Musical Influence: Secret Window

To make our short we needed to plan certain parts. A key part of any film is to decide on the non digetic sound that will accompany the short. As a group we looked at different films that are similar to our own in the same genre as a Psychological/Thriller to give us ideas on how they used music to create the atmosphere in the film. We also needed to look at if the music was suitable for the genre. A film that we thought used the music well in building suspense and telling the story was ‘Secret Window‘, directed by David Koepp.

In the clip I have found the non-digetic sound that has been used to accompany the film and has been successful in adding emotion to the scene. As the young women is moving up the stairs there are sounds ambient, these help in conjuring the mood, they are slow and quite which indicates that she is about to come across something which will then put the audience on edge. This is accompanied by shots of rooms which have been destroyed, but the music tells us that this isn’t the climax of the scene. As she moves then through the house the score quickens the pace as she may be moving closer to the protagonist or is entering danger. The music correlates to the emotion of the character and helps portraying this to the audience.

There is added pleonastic sound as the camera zooms in on markings on the tables, walls and windows over the musical score. This indicates there importance and shows to the audience where the character is looking, it also emphasizes the danger that she is in as the create drama and suspense.

This is then followed by musical stings as the camera pans around her. The musical stings are used to make the audience feel scared, at this point the audience will no that she is now in danger, the audience should be able to feel for the character and be wanting her to move out of the room. There is then the digetic sound of her gasping which shows her surprise, and terror as she see’s the protagonist. This is accompanied by the score which by now has created a fast pace, the music is loud and powerful which show her suspense and shock, it help sets the atmosphere and tells the audience how far away she is from whatever danger she is in.

The music in the film has been used really well to create tension and suspense through the scene. It has influenced our choice in music as we can now look at this and see how they have used a mixture of musical stings, digetic sound, the music score and non digetic sound to create the intended atmosphere.