Elena Procopio

AS Film Evaluation.

The 2 minute sequence that I made was the second scene to a crime investigation film. The film involves the investigation of the murder of teenage student, Megan Regal. Our two minute film is the scene where the body of the girl has been found and the police investigation has just begun. For the film I was responsible for all the film’s sound. As sound designer I was in charge of the score, diegetic, and dubbed/non-diegetic sound. I also had to edit the sound to fit in the clip and make sure it was synchronised with the on screen, visual clip, done on the Mac software, FinalCut.

I decided that the best way to add realism to the film would be to add a voiceover (recorded as location sound). This non-diegetic sound ran over the majority of our two minute sequence. It spoke about Megan Regal (the girl who was missing), the dead body that had been found, about post mortem results and the state of the body, the body being confirmed as Megan Regal by her parents, so that it sounded like a police or news report. This worked effectively and more of an impact was made after I synchronised the voiceover with the video so that images or clips appeared at the same time as the voiceover mentioned them. This would make it a lot easier for the audience to understand and follow the story of what is happening in the film and also add drama and emotion for the viewer. This voiceover also added an element of vococentrism to our film, hinting to the viewer that the dialogue was very important to the film and its narrative.

Whilst using the voiceover, I also selected pieces of sound that I felt should be included/ emphasised in the clip. The foley sounds I am going to discuss were downloaded from http://www.freesound.org/.

For example, we used the ambient, but exaggerated sound of camera shots as each of the mug shots appeared. This was done to keep the viewers attention and to emphasise the fast pace of the film, emphasising the chaos and drama of the situation. It also adds realism as this is the sound that would be made as the mug shots were each taken in real life. We also added the sound once at the beginning of the crime scene shots. We felt that this again would grab the audience’s attention and mirror the camera shots that would

Elena Procopio

be taken of the crime scene in reality. It was also used to add the shock factor to when the viewer sees the body. It was the first time we showed the crime scene in the film and we were aiming for it to have a massive impact on the viewer.

Another diegetic sound that we chose and felt would improve the overall effect of the film was the sound of TV fuzz. We chose one that we felt sounded like the fuzziness on old TV sets when you changed from channel to channel. I used more than one person in the voiceover and chopped up the dialogue to make it seem like there were lots of news readers reporting the murder (as there would be in the real life scenario), and so used this sound to represent the changing of channels and news reporters. I decided to use this because I felt that it kept the viewers attention and they didn’t have to listen to one constant voiceover continuously for two minutes. I also felt that the TV fuzz noise was incredibly effective in continuing the realism of the film and giving the viewer the representation of the different news channels all reporting the murder of Megan Regal and that it makes it seem like a large national news story. This effect is used a lot in crime investigation films, such as Gone Baby Gone (2007), where the news story is not just heard, but also seen on-screen to emphasise the importance of what had happened.

I feel that both of the hyper-real sound effects I added to the film were significant in improving the realism of the crime film, constantly kept the viewers attention, and helped the viewer to focus on significant parts of the scene. For example, the potential murderers of Megan Regal and the news reports of her death. They also brought the snapshots to life, added more pace, volume and interest to the clips and made the film a lot more engaging to watch and listen to.

I used Garageband for the underlying score that I added to run continuously throughout the two minute sequence. It was one piece of music that was minimalistic and simple, but worked perfectly for the tone of the film, which also created a very empathetic sound in terms of how it made the audience feel. It was a strong, deep, loud note at the beginning, which immediately created a negative feel to the film, and then deepened to a drone steadily fading out. I felt that the rhythm mirrored the potential storyline of the rest of the film,

Elena Procopio

steady and paced, with a lot of parts holding very tense and serious atmospheres. I repeated this piece of non-diegetic sound numerous times during the film creating a sound loop, making sure that I synchronised the dramatic, beginning note anywhere in the sequence when I wanted to create the biggest impact for the audience. I placed it at the beginning of the film, as a sense of foreboding, before Megan Regal or the murder had been mentioned, and also when the first shot of the crime scene and the dead body appeared, to add the largest amount of shock and tension as I could to that one, specific shot.

I feel that the sound in our crime investigation film was successful in creating the tense atmosphere and effect that I wanted it to have on the audience. The voice-over was significant to the film as it added a lot of realism and informed the viewer of what they needed to know about the story of Megan Regal. It worked with both the diegetic sounds that added value and the score, to help create the feeling and suspense that I wanted to put across to the viewing audience. I also feel that it complimented and added to the other micro-elements to create the desired effect on the audience and significantly improve the overall viewing experience of the film.