'Trapped' Film including Sounds

Here is the (no longer) silent film 'Trapped'.

Sound is a very important element of film making and can often improve the overall effect of the film. For example adding a soundtrack can really intensify a scene and would make the audience aware that something is about to happen. Also it can really set the mood of the clips and can help the viewers identify the specific theme or genre. E.g. it is very conventional for a horror film to include a scary soundtrack, that increases the pace and purposely builds tension for effect.

A film can also be improved by adding sound effects, which would make the film seem more (or in some cases less) realistic. For example in a scene of violence or some sort of conflict, the fighting sounds are often exaggerated to make the scene more exciting and very dramatic.

For this short film, my group and I teamed up and recorded sounds on a hand held recorder, that we can use in our own films. Once we had recorded the sounds that each of us needed, I inserted them onto the Premiere Pro software, so that I could start editing in the effects and the soundtrack.

Foley is a type of sound that is produced after the film has been recorded, to recreate everyday sounds that match with the specific clips. This includes sounds like; footsteps, door squeaking, wind blowing, nails tapping and even dogs barking if it is recorded after, to make the clips more realistic and to increase the sound quality.

Improvements that I would make to the sound, would be to make sure that I actually cut the audio recording in the correct places on each of the clips. This is because on some of the clips, there are random sounds that do not match with the visual.

Click the link above to view the results.

Silent Film- 'Trapped'

Here is the silent film, Trapped.

My group and I worked together to create a silent film. We all brainstormed our ideas and eventually decided on a story, we later began the actual filming process.

We decided to keep it simple and do the majority of the recording in just one room. This is conventional of a silent film because they do not use very many different camera shots in early films anyway, and therefore would make sense for us to stay in one area. We filmed around 12 different clips ranging from a few seconds to nearly 2 minutes, most of these were deleted during the editing process, as they did not end up working with our film.

After the filming, I uploaded the clips onto the computer and then used Adobe Premiere Pro to edit the film, which included; cropping the size, adding a black and white filter, cutting from clip to clip, inserting a title and more.

The usual codes and conventions that are found in silent films include; some sort of musical accompaniment, any dialogue or narration was shown by using inter-titles, black and white effect, square film and finally the very limited use of camera angles. This is very conventional for a silent film because the camera would very often stay in the same place and would not change angles. This is because it was still the early cinema time era, where there was a lack of experimentation towards camera shots.

Most of the styles and conventions that are typically in silent films have been incorporated into my film, including the black and white effect that represents the time when coloured film was not yet invented. Also the more square look to the clips is conventional for an old black and white film because the camera used would of shot square film and not rectangular like nowadays.

On the other hand something that is quite unconventional of a silent film is the quick, sharp cuts between clips. This is more of a modern technique used in film making and therefore might be considered unrealistic for an old film to be shot at so many different angles.

Also the fact that the film is so clear and crisp is also quite unconventional because back in the olden times when silent films were very popular, they would not have been very good quality and looked quite fuzzy.

Now much more modern effects are used in film making, for example; IMAX, HD, 4K and 3D.

Click the film above to watch the silent film 'Trapped' on Youtube.