Music and Sound Choices

In our trailer we used two music tracks as there is a fast pace part and slower paced part and it was important that the music matched the footage and editing to create the most impact. The beginning of the trailer is slower with longer, calmer shots, therefore we needed a slower piece of music. A member of our group who is friends with Charlotte Campbell, an unsigned artist, suggested we look into using her music as we would most likely be able to get her permission. We found a song of hers called 'If She's An Angel' which we thought fitted well and contacted the artist, asking for permission to use the original version of the song which she gave us. We listened to the lyrics and found that they fitted with the storyline of our film. However we aimed for this part to seem mysterious and ghost-like so we wanted the music to seem haunting. To achieve this we slowed down the pace of the song and extended the last note to make it seem echoey and creepy.

The second track that we used for our trailer was called 'Pretty Party' and is much more fast-pace with low drums. It is effective because it emphasises the quick cuts and editing during the second half of the trailer and the beat matches the visuals from one cut to the next, connoting panic and danger to make the audience feel tense and draw them in. The build up of suspense makes the audience want to see the film and find out what happens.

For the transition between the tracks, we originally cut the first song and had a couple of seconds silence before the second track began, although we felt it sounded choppy and badly edited with the visuals. Instead, we faded the songs into each other so that the second song gets louder as the first song fades as it emphasises the juxtaposition between sound and therefore takes the audience by surprise, creating the intended response of excitement and tension more effectively.

We have almost no diegetic speech in our trailer as it was mostly done with voiceovers. We felt including a voiceover was necessary because although we aim keep the narrative unclear as this is an important element of the film, we didn't want it to be confusing. At the beginning of our trailer the main characters says; "Weird things have been happening to me", during the transition between tracks another character says "What do you mean?" and the trailer ends with the only diegetic speech with the main character whispering "help me" with a close up of her face. This implies that film surrounds supernatural events, which is effective as this is what we want the audience to think until the end of the film when the criminal is revealed. Without this dialogue the trailer would be confusing and nobody would understand what it was about, meaning less people would want to see it.