This week we explored how orchestration and the cello are used in films to create different effects through various techniques. We then picked a short clip with no music from a film and scored them. I chose ‘No Country for Old Men.’ Originally, I attempted scoring it from scratch without seeing the film. Whilst knowing the plot of the story I began placing strings throughout the scene. I found that, possibly due to the scoring I did for ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’, the strings were too emotive. I had decided to use lots of layers and score within the melodic minor but I felt as if overall it took away from the intensity of the scene rather than add to it. 

I then went away and watched the film and found that the scoring was sparse. This gave me the idea to explore diegetic sound. I decided to add the sound of a radio playing in the petrol station. I chose the track ‘Ring of Fire’ by Johnny Cash. The film is set in the 1980s in West Texas and although ‘Ring of Fire’ was first released in 1963 it felt appropriate that it would be played in the shop due to the older age of the shop keeper. ‘Ring of Fire’ also holds a level of irony when we think about the lyrics “I fell into a burning Ring of Fire” and the situation from the shop keepers’ point of view as he finds himself face to face with a psychopathic murderer through no fault of his own. 

To make the radio feel like it was placed within the world I applied various effects to the audio. The first was an EQ. I cut out much of the low end to create the feeling that sound was coming from an old radio speaker. I also added two separate reverbs to place it within the space of the room. Finally, I added a pitch shift. After the killer Anton Chigurh says the phrase “What business is it of yours friendo?” I added a slow automation slowly pitching down the original Cash sample whilst increasing the wet of the reverb. I felt this added a feeling of uncanniness to the scene and symbolizes a shift away from the polite surface level conversation the scene begins with. In doing so I also felt it places the diegetic sound of the radio into this unfamiliar space between diegetic and non-diegetic sound, blurring the lines of reality within the scene. 

Figure 1. EQ of “Radio effect”

Figure 2. Pitch shift automation