Research: The sound of a movie

Intro 

  As I keep researching about how media is made, I had in mind some senses that take the audience through and immersive experience. In my last post I covered the lightning which can be considered as sight, and now I want to cover the hearing that is required for a movie of film to be successful. In thrillers, while the lightning sets the mood visually for a movie, sound it is what targets the nervous system of the audience. 

Sound Research

Some examples of sound that are used in thriller movies are selective silence, hyper-realistic sounds and many more elements that help the goal of a thriller 

Selective Silence 

When directors use selective silence, all the sound in the movie is removed and quiet for a while. Selective sound helps the movie create greater suspense and leave the audience with a feeling of dread on what might happen next.  

One example movie that is extremely good is A Quiet Place. This movie uses a revolutionary method of sound where there's minimal dialogue because the plot of the movie creates an intense silence, highly immersive, and suspenseful experience. 

This movie is a notable example of sound used in a thriller because it takes the audience through a rollercoaster that can go from a light sound of the wind to a dreadful silence that worries you. 
The rules of this movie where sound is limited really show the impact that sound has when it comes to transmitting a message or feeling to the audience. 

Hyper-realism  

Another good sound feature that can be used for thriller movies is hyper-realistic sounds that take the audience into the movies by having physical sounds included. Physical sounds are the realistic, tangible noises that accompany on-screen actions; some examples are footsteps, heartbeats, and clothes rustling. An example of a scene where physical sound can be involved is when a big explosion happens and the characters suffer from hearing ringing that us as the audience hear and feel. 

Another example of hyper-realistic sounds is the heartbeat of a character when something tense is happening around it. This happens when the camera closes up into a character and a microphone can be either attached to the characters chest or it can be synthetic sound , but we hear the opening and closing of the heart valves that increase as the heart rate of the character increases tension does as well 

 

 

 

Every time I watch a thriller or horror movie and a hyper-realistic scene comes up, it creates uncertainty in me that creates a weird feeling in my stomach. I have already started thinking about what types of silence I would like to use in my 2-minute film. 

Hyper realistic sound example

 

Overview

Expert call sound in a movie "half of the film experience" and this is because it provides emotional and physical structure alongside the lighting. What sound does is that it tells your brain how to interpret a scene. There is a thing called contrapuntal sound and that is when the sound does not match what is happening on screen. Per example someone is getting hurt in a scene but there's happy music in the back your brain will not be as shocked, and that is the power of sound. 
 

The art of silence

A Quiet Place sound review

youtube video

Research: The lighting of Thrillers

 Intro

The other day while I was watching a thriller movie to better understand  the genre that we are making out film from , I noticed how almost at all times this type of movies have a low-key type of lighting that contributes in helping the suspense and create an unsafe setting. Thrillers use a lot of silhouettes and backlighting to create an uncertainty of what is really happening in the dark

Research

As I was doing my research I tried to do my research on two examples of movies that have great lighting for the thriller genre. 

I found two examples:

• Long legs 
• The Running man 

Firstly, we have Longlegs, which was a movie from 2024 that steps away from traditional thriller lighting conventions.  Due to the setting of the movie being in the snow, this movie relies on high key lighting that creates the feeling of exposure not like a typical thriller where you can at least hide in the shadows and be "safe".  

 

 

Not having the conventional lighting that thrillers have Long Legs conveys the feeling of how evil is always present, not like a ghost or creature that disappears when the sun comes up. 

 

Long Legs also uses negative spaces and open frames to keep lighting levels relatively close throughout the whole movie, one example is that instead of lighting only the main characters face the movie lights up the whole room making edges of the frame visible lacking that shadowy feeling that the viewers are accustomed to. What this does is that we as the audience look more at the background instead of paying attention to the characters, and it turns us into paranoid lookers. 

Another interesting feature that this movie does extremely good is color grading between inside and outside; it works like a transitional phase that helps differentiate between the cold dark blueish-hued outside to orange waves in the inside. This is meant to mess with the viewers head by giving two worlds, on the inside it feels like a lifeless setting where everything is decaying and it lacks color, and on the outside, it gives how there is no escape for any of the characters. 

 

As is finished reading the review, I understood why the author used the type of lighting that they chose to use to transmit the message of the movie. 

 

 

For my second example I chose The Running man which is considered a dystopian action-thriller, that works well with a world that runs and is controlled by media. This movie uses lighting to create a world that feels hyper-surveilled and clinically cold, for example the overexposure with extremely bright, white-washed backgrounds in the upper-class areas of the city. 

 

what this does is that it give the message that the superficial world is doing well and that we can say is almost "clean" ;however, the character brings us to reality showing how the poor people suffer beneath all the propaganda that high levels present to the public, hiding what is really happening with the people in the movie. 

 

Another feature that this movie has is how they use LED colors to convey a different message to the viewers that are watching the main character gets hunted and almost killed. Small LED lights of handheld cameras or the blue-Ish "screen glow" of recording devices, what i believe this conveys is the feeling of realism between the viewers and main character. For the viewers is not a dangerous game and that can be seen because there is a lot of color when the show is presented 

Overview

Lighting is the " storyteller" of cinema that controls every scene of a movie; by controlling the intensity, direction, and color of light, filmmakers can physically guide a viewer's eye to crucial details, visually externalize a character's internal psychology. This helps the movie with mood, depth, and narrative intent. It is like the rules or guidelines that a movie follows to help achieve the purpose .

The running man

Long legs Review

Research: The Steps for a Good Gcript

Intro 

As I was finishing my last blogs about genres and sub-genres research, I wondered what key points make a good movie? We already have the thriller genre, and we have not picked between which sub-genre to do; however, I saw a video about how the script is fundamental in a movie. Creating a good movie script is a blend of step-by-step planning and an artistic mind. It is less about "writing a book" and more about creating instructions for a visual experience. 
 

Research 

When writing a script, there are some elements that should be considered like purpose, concept, and logline. 

At first I didn't know what log lines were but when I did my research I found out that they were  a concise, one-to-two-sentence summary of a story  that captures its central conflict, main character, goal, and stakes, acting as an enticing hook to generate interest for pitching or promotion 

 

So, here are some examples I took the time to look up 

Since our genre for the film is thriller, there are specific ways that scripts for this genre are made, thriller scripts focus on high stakes, escalating tension, suspense, and plot twist. 

 

On my research I discovered that making scripts take multiple steps that ensure a good final product  

      1.The Foundation: Concept and Logline 

2. 2.The Skeleton: Three act structure 
   

3. 3.The Blueprint: Outlining and Treatments 

4. 4.The Craft: Writing for the Screen 

5. 5.The Polish: Formatting and Rewriting 

Or here where we have another way of seeing the steps that are taken 

Each of these steps are done with detail due to it being what builds up the script that is going to carry the movie to success. Within these steps we found things like acts, dialogues, and timing of the film. Interesting things about time and how the script is seen on paper, are that roughly 1 page of script there is equal to 1 minute in the movie. and there is something called the "White Space" Rule. This rule means that a script is better when there are less dense text and more white spaces on the page. 

 

Overview

After doing all this reading I feel I have  learned a lot about the writing part of movies and I hope to gain more experience on how to write a good script that is going to help me a lot for my film or other project I would like to make in the future. 

 

https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/screenplay-structure-examples/

Youtube video about scripts

https://deadline.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/parasite-script.pdf