Research on how sound is used in the openings of thriller movies.

Most thrillers tend to use the same sort of music for the opening part of the movie. The sound tends to involve tense music and special effect sounds.

Music:

Typically, the music used will start with a slow tempo and fairly quiet, as the opening scene progresses the music will normally gradually get louder and faster paced. Reasons for this are due to the fact that typical thrillers will usually give the viewer an insight to the action that will occur throughout the thriller in the opening sequence: This is the case for most thrillers. However, crime and action thrillers tend to have a faster paced start that psycological thrillers. The music will have to suit the mood and the tempo of the acting. For example a crime thriller will usually show the build up to the crime and maybe the start, however a typical convention would be to not show the whole crime, as this will be shown later in the film, in contrast: Another typical convention would be to show the murder and maybe use the rest of the film for investigation and solving the murder. Therefore, he music used in the opening sequence will have to keep the audience engaged and interested.

As part of our research, I will be analysing various opening sequences of thriller movies and stating why I think that the music and sound effects have been used.

Resevoir Dogs:



This film is set around the 70's. The first 8 minutes of the opening scene shows a group of middle aged and older men having a conversation in a cafe. After this they all leave the cafe together, as the music starts we see them all walking down a back street (the majority wearing black suits and sunglasses). They walk down the street in slow motion with some 70's blues kind of music in the background. After we see them as a group, the music carries on playing as a character motive introduces each character seperately. Below is some pictures showing this:

 

Overall, I feel that this is a good example of how music and sounds are used in crime thrillers, reasons that I think this are that the style of music gives the audience an insight to when and where the film is set, it also fits with the dress code of the group of men. Instead of the music fitting the tempo of the filming, the filming has been edited into slow motion to fit the blues music. The characters are also introduced slowly to fit the soundtrack. The soundtrack does not last long, however it manages to serve its purpose of introducing the characters and the plot, and giving the audience an insight of what may happen later on in the film.