Our Soundtrack

We looked into some different soundtracks we could use to help portray the suspense of the beginning of the film- a few were just too upbeat and dramatic. For example, bands like Two Steps From Hell or Audiomachine create fantastic instrumentals that have been effectively used in trailers, but we didn't feel like they helped create the mood in the story, they felt more 'epic' and 'battle' like, which didn't fit in with our village settings.

  So we then studied several soundtracks from films. It was tricky finding soundtracks the creating the right effect. We looked through the soundtracks of thriller films, like Silence of the Lambs, but nothing quite made an impact.

 However, completely by fluke, as we were working we played a song that one of us knew and immediately we all agreed that that was the song we wanted. The beginning was calm and beautiful, depicting the calm village, as the song goes on, you can hear a slight tension and suspense to it, which builds up into a dark intimidating tune.

 The song is from the film 'Star Trek into Darkness' and is an extended version including the two songs, 'London's Calling', the first, calm tune, and the second 'Ode to Harrison', being the loud upbeat instrumental. The songs are written by Micheal Giacchino- he and the director wanted to make it feel as if they weren't in a Star Trek movie, "twisting things to make it fit right", as they described it. 'London's Calling' is a prime example of this. Giacchino said "It was a very conscious decision to make that base sound different; then, from there, we were able to evolve to our theme for the character. I remember when J.J. [the director] heard it, he said, 'Oh it sounds English. That's perfect!' ... I was just going for something that felt emotional and questioning as opposed to being so direct that it tells you whats going on."

This is why we chose it- the questioning feel it creates, the lingering suspicion and tension throughout the first piece of 'London's Calling' and the threatening dramatic tune of 'Ode to Harrison' could be used when we introduced a more dramatic scene or occurrence.
 We will edit the tune accordingly so it fits in with the appropriate scene as the extended version is over 12 minutes long and uses many repeats, but we chose to use the mash up instead of the two separate songs as certain parts are already merged together without it being obviously edited, making it easier for us when we do the same.