Festivais De Música Explodem Globalmente: Enormes, Pequenos, Extravagantes e Conferências

Music Festivals Exploding Globally: Huge, Tiny, Extravagant and a Conference

First of all thanks to Brad Auerbach  for this article.

The explosion of music festivals worldwide has resulted inevitably in a need to diversify. The ultimate diversification, in one sense, is to assemble an unbeatable lineup. That was certainly the case for Desert Trip, which will likely go down in history as the largest revenue generating festival in history. It will be just about impossible for anyone to beat the lineup of Bob Dylan, Rolling Stones, Neil Young, Paul McCartney, The Who and Roger Waters, regardless of the size of a archest to pay for artists.

Another festival strategy that is emerging is the destination festival, where the venue is as much an attraction as the performers. Ondalinda is in the latter camp. Situated in Costa Reyes, Mexico later this week, the organizers seek a more intimate gathering of about 400 people. The inaugural festival is described as a boutique music and lifestyle festival. The focus on the stunning setting and the indigenous Huichol culture includes a ‘giving back’ dynamic which is becoming a welcome element to gatherings of this sort.

The Ondalinda organizers point out that the inconvenience of the location takes you off the map in a positive sense. Attendees will have an hour drive from Manzanillo International Airport and a 2.5-hour drive from Puerto Vallarta unless they can arrange to buzz into the private landing strip nearby.

Once arriving at Costa Reyes, attendees will have a blend of first and third world activities focusing on health and wellness, including jungle yoga, meditation, massage, paddle boarding, kayaking, scuba, and horseback riding.

The team producing Ondalinda are veterans of Burning Man and Further Future, so visitors can expect that somewhat indefinable and intriguing collision of technology, rustic simplicity and global awareness.

Set in a private family-owned beachfront resort, the vibe is expected to be a mashup of party, outdoor and health. Music is always at the core of such gatherings, and the international lineup includes ethereal vocals and minimal production from Vienna duo HVOB, deep global instrumentations from Berlin-based producer NU, deep baselines from Barcelona’s Audiofly, tribal soundscapes from female duo BLOND:ISH, and luscious deep house vibes from LA producer Sabo, along with LUM, Gandalla, MENDRIX, and The Happy Show.

Mayan Warrior is a rolling art installation, originally painted by visionary artist Alex Grey, and was at Burning Man this year and performed a set with Robot Heart. When I saw Robot Heart at Further Future, I was astounded by its sonic punch. Mayan Warrior has apparently “recently received millions of dollars worth of mind-blowing improvements with awe-inspiring lasers and a visceral sounds system to transport onlookers to the very origins of Mexican culture.” It is uncertain how this will be accomplished; there is no promise of virtual or augmented reality. But it is a good bet that a mammoth sonic and visual experience will be on offer.

Furthering the visual arts on offer, Mexico-based entrepreneur and artist Philippe Moellhausen will install Teopa Beach with monumental art pieces, vibrant decor, dazzling costumes, and indigenous live performances.

Also on offer will be spa services such as mud baths, massages, and ritual healing ceremonies to further assuage (or enhance) the inevitable sensory overload.

Many festivals are wisely including significant culinary upsell options. At Ondalinda, the cuisine will be suitably upscale.

The promoters stress that “Ondalinda aims to honor authenticity by showcasing the art and teachings of the local Huichol culture. A portion of net profits from the festival will be donated to the Huichol to support their mission to preserve sacred land through the organisation UNESCO, and an exclusive collection of Huichol art by the name ‘Los Navegantes del sueño’ will be displayed with never before seen masterpieces that reflect the cosmovision of this mystic community.”

The whole Ondalinda shebang will cost attendees $1000 for admission, which includes some food. Lodging options range from simple casitas to more extravagant venues including castles.

The publicity team behind Ondalinda are already looking ahead to their next destination festival, which will be in Thailand. Called Wonderfruit, the event is being postponed until February 16-19, 2017 to pay tribute and respect to the recently deceased His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

Not surprisingly, the burgeoning festival market has spawned its own conference. XLIVE in Las Vegas will cover everything from data analytics to optimal beer selections to geofencing.

Seemingly not a weekend goes by without a music festival being presented somewhere.

Elvis Está De Volta: Presley Encabeça O Ranking (Top Chart)

Elvis Is Back: Presley Heads For Chart Record

First of all thanks to Mark Beech  for this article.

Elvis Presley, we are still stuck on you. The late star is returning to the top as Albums King and is heading for a chart record.

Fans are still proclaiming “The wonder of Elvis” nearly 40 years after his death. The second collection of re-workings of his hits with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (titled, naturally, The Wonder Of You) is likely to leave the charts all shook up yet again. Its No. 1 rank would also give a record-breaking 60 years since his first British chart-topper in 1956. If it holds on, it will also give Presley the most British No. 1 albums of any solo artist ever, ahead of Madonna with 12. The Beatles hold the record for the most chart-topping albums on the Official Chart, with 15.

Presley already made headlines with the album’s predecessor, If I Can Dream, which has sold 1.6 million copies globally.

The Wonder of You takes the original vocals and fuses them with new orchestral performances in London’s Abbey Road studios. There are hits such as “A Big Hunk o’Love,” the lead-off track and single, “Suspicious Minds” and “I Just Can’t Help Believing” – as well as a new duet with Helene Fischer titled “Just Pretend.”

The British No. 1 is considered even more remarkable when the star never visited the country, aside from a brief airport stop on Mar. 3, 1960, when he was returning from military service in Germany.

Presley came in fourth place in the FORBES list of top-earning dead celebrities in 2016 with earnings of $27 million. This is down from second place at $55 million in 2016, because of a different way of accounting for Graceland ticket sales, but he is making more than most living stars and shifted more than one million albums during the year, most of them physical, not digital. (Michael Jackson remains in top slot with $825 million.)

Still, the No. 1 place may not be achieved in all countries. In the U.K., the new Elvis album, on Legacy RCA, leads the way by just 3,500 combined sales at the “mid-week” stage just announced.

The King has to beat Michael Bublé, whose ninth studio album Nobody But Me (on Reprise) is close behind at Number 2. Ironically, the last Elvis album included “Fever,” a newly created duet with Bublé. Lady Gaga’s new album Joanne (Interscope) currently sits at 3. You Want It Darker (Columbia), the 14^th studio album by Leonard Cohen, 82, is one place behind at No. 4. The U.K. chart remains volatile, with a lot of new releases shooting to the top briefly before falling back: the Kings of Leon album Walls drops from the top to fifth position. The cast recording of the new David Bowie musical Lazarus is among other rising stars.

6 Fontes Que Podem Tornar-lo Um Compositor "Hit" (Nenhum Deles É Sobre Guitarra)

6 Resources That Can Help You Become A Hit Songwriter (And None Of Them Is A Guitar)

Brent Baxter is a hit songwriter with cuts by Alan Jackson, Randy Travis, Lady Antebellum, Joe Nichols, Gord Bamford, Ruthie Collins, Ray Stevens, and more. He’s written a top 5 hit in the US and a #1 in Canada… so far.

Here is my list of 6 resources that helped me become a hit songwriter.  Will merely using these resources guarantee that you end up with a top 5 Alan Jackson single like I did?  No, of course not.  But they were helpful to me, and I hope they’ll be the same for you.  Now, let’s get to the goods.

1. NSAI(www.nashvillesongwriters.com)

NSAI, or Nashville Songwriters Association International, is a great organization with chapters across the world.  I attended Angie Owens’ workshop in Bono, Arkansas, while I was in college.  Not only were the lessons (and occasional pro writer) sent from Nashville educational, it made me feel that Nashville wasn’t so far away.  It made the dream more real.  I also used the Song Evaluation Service, where a published songwriter would listen to the song I sent in and give me their feedback.  It was both encouraging and educational.  NSAI also gave me a place to go on my 1st couple trips to Nashville- their office and their Thursday night workshop.  NSAI has a lot more services now than back when everything was off-line, so I definitely recommend checking them out.  There is also a similar, newer, organization called Global Songwriters Connection.  Check them out at www.globalsongwriters.com.

2. ASCAP (www.ascap.com)

ASCAP is a performing rights organization (PRO).  Basically, they collect airplay money from radio stations, etc. and send it to their writers and publishers.  I joined a few years before moving to Tennessee, and it gave me a place to play songs.  Now, I had to call early and often, but I was usually able to get a sit-down meeting with a writer’s representative, who would listen to my mediocre songs and give me advice.  There are two other PROs in the US- BMI (www.bmi.com) and SESAC (www.sesac.com).  Check each of them out, and get in where you fit in.

3. Songwriting books.

I read whatever I could find on songwriting and music publishing.  Not only did these books give me a lot of techniques and info which helped my writing, I learned a lot about the music biz.  That helped me look like less of a novice on my first trips to Nashville.  Here are some that really helped me out, along with links…

“All You Need To Know About The Music Business” by Donald Passman

“Writing Better Lyrics” by Pat Pattison

“The Songwriter’s Guide To Music Publishing” by Randy Poe

“The Songwriters Idea Book” by Shelia Davis

4. My Local Music Scene

I was living in Little Rock at the time, and there wasn’t much of a songwriting community.  But I connected to what I could find.  My cowriter (pretty much the only one I had at the time) played one of the rare songwriter nights in Little Rock.  (I’m a non-performing lyricist.)  This led to us meeting an aspiring music publisher, who introduced me to my first real live Music Row publisher in Nashville.  He was also the guy who first told me about Erin Enderlin, who would write “Monday Morning Church,” our Alan Jackson hit, with me.

5. An Organized System.

What good is an inspired idea or an unfinished lyric if you lose it in the back of a drawer or under the seat of your car?  I keep a “hook book” full of potential titles and song ideas.  I’ve kept the same list since I started writing songs back in 1994.  I only take titles off it when I write them.  That’s the one place I can go to sift through all my potential ideas.  I also have folders on my computer for “unfinished songs,” “finished songs,” “lyrics ready for cowriting,” etc.  I also have lists of potentials titles such as “beach ideas” and “gospel ideas.”  But everything goes on the master list.  Having an organized system allowed me to easily find “Monday Morning Church” when I was looking for lyrics to present to Erin.  The earliest draft of that lyric was 1 1/2 years old when I showed it to her.  That’s a lot of old notebooks to look through, if I would’ve even remembered to look for it.

6. A Talented, Connected Cowriter.

Songwriting is a team sport.  I was very blessed to be on a team with Erin Enderlin for “Monday Morning Church.”  I lived in Little Rock and really didn’t know anyone in the biz.  Erin, also from Arkansas, was going to college in Middle Tennessee and had been making connections.  And she’s a talented enough writer to take advantage of those connections.  A great idea and her talent and connections gave “Monday Morning Church” a real chance to go from a title in my hook book to a hit on the radio.

So, there you have it.  These are the 6 resources that helped me become a hit songwriter.  Everyone’s journey is unique- so your mix of talents and resources won’t be the same as mine.  But I hope I’ve given you some hope and some things to think about.  And thank you again for checking out Man vs. Row.  I hope it helps you become a more efficient, effective, and successful songwriter.

Vídeos Não-Autorizados No Facebook Estão Vendendo Mais Música - Um Estudo Mostra

Unauthorised Facebook Videos Are Selling More Music, Study Shows

How important are fan-created, unauthorized Facebook videos to artist careers?  Now, we have a much better idea.

As the music industry battles with Facebook over royalties and what’s fair, there’s always been this lingering question.  How important are Facebook videos to artist careers, anyway?  And more importantly, how important are fan-created, unauthorized videos to artist careers?

Now, thanks to a groundbreaking, 101-day study, we now have a much better idea.  According to the data deep-dive, Facebook not only played a defining role in Adele’s latest smash hit, ‘Hello,’ but its fan-created videos were the biggest piece of that victory.  “Interestingly, our research also found that video copies uploaded by fans were responsible for much of the buzz surrounding Hello’s music video,” research firm Plexeso relayed.

“Cumulatively, all copies of the music video received over 2.5x more engagement than the source video over the course of 101 days.”

+ Facebook Is Aggressively Ripping Down Cover Videos (Thanks to the Idiots At Universal Music Publishing Group)

The finding is interesting because of the massive success of ‘Hello’.  According to data from Nielsen Soundscan, ‘Hello’ is the fastest single reached one million downloads in a week.  But that was just one of several record-breaking accomplishments.  Adele’s album, 25, is now one of the best-selling releases in modern music history.

All of which strongly indicates that Facebook engagement boosted sales, instead of hurting them.

Original vs. ‘Fan-Created’ (ie, ‘unauthorized)

The ‘source’ video is the official version, sanction by the label and Adele.  ‘Fan-created’ version, on the other hand, refer to unauthorized versions of the video that were copied, altered, or outright spoofed.  And, in many cases, ripped down by the copyright owner.  All in all, Facebook’s unauthorized videos not only eclipsed the number of original videos, but absolutely crushed them in terms of engagement.

In fact, one could easily conclude that Facebook’s user-uploaded videos of ‘Hello’ drew more interest and engagement than YouTube.   But YouTube had a lot more copies, which were viewed differently.  So that’s another debate entirely.

Now here’s a critical part of this analysis.  Overall, the number of takedowns for ‘Hello’ was relatively small, according to Pexeso.  That makes it a great case study, given that fans were mostly allowed to do what they wanted with the video.  And not only were they super-engaged with derivative copies, they were buying a lot of the original copies.  In fact, millions of them.

+ Stop Blaming the Victims of Facebook’s Blatant Copyright Theft

Actually, here you can clearly see that most of the interest and activity around the video was happening on Facebook, not YouTube.

Beyond that, it’s also obvious that copies were eclipsing the original versions.  That signals massive engagement, but not exactly in the form Adele’s label intended.

In its study, Pexeso tracked how fan-created videos spread across video networks.  That includes YouTube and Facebook, as well as platforms like Vine and Dailymotion.

+ Old Music Business Is Yelling at New Music Business Again

Initially, the company addressed whether Facebook eclipsed the importance of YouTube.  At this stage, that’s incredibly difficult to determine.  And part of the reason is that Facebook measures a simple ‘view’ far differently than YouTube.  According to Pexeso, a Facebook view comes after 3 seconds, while YouTube’s view requires a 30-second commitment.

YouTube also has a lot more quantity, and is used quite differently.  “Out of all copies we identified online, 45% were published on YouTube. Interestingly, Facebook accounted for a mere 29% of copies, followed by Vine, which accounted for 12.9%.

'Led Zeppelin II': A Banda Veio Com Um Album Atrevido Em 1969 Que se Tornou Um Clássico

'Led Zeppelin II': How Band Came Into Its Own on Raunchy 1969 Classic

'Led Zeppelin II' is one of the greatest, heaviest and raunchiest albums ever, steeped in both Delta and Chicago blues, Sixties psychedelia and gentle-to-bone-crushing dynamics.

"On the second LP, you can really hear the group identity coming together," Jimmy Page recalled years after its release. While Zeppelin recorded their first album in three weeks after a single, two-week Scandinavian tour, Led Zeppelin II was cut over six months on tour in London, New York, Vancouver and Los Angeles, with the band carrying the master tapes along the way in a steamer trunk.

"It was quite insane, really," Page said. "We had no time, and we had to write numbers in hotel rooms. By the time the album came out, I was really fed up with it. I'd just heard it so many times in so many places. I really think I had lost confidence in it."

In reality, they made one of the greatest, heaviest and raunchiest albums ever, steeped in both Delta and Chicago blues, Sixties psychedelia and gentle-to-bone-crushing dynamics. Highlights ranged from the chugging, apocalyptic chaos of "Whole Lotta Love" to the bullet-fast fuzz riffs of "Heartbreaker" to "Bring It on Home," a juke-joint blues gone mad. "They were the first numbers written with the band in mind," Page told writer Mick Wall later. "It was music more tailor-made for the elements you’ve got. Like knowing that Bonzo's gonna come in hard at some point, and building that in."

Less than four months after the release of their first LP, in January 1969, Atlantic was already prodding the band for new material in time for the Christmas season. In April, Zeppelin headed into London's Olympic Studios with engineer George Chkiantz. "Whole Lotta Love" was one of the first tracks they worked on; it was constructed from a riff Page invented during one of their 15-minute-plus live versions of "As Long As I Have You," with Robert Plant adding lyrics taken straight from Muddy Waters' 1962 single "You Need Love." They finished it in New York with Hendrix engineer Eddie Kramer, who helped execute the terrifying middle section, incorporating a variety of sounds: Page's slide guitar mixed backward, his eerie theremin, a female orgasm and a napalm-bomb explosion. Said Page, "It's sort of what psychedelia would have been if they could have got there."

Guitar solos were recorded in studio hallways; Bonham played the percussion part to "Ramble On" on a guitar case, a drum stool or a garbage can (no one recalls which), and his showpiece "Moby Dick" solo was patched together from several recordings in separate studios.

The recording methods may have been ad hoc, but the results were fully realized. "What Is and What Should Never Be" used stereo mixing to send Page's guitar and Plant's squeals ping-ponging from speaker to speaker as if mimicking a bad acid trip. "The Lemon Song" – their version of Howlin' Wolf's "Killing Floor" – was cut live in the studio, seamlessly time- shifting from smoky cool to frantic boogie, Plant howling, "Squeeze my lemon till the juice runs down my leg!"

"Thank You," a folk hymn drenched in 12-string guitar and organ, was Plant's first writing effort, penned for his wife during a time of intense changes; in less than a year, the band had gone from slogging it on tour in snowy English car rides to weeklong stays at the Chateau Marmont, watching Elvis Presley from the front row in Vegas and mingling with L.A.'s groupie elite, the GTOs.

Amid all this chaos, Zeppelin remained focused and worked feverishly. A studio perfectionist, Page refused to get distracted. In July, on the night the group celebrated its gold record for Led Zeppelin at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, the guitarist sent the band straight to the studio afterward.

"There was an urgency to being in the States," Bonham said. "I remember we went out to the airport to meet our wives, got them back to the hotel and then went straight back to the studio and did 'Bring It on Home.' We did a lot that year like that."

"I could see the battle fatigue taking its toll on Jimmy," road manager Richard Cole said, describing a London session. "His face seemed drawn. The circles under his eyes were getting darker. He started smoking more cigarettes than usual."

It paid off. Even "Living Loving Maid (She's Just a Woman)" – a twangy rocker Page said he wrote about "a degenerate old woman who tries to be young," and which he later said was his least-favorite Zeppelin song – was undeniable. By August, they had finished recording, Kramer and Page mixing the LP in two days at New York's A&R Studios on a 12-channel Altec board. "It was the most primitive console you could imagine," Kramer said.

Released October 22nd, 1969, Led Zeppelin II went on to sell 3 million copies within six months, taking the Number One spot from Abbey Road in December. "Whole Lotta Love" hit Number Four in the U.S. in January 1970, foreshadowing heavy metal more than a decade early.

"Our whole lives changed," Plant said. "It was such a sudden change we weren't sure how to handle it."

Poderá Baeble Music Crescer Dentro Dos Canais A Cabo?

Can Baeble Music Grow Into Cable's Music Discovery Channel?

INDIO, CA – APRIL 23: Musician Lauren Mayberry of Chvrches performs onstage during day 2 of the 2016 Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival Weekend 2 at the Empire Polo Club on April 23, 2016 in Indio, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for Coachella)

First of all thanks to Steve Baltin   for this article.

By the end of 2016 Baeble Music will be a 24/7 cable channel in more than 20 million homes thanks to deals with Comcast, Roku and more. The growth is very impressive for a Brooklyn-based company that began in 2007 as a website dedicated to finding the next cool things in music.

Baeble has risen to national prominence over the last decade by riding on a platform of music discovery, airing early sessions and interviews with bands like Chvrrches, who founder David Moffly calls the Baeble band, and focusing on critically lauded indie and alternative heroes like Thrice’s Dustin Kensrue and Anthony Green. Trending artists on the site now include Aurora, Blondfire, Delta Spirit, Craig Finn, James Bay and more.

Babel and its growth is the vision of Moffly, who I spoke with recently about the company’s expansion, why he likes music on TV when others are scared off by the licensing and his biggest “wow” moments in the near decade of Baeble.

By the end of 2016 Baeble Music will be a 24/7 cable channel in more than 20 million homes thanks to deals with Comcast, Roku and more. The growth is very impressive for a Brooklyn-based company that began in 2007 as a website dedicated to finding the next cool things in music.

Baeble has risen to national prominence over the last decade by riding on a platform of music discovery, airing early sessions and interviews with bands like Chvrrches, who founder David Moffly calls the Baeble band, and focusing on critically lauded indie and alternative heroes like Thrice’s Dustin Kensrue and Anthony Green. Trending artists on the site now include Aurora, Blondfire, Delta Spirit, Craig Finn, James Bay and more.

Baeble and its growth is the vision of Moffly, who I spoke with recently about the company’s expansion, why he likes music on TV when others are scared off by the licensing and his biggest “wow” moments in the near decade of Baeble.

Steve Baltin: What have been your biggest wow moments at Baeble?

David Moffly: I’m 53 years old, so I saw the first demo of ISDN in ’86 in Geneva I was like, “This is unbelievably cool.” [So] the first time we were able to move video that was broadcast quality on a WiFi connection I was like, “Oh my god.” And I think it’s only meaningful to somebody that’s my age that has followed the progression of data and development broadcasting, broadcast technologies and web technology. And then along the way we filmed nearly a thousand concerts and sessions and interviews and every once in a while you get a session that just gives you chills. The one that comes to mind that was super powerful was a session with the artist Passenger. He sat with us and talked about life and death and it was just amazing. And then more recently our session with the Arkells at Sunset here in Brooklyn. Those moments with sessions are few and far between and just high for me on an emotional level.

