decided that my horror sound design idea was the most interesting and would provide the most scope.  He suggested that I research films to see what kind of scenes would work best and at the same time write an abstract, so I would have a complete overview of the project to keep me focused.

So, my project is to research how sounds and music have been used in horror films over the decades, analysing how atmosphere is created by the imaginative use of sound effects and music.   I’m then going to create my own sound design to five different clips from selected films.  I’m hoping to find some original material for this purpose.  I have been in touch with Marc Price (a local film-maker who has gained some recognition for his budget Zombie film: Colin) to see if he could help out and provide me with some scenes that include dialogue, but he is working on his next film at the moment and doesn’t have anything for me – so, no luck as yet!

For the time being I am going to make a list of scenes that would be suitable for the project, while continuing my research into horror sound design.

 Further Research:

www.horrorfilmhistory.com (all accessed 07/11/2011)

http://visionsoundmusic.com/2011/07/sound-of-fear-the-musical-universe-of-horror/

http://news.wfu.edu/2010/10/28/horror-movie-history/

http://www.filmsite.org/horrorfilms.html

http://www.horrorbid.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=279&t=17968&start=0

http://www.noisejockey.net/blog/tag/horror-sounds/

http://www.noisejockey.net/blog/category/found-sound-objects/

Initial Ideas

I am currently starting my third year at SMU and the major project has finally arrived!!! I thought I was prepared for it, but it seems I’m not...  haha.  As part of the project process, I have been asked to keep a blog of my progress throughout the project. I’ve never kept a blog before, but thinking about it, keeping one can only help when it comes to the write up.

My idea at the moment is to do Foley work and probably write the music score to a film excerpt, not sure what film though.  I’m 95% sure this is what I’m going to do, but I haven’t discussed anything with the lecturers yet.  Another idea was to record an album of some sort, so that’s still in the pipeline.  I was also thinking of creating original horror sounds, nothing gory, just atmospheric, sort of SFX.  Other interests were near-field studio Monitor testing and a similar idea with compressors, but I haven’t really got access to a wide enough range. 

So I’m booked in to see Gareth Jones next Thursday (3^rd) to discuss these ideas with him.  I’m hoping something will be finalised then so I’ll know where to focus my efforts.

For the time being I have done some research on Foley work and film scores (Links posted below)

www.filmsound.org

http://web.archive.org/web/20031203095914/http://www.windworld.com/emi/articles/soundeffects.htm

http://www.eng.umu.se/monster/john/sound_music.htm

http://filmsound.org/QA/recording-foley.htm