Sound analysis of 'Priest'

As I am looking at making most of the sound for our project I needed to look at the value of sound in film and different types of sound. I made notes on the film Priest as its sci-fi neo noir theme has an interesting mixture of techniques. 

Basic Plot of extract: A family living in a dry plot in America are having dinner and suddenly they hear a rumble of animals running. The mother and father of the family put their daughter in a secret basement to protect her. They try to fight the creatures of with heavy steam punk guns but get slaughtered. The hatch opens and the daughter screams, we only see a shadow of a person who we presume to be a cowboy because of their hat.

Types of sound: 

Dialogue (Words/Vocal) - This is anything vocal. Things said, sang ect.. In the extract of Priest that I watched the dialogue was very basic between the family. They say 'Bow your heads and say grace' before everything kicks off. This shows us how the use of speech can make us anticipate what is going to happen late in the clip. The tones of their voices are very low apart form the scene when the daughter screams as she is discovered by the anti-hero of the story. The high pitched tone is a huge contrast compared to the rest of the scene and makes us realise the severity of the situation. In our OTS I don't think we will use any dialogue but we may use vocals to create sound effects 

Sound Effects/Foleying - Sounds that have been aded onto the top of videos to enhance sounds that should occur. They are most noticeable in high action films with explosions and gun shots. In Priest the house set is quite heavy. All of the furniture is dense dry wood and even the cutlery placed on the table is made from a heavy metal. This would not be as apparent if it was not enhanced or added during editing. The cutlery may have a natural diagetic sound when placed on the table but this can be amplified to conform to the style of the film. 

Ambiance (Background sound, mood enhancing, wild tracks) - This can be almost anything it is general background noise. If a scene is set in a shop you would hear till noises and people gently speaking. If you were outside in a forest you may hear wildlife. I makes the audience more aware of the setting. In Priest there is constantly the sound of wind and dirt crumbling on the ground. This makes us aware that it is in the desert. This is non-diagetic as it did not occur when the footage was filmed. 

OTS Logo design

This sheet shows my thought process as I came up with a name for our OTS. Its also a mind map for a logo/font that I will need to make. 

Neo Noir

The genre of film noir extends to something called neo noir. To gather more of the genre I looked at different clips from Neo Noir films. We looked for things that typically are in film noir and spoke about how the film interpreted it.

For example the film 'The Red Riding Trilogy' uses dark tones to express something quite depressing. This is typical of a film noir and it ties in with the story nicely.  

I also looked at 'Blade Runner'. It feels like a modern version of a film noir as it has a blue filter most of the way through rather than being sepia which is a traditional colour used in film noir. This was the thing that stood out most to me as the classic look of smoke stood out off of a dark background.

The film 'Bound' reminds me of a classic film noir which has been transferred into modern day (1990's). It contains lots of art deco settings, a gangster boyfriend and a red black and white theme throughout. In this the Anti Hero is a woman rather than a man which is an unusual convention of film noir. Hence the title of neo noir. 

Analysis of student OTS