HW 2c - Sound in film openings (DYM)

ALIEN

DIALOGUE:

• None
• The use of silence in the dialogue builds tension to convey the horror genre, as well as building tension and suspense, creating an exciting and engaging atmosphere to the film.
• There are o characters to have dialogue, further extending the eerie and abandoned atmosphere.

SOUND EFFECTS:

• All the sounds are diegetic to the film.
• The sounds are very conventional of the science fiction genre.
• The sounds are synchronised with the lights and movement on screen, making the scene more realistic and more immersive for the audience, building up suspense for horror.
• All the sounds are either really loud or really quite, which creates an interesting contrast in terms of the genre, as it makes it very jumpy, while also a calm scene.
• The first loud sound almost creates a jump scare, fitting with the genre, and setting up the audience's expectations of the film.
• The mechanical sounds made by the machine after it turns on sounds as though someone is typing, which alludes to movement that isn't there. This enhances the feeling of abandonment and a deserted setting, which foreshadows later events in the film where all but one of the characters die.
• The machinery sounds very rustic and random, highlighting the unstable ambiance of the narrative and the setting.
• The contrast between man made sounding sounds, technological sounds, and distant, unknown sounds, creates a sense of the narrative, as it represents the conflict between the humans, the confinement of the spaceship, and the alien.
• The distant and unknown sounds in the spaceship make the audience question who or what is in the scene, and question where the movement is coming from. This reflects the later scenes in the film where you can hear the distant sounds of the alien, but you can't see here it is, conventional of the sci-fi and horror genres.

MUSIC:

• None.
• Again, the use of silence builds tension to convey the horror genre, as well as building tension and suspense, creating an exciting and engaging atmosphere to the film.