Sound Experimentation and Planning

 Sound design had a major role in my Opening Scene, perhaps even more than the shots...

A narrative is always incomplete with unplanned sound or no sound at all in most cases. It really brings out the ambience and realness to the film, and also uplifts the mood of the film. 

Since my film itself is called SHRILL, the audience would expect emphasis on the sounds as shrill means a high pitched scream. I searched for so many scary music playlists on Spotify and listened to so many scores, selecting almost one in about 15. I already knew and wanted to use the two songs that sandwich my film, I'll never smile again and Daisy. 

For the scores, I even altered them by adding reverb and/or slowing them down or speeding them up where required. Also, I tried to blend the different scores seamlessly, using fade in and outs for the audio. I made sure the sound matched what was going on in the scene, hence started off with deep and slow music, which suddenly changes to high pitch and more firm, as this psychologically effects the viewer. 

For the diegetic folly sounds, I used my phone and through GarageBand, got rid of the noise where it was very prominent. And for the sounds that weren't possible to record, I surfed the internet to find the perfectly synced sounds, trying different ones to end up with a perfect one. In some places it was required to speed up or slow down the sounds too, such as the swings.

For the podcast narration (also diegetic) and the screams, I used GarageBand on my iPad too, as it offers many options for editing sound. By mixing vocals and playing with pitch and reverb, I had the perfect unsettling sounds I could produce. It was fun honestly. The following is a hilarious video of me recording one of the screams for the film. Its raw and unedited, so don't wonder why it sounds so disturbing, which is exactly my intention...