Pitch Black Case Study

Pitch Black is the first film of the 3 The Chronicles of Riddick. This American a science fiction action horror film was released in 2000 and written by Ken Wheats, Jim Wheats, and co-writer and directed by David Twohy.

The Movie Plot.

A prison spaceship is hit by a meteor and crashes on a deserted plant that has 3 suns orbiting around it and keeps the plant in perpetual daylight before it starts going into night. The survivors of the crash are killed by creatures that feed only in the dark. Riddick has had illegal eye surgery which allows him to see in the dark, but this has made his eyes extremely sensitive to sunlight. To leave the plant, they have to fix the spaceship with parts they found in an abandoned research facility during the daytime. In the research facility, a surviving boy from the crash goes missing without a trace, which they try to look for. Riddick and the other survivors, Jack (female) Paris (male) William, Carolyn and Imam, then start to discover the evil secrets of the planet and realize the fate that awaits them all, to survive, they have to get off the planet with the additional challenge of keeping alive and get back to the spaceship to repair it.

The Scene Plot - Don't Stray From the Light

Time 00:00 Group moving

The scene starts with music that gives you a sense that the surviving group has banded together and are moving as quickly as possible through the terrain. They are being shadowed by the creatures who have come out to feed on their pray by circling and waiting for an opportunity to strike. In this scene, you can hear the bongos playing at a medium to quick tempo and they use synth wind instruments and audio sounds under a layering of a pro dominantly bongo rhythm in the music score. It gives the impression of a group of people becoming tribal and being focused, as they struggle to move around while carrying the power cell packs and light tubes over their shoulders while trying to stay alive. There is also an atmosphere (atmos) sound that is used to fill out the music, which is layered underneath. At 00:05 they fade in other atmos, which I observed sounded low and then slowly brought up the audio in volume. As they bring up the low atmos volume they stop the music and fade the low atmos down into the next scene. This also highlights the continuation of a character (Jack) whose personal journey is embedded in the scene.

Time 00:08 Jack holding tube torch

Jack is supported with the atmos audio sound pitch being raised a little bit, to bring in audio and visual tension to support the fear and anxiety portrayed by the facial expressions and quick nervous movement while pointing the tube torch held in her hand forward. In the background, you can hear her footsteps in the dirt as well as a pop noise. When Jack moves to the left to investigate a sound, a sound like a door is being slammed as hard as it can and then a sound of reverb and delay is added.

Time 00:13 Creature

A whooshy wind noise over the atmos brings a creature into play. I think it’s an atmos audio sound being used with a phaser, using the wide sweep control on the unit to create a slow cycle of the audio. The creature has a low clicky growl noise that gives you the impression that something bad is about to happen. I think the clicky sound is a wooden percussion instrument. This gives the impression that the creature is observing what’s going on when they put a black and white filter over the scene. Before they get into the next scene it sounds as if they have reversed a wav file to get the same whooshy noise that played out in the original scene and followed by a heavy breath

Time 00:17 Paris

I like the way they have pre-thought about the pitch of the oxy torch (or is it a plasma cutter). When exiting the last scene into this one. It sounds as if they have changed their atmos to fit in with their plasma cutter, another synth atmos sound is also bought in.

Time 00:18 Jack

This scene continues with the same atmos sound and adds another sound I observe sounds like something similar to a metal high pitch plate being hit with a heap of reverb and pitch altered. This sound is used to give the sense of her fear as she hears movement around her as she swings around to her right. the sound follows her movement by panning our right to left.

Time 00:20 Paris

The atmos sound has been continued into this scene. They use the sound of the oxy touch flame extinguishing to create additional fear. It also indicates who could be next on the creature’s dinner plate.

Time 00:21 Jack and William and Imam

They now add sounds like whales or dolphin noises that have been altered and pitched.

