Construction Post - Music

Choosing our Music

We had to use music for our thriller opening that was non-copyrighted. Originally, we wanted to use Frank Sinatra's Somewhere Beyond the Sea, as the music fit well into the scene, and was a juxtaposition between the dark sinister scene, and the upbeat, happy music, creating an element of confusion. This music also hints that our antagonist is a psycho as there is a contrast between the calming upbeat music, and the act the antagonist has just committed. 

We considered composing our own music for our thriller opening, but we decided that it would not deliver the effect that we wanted due to our musical capabilities. After doing research into copyright free music, we discovered that songs under public domain were not copyrighted, We decided to search a public domain website, http://publicdomain4u.com, and found the song They Can't Take That Away From Me by Billie Holiday. We decided that this song fit the nature of our thriller opening, as it added a disturbing element to the video. The lyrics also fit the plot of the video, with lyrics such as 'no they can't take that away from me ', referring to the killing of the antagonist's friend in the photo that he is holding.

The Website that we found the song on

Editing our Music

To make the music more disturbing and unsettling, we decided to make it sound distorted, giving it a vintage and muffled tone, giving the impression that the music was playing through an old form of playback, such as a gramophone. We did this by adding a variety of effects, such as 'vintage radio' and 'muffled', to the music on Final Cut Pro, changing levels of effects to find the right tone.

The effects we used to make the song sound old and distorted

During the scene in which the editing rapidly cuts between two photos, we wanted to make the music sound more disturbing, to emphasise the psychotic and disturbed nature of our character. We did this by adding the effect of 'pitch shifter', to change the pitch of the music for a short period of time, emphasising the disturbed nature of our character, and making the audience feel uncomfortable and at a sense of unease. 

Pitch Shifter Effect

The Segment of the song we edited with the Pitch Shifter
effect

However, upon uploading our final cut to youtube, we were alerted that the music had some copyright issues in Germany, and the video was banned there.

This could be because we mistook the meaning of public domain and should have done more extensive research into the usage of the certain song, and the artist, or Germany could have different copyright policies. However, the video is only blocked in Germany, and there is no difficulties with other countries.