How does sound create meaning and provoke response in the short film lucidity?

My film is about a young boy that begins to see strange things happening to him around the house. He seems to be seeing things and is getting worried about what he is seeing. Everything that he is seeing is within his head and seems to be some kind of illusion, but seems real to him. The paranoia begins to get worse as the time goes on causing him to become more scared as the minutes pass by. The aims in which i have tried to achieve are a sense of horror and eeriness within the house. This is used to keep the audience engaged with the film.

The film begins with the boy walking down the stairs playing music aloud throughout the house on his speaker. I chose this diegetic sound to show teenage taste of music indicating that the boy is having a normal happy day and is enjoying his day. He then turns down the music. I did this so the music can signify the mood set within the house. The loud music indicates happiness and joy whereas the quiet, low volume music indicates the mood of happiness being slowly removed from the house.

The second scene is the boy moving through the kitchen to go outside into the garden to get some fresh air. I did not add any sound here as there was no need due to the scene being simple and nothing mysterious was happening.  He then goes to the bridge and leans over it to see his reflection, but he sees his friends reflection next to him. I purposely used no non-diegetic sound here as the silence before the reflection is seen signifies peace, this way is more effective as it stands out to the audience. When the reflection is shown no sound effects are used as the boy screams in horror. The sound from the boy is natural and sharp and pierces through the audience placing shock and fear within them. I wanted the audience to feel as if this was the start of something horrible and mysterious like an alarm for the audience. The boys then moves away in shock and trips over and falls to the ground making his hands dirty. As he turns around and falls to the floor i added a non diegetic sound to symbolise how confused and scared the boy was. This non-diegetic sound is a rather sharp and alerting noise which gets louder as the boy falls. Once he has landed on the floor the sound immediately stops to show awareness to the audience.

 He then makes his way upstairs to wash his hands. As he runs up stairs a build up of music is used to show that something is going to happen and this moment is being built up to. Whilst he is washing his hands he the water turns to blood. At this point a sudden change in the music is used. The change is a quick change in pitch causing the music to sound loud and sharp. This provokes the audience as it immediately grabs the audience’s attention telling them that something wrong has happened.

The next scene is of the boy running downstairs and goes to sleep thinking that all of these weird occurrences that he keeps seeing will go away. I added some non- diegetic sound here as it complements the tilt shot showing the audience that something is still going to occur as the confusion is still lingering.  After this he then wakes up and gets a suitcase. He drops the suitcase and a loud unnerving non-diegetic sound is used to show how shocked the boy is knowing that he has just dropped his dead friend. This is also used to guide the audience to feel uneasy as well as the character.  He turns around and his other friend is laying on the floor dead. The doorbell then rings and the sound is removed as he thinks someone is here to help. He then goes to the door still under shock and realises that there are two people at the door. He opens the door and his friends are standing there and say hi. They say hi as they haven’t experienced anything and feel normal and are acting in a normal way. I deliberately used the most normal dialogue to make it seem more shocking. Also when he opened the door i purposely used a sharp non- diegetic sound to alert the audience.

Overall i believe that is have been successful within sound. I also believe that other sounds could have been used within the film such as when the boy was walking towards the bridge. This sound could have been used to build up tension within the audience so they are expecting something horrible to happen from when he arrives to the bridge.