They turn down the atmos that they have been using for the last couple of scenes. The adding of whales or dolphin noise sounds are maintained as an individual edit. Facial shots of Jack, William, and Imam appear in quick succession, and during these quick character facial shots, you can also hear a shape metallic scraping sound like 2 swords scraping together, that once again indicates to me that the creatures are circling to attack. As this sound goes from the right speaker to left, and in the left speaker the sound returns quieter, giving the impression the creature is in the distance. This scene is great as they also use dialog and character cut as part of the tension build-up. You see the Imam saying stay close and it cuts straight to Paris whose mouth, and lips move to show his fear. They use buzzy bee noises to draw attention to his expression via his mouth and lips. It could be a brass instrument.

Time 00:27 Container

They turn the atmos audio down low and bring up the movement of the large tray they are carrying. The initial lift sound before they start carrying the tray, sounds like they have created it by using a piece of metal or aluminum pushed to scrap on gravel. They quickly tie in some feet moving on dirt fast to support the group moving as quickly as they can. When they edit the shot to the tin container on the large metal tray, they are carrying that is holding their extra touches and supplies, they emphasize a hand reaching in and trying to grab an item while fumbling around with his hand. The problem that l see, and hear with this recreated foley sounds are the box in the film to me looks like a plastic container, not metal, this would then make a ‘duller’ dead sound. (Just my observation). I do however like the sound of one of the emergency touches hitting the stone rubble, when it accidentally falls out of the tin (plastic) container box, balanced on the metal tray they are all carrying. The foley sounds they have created for the scene differ.

Time 00:33 Jack retrieves torch

In this small scene, the atmos is brought back to set up the stage for a new small scenario. Jack has taken off her tube of light to retrieve the item she has accidentally dislodged from the tin container box. At this point, they have overlayed another atmos to create tension in the scene. (I can also hear a low Hz hum feedback being slowly added) As Jack is scrambling to reach for the item that has fallen out, they bring in the noise of the creatures and now she is crawling as she is openly exposed while lying extended on her belly, arms stretched out. By using the creature’s noise, (they have created) along with changing the visual view from Jack, to a black and white filtered view of the creature’s perspective as it’s looking at Jack. The audio sounds and imagery bring in the realism and the danger Jack has just put herself in.

Time 00:44 Rescue

The cocking sound of the military-style rifle brings in the humanity side of how we would like to portray ourselves, as heroes. The cocking sound of the rifle sounds like depicting a pump-action shotgun sound being re-pitched. As the creature starts to attack, they bring in another swooping sound. The swooping sound of the flying creature attacking has a synth sound that has a lot of air attached to it. This creature sounds like, the first part of the sound has been reversed and the second part is the actual sound. All through this scene, they have gradually brought back the atmos. The rifle sound interrupts the creature's sound, stopping them in their tracks and gives you the impression the attack has been fended off. This part finishes with William shooting again and spinning around to find himself pointing the rifle at Carolyn There’s a movement sound for when William spins around and a ringing bell feedback sound that’s been used to heighten the look that Carolyn gives William, who finds himself pointing the rifle directly at Carolyn’s head.

Time 00:54 Paris panicking

At the beginning of this scene, you hear a wooden tapping noise as Carolyn gets on her hands and knees and moves out of view. The creature swoops to attack again. This time the swooping sound gets louder and indicates the velocity of the attack. They also heighten this chaotic scene by adding another sound as the creature begins to ascend for a snatch and grab ‘human meal’. This scene ends with William blasting away with the rifle and Paris crawling into the dark away from his safety zone in panic. As Paris is crawling away from his safe zone, they bring in low synth sound that increases in velocity while Paris is crawling.

Time 01:03 Lights out

The atmos sound from the end part of the previous scene is continued into this scene. They also add in another atmos synth-style pitch sound, which sounds a little higher in pitch and adds depth to the layering of sound. Now the audio sound has an eerie feel about it. Riddick is cut in and out of the scene as he is quietly observing the actions of Paris and the others. You can hear Paris crawling over the ground for a millisecond before you hear the power cells shorting and falling off the large tray that they have been caring for their survival. The clunking and shorting out sounds of the equipment being dragged out of the tray would have been created through foley work. The power cells shutting down reminds me of a jet engine coming to a stop, so that sound probably was a sample being added and adjusted to coincide with the foley action.

Time 01:16 Paris Death

The atmos has been faded right down as they bring the volume up of Paris crawling on screen. You can then hear Paris stopping his crawling, and once stopped, they use silence with only the atmos right down low to create anticipation, and also used as a build-up for what’s going to happen next (the scare factor). During the silences of Paris just kneeling there, they create even more anxiety tension, by using a wind sound. The wind sound foley that they are using is to give the sense that there is something out there, (this sounds like a plastic hose being moved quickly in front of a microphone). Straight after the ‘hose’ noise, you hear a whooshing noise getting louder (this sounds like they have reversed a wav transient), just before a thumping noise depicting the creatures spear going through the body of Paris. The thumping noise sounds like the thumping or punching on a chair that has heaps of padding. The spear from the creature who has now pushed the spear harder into Paris, with the sound like bone and sinew being separated in his body. I wonder if they used veggies or actual meat to simulate this foley sound. The dead light tube sound which falls of his shoulder onto the ground (to me sounds like stuff being dropped on a gym mat), just after he has been speared by the creature, this foley sound implies his fate.

I like the way they use minimal sound during this scene to draw attention to the dialog, which l think is great. Silence seems to be the master in drawing your attention to a story plot and guiding you. Paris then flicks a cigarette lighter a couple of times out of the screenshot, just before the lighten ignites this is a great attention grabber. The scene then shows Paris blowing alcohol into the flame, and the flame sounds like they have sampled a lion roar and put the sound through some filters. Then when the creatures are screaming because of the sudden light, it shows exactly what Paris fate is, it’s amazing. The creatures screaming, sounds like they have recorded a whole heap of wildlife sounds and manipulated through different processors. I think one of the animal sounds is an elephant roaring. I wonder if the night atmos is a low-frequency sound, like a signal generator from the Pro Tools DAW, to get the ambience of the night.

Time 01:49 Regrouping

This scene they start with the lighting of the flares. Using the age-old fear of darkness to create this scene. The atmos has been brought back in and it sounds if they have different synths layer to rise and lower. They have placed the creature noises in the mix to sound as if they are in the distance. With the creature’s sound being mixed to depict as if they are in the distance and then they bring the dialog back in. It gives the impression that the danger is over for now, even though you can still hear the creatures in the distance. When Riddick looks at the creatures feeding on Paris’s carcass, they bring up the creature’s noises as they are feeding a little higher and add the noises of Paris’s body being ripped apart to the forefront. I wonder if they are using celery and carrots to get the broken bone snapping noise. This scene ends with synth instruments sounds being faded back in.

Conclusion

I picked this film ‘Pitch Black’ as a case study to learn how to use people’s natural fears as a tool to create the illusion of realism, for an assignment trailer titled A Quiet Place 2. We can use society and human fears to transport their feeling and thoughts into a different reality. I want to be able to connect and involve the audience in a way that they can actually immerse themselves into the film without realising it. Everyone has natural fears, and augmented reality like film and sound can create amazing results.

Pitch Black demonstrates that you can use more than one element of the human psyche in films. But natural fears would have to be the ultimate vehicle to lure the viewer in.

By using foleys, samples, sound design and ADR is a challenge to know how to keep it real and keep the audience immersed in the plot.

The atmospheric background is another key to keeping it real. Having atmospheric audio that sits right in the back of the viewer's ears, will give them a feeling of being comfortable while watching the film.

Having well-timed foleys and ADR that have a clean audio quality, help with the suspense and the flow of the film.

The samples and sound design tied it all together into one product.

How l analyzed the clip.

Pitch Black was analyzed through a set of stereo speakers.

Reference

Movieclips. (2016, October 26). Pitch Black (6/10) Movie CLIP - Don't Stray From the Light (2000) HD. Retrieved February 24, 2020, from https://youtu.be/Eum-rR934sQ