8/8/2023 0 Comments Creepy soundsArtists take footage shot in production (and created by visual-effects artists in post-production) and reproduce or imagine its sounds - the swish of a curtain, the chatter of teeth - using props and digital effects to amplified results. Whereas legendary composers like John Carpenter and newcomers like Disasterpiece are credited with making horror feel cinematic, Foley work and sound design is what makes it feel real - even when it’s not. We have an unseen horde of sound mixers, designers, and Foley artists to thank for much of this audio magic. Watch enough scary movies, and you start to recognize the acoustic pattern. Flesh emits a powerful constellation of gooey noises in a Hostel movie, and leather tightening is positively stentorian. Even the faintest of actions, like a knife slicing through air in a Scream installment, can produce eardrum-piercing shrieks when you least expect it. They serve up the understated chill of a woman walking alone at night - the slight click-clack of her heels against pavement raising hairs on the back of your neck - and volley back with a silence-shattering bus rushing into frame. By maximising non-standard harmonies, as well as changing frequencies, music can create that feeling of terror by playing with the hardwired danger signals in your brain.Horror movies are a tennis match between the haunting absence of sound and the maximalist assault of big noise. ![]() Whether it is the suspense-filled theme from Jaws or the screeching violins of Psycho, composers can instil fear with just a few simple chords. It is not just sound effects putting fear in our ears. We’ll probably never know what a real T-Rex sounded like but when you hear that sound effect, you know you are in trouble. Remember the terrifying T-Rex roar from Jurassic Park (1993)? That roar consists of many different animal calls, including a baby elephant, a growling tiger and an alligator. Hollywood realised this long ago and started using animal sounds to great effect in their movies. If their brains did not react fast enough and generate the startle reflex, they would have been eaten for breakfast. The most common non-linear sounds in nature are animal cries or screams, something our early ancestors had reason to fear. These unsettling sounds have rapidly changing frequencies, non-standard harmonies and are just frightfully noisy. The sounds that affect us most are non-linear sounds. Even when you are asleep, your ears are still working and listening out for any potential predators lurking nearby or, as it’s also known, the morning alarm clock. That startle reflex prepares you for danger as no other stimulus can. What do you do when you hear a sudden, unexpected noise? You jump. Your brain processes sound information a lot quicker than visual information, which suggests hearing became our first defence mechanism against attack. So what transforms these vibrations into something we consider scary? ![]() Our brains are to blame for the fear they cause. It’s all in your biology! THE SCIENCE OF SOUND AND FEARįirst things first, sounds are not scary, they are just vibrations. You might think that you’re the kind of person that doesn’t scare too easily, however when it comes to scary sounds you don’t really have much of a choice. The spookiest time of the year is just around the corner, which means we’re going to be hearing scary sounds everywhere.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |