Analysing Sound

The clip is from The Crow, starring Brandon Lee. It is about a murder victim who is resurrected to seek revenge on the criminals who killed his girlfriend. The clip I am analysing is the part where he emerges from the grave and returns to the crime scene in order to transform into The Crow.
The music to start with is moody and brooding, as we follow him through the graveyard and back alleys. This is to symbolise the character's pain. The music also gets louder accompanying the appearance of the crow, in order to highlight the bird's presence as a signifier of death.
The diagetic sounds in the scene include creaking earth as he emerges from the ground, squelching mud and footprints in the puddles. There is also the constant noise of pouring rain, and these all add Gothic atmosphere to the scene. The crow is also a constant in the extract, its flapping wings and cawing adding to the mood and leading the character through the scene. We also hear the dialogue of the murderers and the sounds in the flashback. The sounds are echoed to show that they are distant. During the flashback, each cut is accompanied with a flash of sound or white noise to show how traumatic the events were. Diagetic sounds during this section are the gunshots, the sirens and the shattering glass which are all amplified and distorted. During the flashback which includes his happy memories, the music is mournful to represent his loss. As he completes his transformation, a rock song kicks in which gets louder to symbolise his rebirth.

We held a meeting in our group to decide two things: the title for the film and also the style of music we wanted. Here are the minutes:

First of all we decided to use my edit of the film as it was the most complete. The next thing we discussed were titles for the product. We decided on After Life as it sounds the most elegant and alludes to the subject matter of the film. For the musical aspect of the film we wrote down ideas for the score which could be given to some music students. Hopefully next week they will have composed it for us.

Further Editing

In this session I started finalising the edit.
I wanted to add quite a complex effect to the end of the film where a ring closes in around the final frame. Tom, the technician, helped me do this as there was no designated filter for doing it.
First he showed me how to "nest" clips, so one effect can be added to two or more pieces of footage.
To do this go to Sequence -> Nest Items or press Alt C.

I then created a new nest with two colour screens, one black and one grey. I then used a transition called "Oval Iris" to make the black come in around the grey where Abi's face would be in the final frame.

Tom then showed me a filter called "Chroma Keyer" which is the technique used when using a green screen. With it, I could make the grey invisible. I then placed the nest in the layer above the footage. Layers work the same way as in Photoshop, the layers on top are placed at the front.

Also in this lesson I wrote the dialogue cards, which explain the narrative. I decided to use a font called "Edwardian Script" as it looks old-fashioned and I added a filter called "Blink", which I set to low settings. This makes the text flicker as if in an old film.