Sound Analysis (The Descent - Theatrical trailer)

Without Sound
The trailer of this film without sound didn't horrify me or make my pulse raise. This is because the start of it shows the girls happy and talkative, this shows me nothing about what they are about to go through. The images in the clip originally made me feel happy but after the initial happy part, the words came up on the screen and there was much more black screen. The words, although they looked quite good, did not have the effect on me that was planned, this was down to the lack of noise as they appeared. This confused me as I did not know where the film was or what was happening. At the end when the girls are underground, my pulse raised a little but I wasn't sure whether they were supposed to be there or not. The images showed they were distressed and this made me slightly distressed as well. I was not able to relate to the characters without sound because I did not know for sure what they were saying, this made me unable to relate to what they were saying, for instance they could have planning on going underground and finding all these disturbing things, I could not relate to his, or they could have been planning on staying overground and having a good time with friends company, and I could relate to this. I felt it was hard to relate to the characters as I couldn't tell what each of them was like, by the way characters in films talk you get an insight into their personality, not being able to hear them means I couldn't have this insight and so I couldn't relate personality wise to the characters in this trailer.

With Sound
The non-diagetic soundtrack that runs through the trailer really helped me understand what genre the film was and made me more worried than what I was before I heard the sound. The soundtrack starts of non-empathetical where the characters are having a good time and laughing but the soundtrack is quite sinister, this gives the impression that something bad is going to happen but the girls and the audience do not know what that is yet. When the images become sinister and the characters get stuck underground the non-diagetic soundtrack increases in volume and then stops whilst the audience can hear the diagetic sound effect of the cave and tunnel crashing down on them, the soundtrack then starts again but louder and with a shock start. This carries on until the end when the soundtrack becomes a little quieter, this is done so the audience want to see more. During the images, words come up on a black screen. For example, "fear" and "claustrophobic", these are joined with sound effects to make the words seem scarier, with the word "fear", they have made it jump around on the screen, sound is used as well at this point by making the sound jump about as well. The soundtrack is constantly increasing in volume and pitch ever so slightly, this builds tension in the viewer. My reaction to this clip is now very different. I am now wanting to see this film but I am also quite scared by it, the soundtrack and effects have made me worried about what happens at the end of the film and they have also backed up my suspicions that it is a thriller with many scary moments. The sound has encouraged me feel panic and tension as I hope that the girls get out alive, it has also made me react uncomfortably as I can hear their distress but do nothing to stop it or help them. The sound has also made my pulse react and has raised it because of the tension that was being built with the slowly increasing volume and pitch but also by the sinister music that jumps about temprementally and with obvious direction.

Conclusions
I have concluded that sound is very important in the making of a film, especially one that intends to frighten and scare people. I have concluded that by increasing the tempo, pitch and volume of the sound slowly throughout the clip can make the audience react from the outset and scare them more in a shorter space of time as they can tell what is going to happen to the characters even when they are happy and talkative. I hope to ahieve the same effect that this clip had on me in my opening sequence of a thriller film, I shall incorporate sinister music and very little effects, I shall also have some silence as this scared me in the trailer because of the feeling of the unknown. In colnclusion, I shall have both sound and silence as I feel I was scared when I saw the clip without sound because of the feeling of entering the unknown but I was also scared when I heard the sound because it created tension and so I could anticipate something going wrong but I couldnt pinpoint what it was.