Rebel element in my audio project is focused on a battle against stigma of depression and therefore conveys a message of self-acceptance and courage to seek for help. The protagonist is going through an internal ride of emotions: calm, anxious, devastating and hopeful. Featuring the sound of phone screenshots, I want to highlight how people usually put their cheerful positive versions on social media, which makes it unorthodox to express negative feelings, especially doleful ones. For a depressed person, exposure to those norms pushes him to suppress emotions, which leads to internalisation of self-stigma, believing in self-incompetence and helplessness (Friedman, 2014).
In creating the sound, I concentrated on techniques that elicit tension and nervousness. I took inspirations from Driving to Bates Motel scene from Pyscho (1960) and a scene in Riverdale where Veronica discovered that her Dad was the reason for someone’s suicide, particularly in how the movies portray internal and external chaos.
It is suggested by Hillman and Pauletto (2014) that a setting of high Logical and Temporal score and a low Abstract and Spatial one be used to evoke despair in cinema. I ultilised a variety of music tempo to create moods (faster-than-heart-rate track to establish chaos and anxiety while slower-than-heart-rate one to delivery calmness and relaxation). Besides, I also played around with fade in fade out to smoothen transitions in between tracks, amplify to build the climax and echo to provide a sense of space (Hess, 2014).
Below is the link to my audio, I hope you will enjoy it! Cheers xxx
REFERENCES:
Friedman, M. (2014). The Stigma of Mental Illness Is Making Us Sicker. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/brick-brick/201405/the-stigma-mental-illness-is-making-us-sicker
Hess, J. (2014). The Fundamentals of Sound in Post Production. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4791OLkRrs
Hillman, N & Pauletto, S 2014, ‘The Craftsman: The use of sound design to elicit emotions’, Soundtrack, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 5–23, viewed 1 May 2019, <https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=101422195&site=eds-live>
Helly Pham 