In Lurhman’s Strictly Ballroom and Mitchell’s It Follows, both directors use colour and music to enhance the experience of the romantic comedy and horror genre films. Where Mitchell uses audio and visual cues to break the conventional style of horror films in It Follows, Luhrman’s Strictly Ballroom uses audio and visual cues enhance the romantic comedy experience further. Where It Follows, relies on visuals to tell it’s story, Strictly Ballroom uses bright colors and musical cues to reassure the audience that the two main characters will end up together.
In Mitchell’s It Follows, he enlists the help of composer Vreeland to create music for his film. Traditionally a composer for video games, Vreeland’s music consists of the 8-bit type music that is consistently found in Vreeland’s main line of work. Whereas “traditional” horror films may carry orchestral music, Vreeland’s music is synthesized and therefore stands out because of it. In combination with his composer’s music, Mitchell also uses silence and natural ambience to further break the horror music stereotype. Where more popular horror films would use silence, darkness and loud sounds to help increase tension, Mitchell uses silence and music to do that instead. Vreeland’s music, which mainly contains higher pitched music enhanced by low beats, is mainly used during key moments that involves the Follower. For example, during our second introduction to It, the music consists of high pitched (flat sounding?????) notes
The 1992 film Strictly Ballroom directed by Baz Luhrmann is able to exhibit a substantial range of film techniques to enhance and exemplify the progression of the plotline. The film’s use of lighting, camera techniques and sound provides the ability to enrich essential elements of the storyline. Lighting within the film is used as a mechanism to represent an ambition that lingers within Scott, repressed by a higher authority. The films use of Camera Placement symbolizes a sense of constraint, which ultimately leads to defiance. Sound is utilized within the film to embody Scott’s feelings of liberation, as he dances his own steps. Though each technique displays a variation in meaning, there is a theme of self-expression and its ability to provide
In the film Strictly Ballroom, the director Baz Luhrman uses many different film techniques to influence the portrayal and development of characters. Costume and makeup is used as a vital technique to show the audience the characters’ personalities and also the development of some characters. Camera angles and lighting is another technique that is used to exaggerate the characters’ personalities and the scenes they are in. Luhrman also uses character behaviors as an effective technique in portraying each characters’ personality.
He is able to use these parts to manipulate the audience’s emotions. The music playing from the car is an on-screen sound. As the man gets attacked, the volume increases. The sound helps intensify the scene that has been created by the film’s visual elements. The audience then subconsciously forms ideas, opinions, and feelings about what they are seeing. The viewers develop scared feelings as the scene intensifies to the happy upbeat tune. The increasing volume of the cheery song reflects the violence and the sinisterness of the scene. The song stops with the slamming of the car’s driver-side door as the man is abducted. There is a moment of silence and then a new song abruptly entered the silent scene. The music is non-diegetic and is an offscreen sound. The song is screechy, high pitched, and jagged sounding at first, continuing the anxious and scared mood. The song shifts into a sort of soulful hymn. The tone shifts along with the song. The audience begins to feel relieved and relaxes to the peaceful song.
In these two movies, the right music and visuals had to be chosen in order to get the ambiance Hawke and Branagh tried to obtain. Each director chose different music and images that were very visual and auditive for an audience’s appeal. In Hawke’s version, visuals of New York and Times Square were appealing to an audience. Modern music at the beginning of the film caught the interest of the younger generation. As well, close ups of Hamlet were revealing to an audience and it was easy to feel infatuated by the character’s nihilistic despair. Branagh’s version used supernatural and dark visuals of ghosts, statues, and castles to produce feelings of awe and fear. The scene of the ghost was quick and staggering, and it created an automatic feeling of anxiety and fear. As well, the traditional use of classical music did a skillful job of creating suspense. Both directors appealed to an audience by using music and visuals that created an ambiance the directors desperately
Baz Luhrmann’s films Strictly Ballroom, Australia and The Great Gatsby take their viewers on a journey. They hold the audience’s attention and are able to teach them something. However, I do not think that all three films are completely fulfilling. All films take an attentive audience on a journey. The deciding factor for a great film should not be whether the journey took place but whether the journey was enjoyable.
