Wednesday, October 22, 2008

bit o info

Bemard Herrmann's theme for the Psycho shower scene uses high-pitched string instrument notes with very fast attack. Strangely enough, the theme nearly didn't get written, as this was another scene for which Hitchcock didn't want any music. But Herrmann wrote it anyway, and Hitchcock agreed that it was too good to throw away (Karlin 15). Herrmann also uses mostly strings and percussion to build suspense in the movie Fahrenheit 451 (Darby and Du Bois 363). Lots of movies use high-pitched music to build fear.
The violin in Psycho is so effective because it is used as percussion (Daiby and Du Bois 363), suggesting the knifestrokes. Deep sounds also sound percussive, and in fact you can feel them literally penetrating your body if the volume is strong enough. Jaws uses a sinister but very simple double bass which begins in long, heavy notes gradually acquiring a much faster attack (Darby and Du Bois 534). Another example of low music for suspense occurs in the opening of the Malcolm McDowell vehicle Time After Time. A prostitute stumbles past a London pub. We hear garish popular Victorian music from within. Then this switches to a deep, ominous double bass as the prostitute looks up and sees ... Jack the Ripper. But she thinks she sees just a well-dressed gentleman, so the soundtrack cleverly switches back to the pub music. The music is sinister just long enough for the audience to register the threat, but it doesn't insult us by playing on and on during the murder of the prostitute (Daiby and Du Bois 318).
this bit not got any thing to do with horror realy i just fount his interesting
Raiders of the Lost Ark opens with Indiana Jones fleeing a runaway boulder. That noise was actually the sound editor's Honda Civic rolling down his driveway (Spotnitz 42). The light sabers in Star Wars are the sounds of a TV picture tube and an old 35mm projector (Spotnitz 44). Luke Skywalker's land cruiser is the noise of the Los Angeles Harbor freeway traffic heard through a vacuumcleaner pipe (Spotnitz 44). Star Wars goes for gritty sounds, which is why those movies sound like our world and Star Trek sounds like a better one (Spotnitz 44).
Though horror films can often feature supernatural creatures and events, ironically enough what they need is an uncomplicated sound that will disturb the audience viscerally rather than interest them intellectually. You might think I'm talking about sound effect libraries, of wolves growling or boots stalking down an alleyway -- and you're right, soundtracks do use these. But they also use much more mundane sounds. For instance, the sound studios of horror movies are frequently littered with fruits and vegetables to make various body-snapping sound effects. The recent Hellraiser IV went through a lot of melons (Stokes 74).

Another interesting monster sound was achieved in the made-for-TV movie based on Stephen King's The Langoliers. The langoliers are nearly all mouth, so they needed to have a predatory effect. But King had described the sound of their approach as being reminiscent of Rice Krispies. Although the langoliers, who literally eat the world, would realistically require combinations of grinding, screeching, scraping and the crunching of metal, pavement, and earth, the executive producer was adamant that they should not sound mechanical. Sound editor Ray Palagy says, ''We actually spent an entire day recording cereal sounds -- dry cereal, wet, mushy; in a bowl, in a tub ...'' They took all of these sounds and made processed versions of all of them. Then they added effects such as Velcro, car doors, subway screeches and lion growls to yield ''signature'' sounds that are hard to categorize as animal or machine. Because supernatural creatures such as the Langoliers are based on no equivalent in the real world, they have to sound unique (Eskow 164).

No comments: