Practical Slasher Horror Sound

The music in a movie, whether it be a horror film or a romantic comedy, is responsible for creating suspense and setting the mood. Often in a horror movie, it is not the scene itself that scares the audience but rather the music, diegetic or non-diegetic, which is played. In instances where non-diegetic sound is not suitable, diegetic sound can be enhanced in order to emphasise its sound and increase the tension, for example the sound of sharpening a weapon such as a knife.

Stardust (2007)

The clip below was taken from the final fight scene in the 2007 fantasy film, Stardust.

Despite this movie being of the fantasy genre, rather than a horror film, the parallel harshness of the high pitch scratchy sound combined with the lack of background noise and the scene ahead serves as a really unsettling and tense filled mood, putting the audience on edge. This is because the audience know the inevitability of gore or a fight looming ahead and are apprehensive of the execution and the result; the fear of not know what's about to come can also instil fear in the audience.

Practical Example

The image attached above shows the items that I used to record my rendition of the knife sharpening sound. Many modern and new knife sets are sold with knife sharpeners as well as the knives which makes this sound effect easy to produce at home by amateurs.

Firstly, I recorded the sound of myself sharpening the knife using the items in the image above. To do this, I used a software called 'Audacity', which enables amateurs with less professional equipment to record quality sound from their laptop. The screenshot above shows the sound waves recorded as the result.

I then highlighted and deleted the areas of the sound wave which were undesired, as indicated in the above two screenshots. This included the faint sounds of myself clicking the mouse pad on the laptop which the software was able to faintly pick up. To do this, I just highlighted the unwanted areas and pressed the delete button on the keyboard.

This image shows the final sound waves for the finished recording in Audacity.



I then exported the sound file using the drop down menu shown above. This allowed me to save the sound file in a format suitable for when uploading the finished file to Sound Cloud.

Finally, I uploaded the finished sound file to Sound Cloud; the above screenshot shows the process I carried out to do this. After selecting the 'Upload' button from my coursework account, the above pop-up appeared, whereby I selected the sound file name and added a suitable name, description and search tags. After pressing 'Save', the file was uploaded.

The link below contains the final sound file for the Knife Sharpening sound effect:

Evaluation

•      The sound recording software used (Audacity) was simple and easy to work out and use, making time management efficient and allowing for a professional sound effect.
•      Since the materials necessary for this type of sound effect are easy to come across in the basic kitchen, it enabled an accurate, reliable and professional sounding effect.
•      Using a laptop, however, to record the sound meant that the microphone picked up the sound of the fan, which can be heard faintly in the background of the recording.
•      The Sound Cloud website was easy to navigate and use, making the upload of the file quick and simple.
•      Finding a YouTube clip containing a real example of a knife being sharpened from a horror movie, or any movie for that matter, proved to be a great challenge. To combat this, I recorded the researched clip from my home TV using a camera, however, this meant that the quality of the sound and picture was reduced slightly.
•      If I were to remake this sound effect, I would use a professional microphone away from any background noise or interference to allow for a professional and clear sound.