Most people think that cinematography is simple work, but like every art form, it’s very hard to find and create an original style that makes you stick out from the crowd and shows how much time and work you put in your craft. Tim Burton is a perfect example of someone who put an immense amount of hard work and time into his style until it was perfect, and as anyone could tell, it clearly stuck among his loyal fans. Tim Burton’s sadistically sweet and cartoonishly surreal sense of style he put in his works have made him popular among multiple demographics. Tim Burton, in his multiple works, is very commonly known for putting particular attention to lighting, sound, and framework as can be seen commonly in his work, to create an emotional effect on the viewer. Is I shall explain in the following paragraphs, Tim Burton, in his films, uses many cinematic techniques
Another example is when Arbogaust gets killed and when Norman is taking his mother downstairs, we watch over this scene from the top corner, as the birds do in Norman's office this implies that Norman is haunted by something watching over him. These examples foreshadow the ending of the film and the real situation between Norman and Mother. The music builds a lot of tension and suspense in psycho, it tells us that something is going to happen very soon and we get prepared for it, the lack of music can make a scene seem calm and normal, which then contrasts with the loud scary music that starts quickly as the scary part happens. The audience are unprepared and scared.
The suspenseful music also adds to the effect of fear. The suspenseful music heightens senses and anticipation of what is going to happen
In 1928 ground-breaking technology made it possible for movies to have sound. This revolutionized horror films because sound gave an extra dimension to terror. Noise built suspense and signaled the presence of a threat. (Wilson) Instead of a monster suddenly making an appearance without warning, music would signal that they were near. Growls, Snarls, footsteps, and screams allowed the audience members to feel like the victims of the movie.
In 1982, renowned director John Carpenter birthed the terrifying science fiction film known as The Thing, which still horrifies audiences to this day with its amazing practical effects. Equally compelling and terrifying was its electronic score composed by Ennio Morricone, creating the perfect atmosphere for horror. Paying homage and providing a prequel to the 1982 film, a film by the same name was released in 2011. While the 2011 version of The Thing received harsh criticisms for its use of CGI over already-created practical effects, its score, composed by Marco Beltrami, provides a more modern horror atmosphere. Comparatively, both scores create their own unique sense of horror: the first being a minimalist, synthesized approach, and
The music in this clip is eerie, mysterious, and it left me feeling uneasy. The cords are played in an minor key, which causes the listener to feel the uneasiness of the movie. At one point the music has an abrupt stop and I could feel the jolt in my body, and I was think what is going to happen now. There were also no background noise from nature and that gave the me the feeling of uncertainty or perhaps
While well-crafted sound design and sound effects are so very necessary in the creation of a film, music touches the emotion, the psyche, and the things you cannot see. Sound design and effects don’t do this nearly as efficiently and naturally. Without music it would be much more difficult to follow the emotional ups and downs of a film. (Freer)
Horror films are known for their ability to scare audiences, to get the audience’s hearts racing, their blood rushing. A good horror film will cause viewers to be on the edge of their seats and having their perception of reality distorted as they attempt to understand the unraveling plot of the horror film. The tone of the film aides in the amount of suspense that a horror film produces, since a much darker film will create a more suspenseful atmosphere than one that is more focused on campy monster makeup. But the tone of a film is determined by the sound of the film, or in other words, the score. Sound or music in a horror film, or the lack thereof, make the intense scenes and without the addition
The music interacts with dialogue in the film; the techno beat is, at times, accompanied by vocals, which correspond with not only what is happening in the scene, but also the internal diegetic dialogue—another important motif.
This in fact builds the atmosphere as vaguely disorienting, since the audience has no auditory cues to cling to before they are taken visually by the progression of events on the screen, and all other sounds and speech sound louder and starker against the silence. When a soundtrack is layered in, however, the music is often incongruous with the transpiring actions—for example, the orchestral music played as Betty exits LAX with the elderly couple strikes the listener as a very strange and eerie “aroma” with the strings’ long and mournful notes, and the jaunt and upbeat jazzy music that fills the air as Adam confronts and is thrown out of his house by his cheating wife seems inappropriate for the situation. Lynch’s auditory cues are proposed to further confuse the audience and to mislead them through the plot of Mulholland Drive, but his deceptiveness further allows deeper reflection. This is why Mulholland Drive is such a great example of a film to analyze because of David Lynch’s ability to really portray certain concepts and intentional film elements that are left up to individual interpretations.