Author: Taylor Moore

In order to find the right sound I needed, I had to listen and find out what sort of sounds mystery thrillers have in their sequences. Looking at the movies I’ve been using the whole time (Murder On The Orient Express, Crooked House, Kaahani, Sherlock Holmes, Murder At the Gallop, etc.), this shouldn’t be too hard of a problem at all.

Looking at the 1974 Orient Express, their title sequence had mostly non-diegetic sound, as it only outlined the crime actually taking place rather than showing the evidence itself and the silence and suspense of it all. No ambient sound was really used, most likely to show how stealthy and quiet the criminal had to be to commit the crime in the first place. The soundtrack behind it has high pitched noises mixed with bass to create a suspenseful and high tension atmosphere, since a crime is taking place at this time. It gives the sequence a more suspenseful feel to it since its such high stakes for the criminals to actually complete the crime they’re aiming for.

In the newer 2017 version, there are plenty of different sounds from ambient to diegetic to non-diegetic to on-screen and offscreen and if I were to list all of that it would be enough for one post. Unlike it’s parent movie, this version has much more dialogue included in the title sequence to introduce the main character, Herucle Poirot. So in order to introduce our character, it would be imperative to use these techniques to introduce our own detective, Rebecca. There is only a soundtrack during certain parts of the sequence where there is no dialogue necessary, like when the little boy ran to get more eggs, so we included certain soundtrack sounds under dialogue parts and where there is no dialogue anyway.

Crooked house has few sounds that are extremely obvious, like the footsteps, the faint sound of the syringe, and some mysterious coughing in the back. With the creepy soundtrack in the back and the few diegetic sounds that are heard throughout the first two minutes, it creates a suspenseful and mysterious atmosphere and the audience isn’t sure what to think about it at first. We wanted this same sort of feeling, except the audience would come to figure out that the scene is a murder, but not who did it and or who’s observing the scene. Taking this kind of inspiration led to our sequence being easy to apply sound and be able to create the feelings that makes the most sense.

Sherlock Holmes, the 2009 version, starts out with Sherlock running from someone or something, and it’s not completely clear why. A lot of ambient sound is used here and mixed with certain diegetic sounds, like his breathing, his footsteps, him tripping and whatnot. Though this film is more geared towards action and adventure, it still has the original feeling of mystery we kind of want to go for. Not too much inspiration was taken from the sound, but more the plot of the sequence as the detective, Sherlock, is introduced through a creative way.

As much as I absolutely love editing film, I cannot stand editing with iMovie. It’s not difficult to work with, I just feel really restrained when working with it. Though, I don’t have access to any other editing program that is 1) free or 2) easily accessible. So, here we are.

Here is my entire process of editing, so far. I first had to, obviously, put everything in place for the title sequence actually makes sense in the first place. That was the easy part of editing. Though it was a bit difficult differentiating from the bloopers from the actual footage. I had edited the evidence portion a while ago since we decided that we would keep that part of the title sequence in since 1) it took so long to set up anyway and 2) it’s kind of what we want to go for anyway, so there isn’t a big need to change it up if it works the correct way we want it to.

I don’t know how these sound editors deal with how tedious and awful editing dialogue can be, but I somehow did it. I had to import every single sound recording and file that I had, and none of them were corrupted or messed up or anything, thankfully. During each audio and video recording, I clapped loud enough so that both of them would pick up the sound and could be more easily synced. Even when doing that it was still difficult to sync dialogue. Remind me to film silent-dramas from now on. Either way, after listening with and without headphones (it de-synced when I took them out), had other people listen to it, listen to it ten billion more times, it was synced well and the dialogue was at a pretty good volume as well. This as probably the most difficult part of the entire editing process, so I was very glad when I had finished.

I’ll go into recording ambient sound in a different post, but it was somewhat difficult to make sure not one part of the ambient sound doesn’t overpower another or so. The ambient sounds I included for the office is a printer, a ringing phone, and a room full of talking “office employees”. It was actually a classroom but it sounds pretty similar to a busy office. Another ambient sound I used is the door creaking and closing in the beginning with the evidence sequence. It was kind of hard finding a creaking door since I don’t have any doors that creaked, so I just improvised with some different mouth noises and it sounded like creaking. It worked out for me, you know? Sound creators have to get creative, too.

I had to decide a good soundtrack for both the beginning and the end as well, while also including the logo of our production company, while I don’t particularly know if we need that or not. I figured it’s better it’s there than not at all. The beginning is supposed to be creepy and suspenseful, so our thriller genre conventions come more into play there as it shows the less mystery part of it. We decided to go with the creepy and mysterious music composed by Peder B. Helland. This is the same artist for the title card music at the end as well. This music gives our evidence a creepy sort of feel when observing it. Although, the POV of observing the evidence is unknown to the viewer, so that as well may add to the evidence. That’s for another post, but anyway, the end had to be some sort of introduction music, or more mysterious music since it’s introducing the title of the movie itself. The transitioning was a little rough to actually deal with in the end, but it got it, eventually. The fade is faster than I would like it to be, but you gotta do what you gotta do yknow? Either way, the music was difficult to choose since I wasn’t too keen on what to look for. Yes, “creepy” music, but I wasn’t extremely positive on what I wanted so the feeling could be brought out better in the way I really wanted it to. Though, after some discussion with Sitara, we settles on a good soundtrack for the beginning to show what we wanted for the most part.

The rest of the editing I’ll go over in more detail in a different post since I would have to describe the whole process of both color correcting and getting a lot of the ambient sound and even creating the title card in the best way possible. That’s gonna be long winded and complicated to explain but it shouldn’t be too difficult. I have so much to do oh my g-.