Editing - special effects and sound / music choices

Our editing process is now well underway and our first drafts for our trailers are due next week. There are a lot of special effects and music / sound choises that I am going to discuss that are present in our trailer and will be present in the first draft. These are:

Special effects: transitions (colour to black, dissolve and flash) titles (blur), reversing clips

Sound: Using; Booming Reverse 01, Police Siren, Helicopter, overlapping voiceovers, Flash Photography

Music: Digital Fortress
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• Transitions - colour to black, dissolve and flash

These were the three transition choices we made. We used the colour to black fade a lot throughout the trailer as it is a stereotypical convention of the thriller genre. Black fades are used frequently with this genre and it is the most used. We used colour to blakc fades a lot, particularly at the begining of the film and before titles appeared onto the screen. This allows titles to appear / dissapear more smoothly. We also used dissolve at the beginning of the trailer a lot to change between shots subtly. The flash transition was also used a lot in our trailer - however it was only used in the second half of the trailer after the music had built up and became a lot faster paced. This was to add more speed between the shots and to create a faster paced cuts in time with the fast music.

• Titles - blur

The blur is the type of title we used for all of our titles. This was so the titles appeared on the screen slowly as they start of blurry and then appear onto the screen. This  is also a common feature of thriller genre trailers and this is why we chose this title type. All the titles were in an arial font, and the important words in the titles were bolded and put in 150 size font, as opposed to 100 szed fonts to make them the focus point for the audience. For example; 'FOR THE ONE THAT ESCAPED'. 

•  Sound - Booming Reverse 01, Police Siren, Helicopter, Flash Photography, overlapping voiceovers

We used the Boomin Reverse 01 sound effect when all the titles appear on the screen. This means that there is a 'boom' sound when they appear and this is a typical convention of the thriller genre trailer and it increases the tension of the trailer and emphasises the importance of the titles to the audience. We used the sound efects of a police siren and a helicopter  when the main character finds what becomes his mask in the film - this is to represent that it occurs after he breaks out of the mental institution as the police are searching for him. We used the flash photography sound effect when presenting pictures of the killer's victims - this is to represent that the detective on the case has taken pictures of his evidence. We also recorded voiceovers of newspaper reports that report the murders that occur after the psychopath has escaped - linking them to him. This creates a very powerful effect and allows the audience to identify straight away what sort of antagonist this person is.

•  Music - Digital Fortress

As with the sound effects mentioned above, this was a song that was taken off of the Mac and was one of the free songs we can use. We used this song as it was the only one that we could find that fitted the thriller genre. We searched for songs on FreePlayMusic.com, FlashKit.com and pacdv.com however we couldn't find anything that would look good with our trailer as they didn't fit the genre. Digital Fortress however, suited the genre and also fitted the trailer really well. When we put it in, it fitted the shots and sound effects really well and made the trailer look a lot more professional as the music worked in time with the 'boom' sound effects and the action shots in the trailer.