Baltin: Tell me about your background.

Moffly: I’ve always been in the content-licensing business, whether it’s been in stock photography, stock images. I had a company that I founded and then bought a bunch of companies around it in 2000. It was the stock image business and our bet there was the internet was gonna revolutionize the way stock images were licensed and transmitted around the world. When I bought the company we had 17 agents, when I sold it we had 157 and when I bought the company it was 10 million in revenue. And when I sold it four years and 10 months later it was close to 50 million in revenue. So I had a couple of dollars when I sold it in 2005 and was sitting looking for what was next and saw YouTube and what was going to happen. We went live in 2007 with the first website and our first video we streamed we had to build the flash player.

Baltin: A lot of people are afraid of music on TV because of the licensing costs. What made you go the opposite direction?

Moffly: Why we like music is music’s hard. So you can’t just show up and say, “Hey, I’m gonna be in music.” You gotta have the patience and fortitude to deal with the publishers, the labels, management and the artists. So in the process of being hard there’s significant value creation. Not anybody can do it. You just have to be patient with music and go through the process and in doing that it whittles it down to a very select few.

Baltin: What makes Baeble unique?

Moffly: You can’t pay to be on Baeble, you can’t call up and say, “Listen, I want to be here.” You have to be picked by our team and the team makes judgments on who they think is interesting, who has a story, who has music that deserves to be seen and heard. It’s just fun to watch what is happening with the business and with the continuing evolution and opening of new platforms or for reaching people with the content. We did a deal this summer with a new cable packager that has taken Baeble and has packaged it into a 24/7 linear cable channel. They are going live now and have commitments with 51 different cable operators for Baeble to be a channel in households across the country. So that’s really exciting.

Baltin: Where does Baeble go as a cable channel?

Moffly: The pitch with the cable operators is instead of you having to pay Viacom per month for the privilege of being bored to tears by Palladia, you get Baeble and you get to keep a percentage of the ad sales that are generated from this channel. So for small and mid-tier cable operators it’s a money-making opportunity. It’s a distribution opportunity for us and an opportunity to move off the web and into a very defined cable universe where we want to be one of those choices for music when you turn on the television.

Efeitos Sonoros 6 Fatores Que Desempenham Um Enorme Papel Em Um Filme De Terror

6 Factors That Play a Huge Role in Designing Sound for Your Horror Film

First of all thanks to V Renée for this article.



Sometimes, hearing stuff is scarier than seeing stuff.

One interesting thing about horror film, at least in terms of how it compares to other genres, is how it relies so heavily on both the visual and aural side of filmmaking. To shock and terrify their audiences, horror filmmakers will not only utilize visual elements, like blood, gore, and super long cutlery, but sound elements as well, like screams, footsteps, and any number of ominous tones. This is why it's so important to understand how you can set the stage for your horror flick using sound design, which is something RocketJump Film School explains in this helpful video:

Though these elements technically apply to virtually all films, the horror genre (as well as thrillers, sci-fi, etc.) tends to take everything up a notch when it comes to sound. So, let's take a look at several concepts talked about in the video that you should pay special attention to when designing the sound for a horror film.

Backgrounds

The sounds that make up your background helps place your audience within your cinematic world. Does the scene take place in a large city or out in the middle of nowhere? Is it day or night? Are we on Earth or some distant planet with blood-thirsty aliens? Subtle sound effects like distant traffic, crickets, or extraterrestrial hums do the trick.

The Unseen Character

This is one of the tropes that is unique to horror film—the "unseen character." I haven't seen a scary movie yet that doesn't have one in at least one scene. So, how do you hide a character while revealing them at the same time? You hint at their presence by using sound: footsteps, like the T-Rex stomping in Jurassic Park, scraping and scratching, like Freddy's knives in A Nightmare on Elm Street, or off-screen dialog, like the phone conversations in Scream. And forcing your audience to hear them rather than see them helps build suspense and tension.

Tone

If a sound effect is the vehicle for dispensing information, tone is the packaging it comes in. Is this scene supposed to be scary, comedic, or ironic? The tone of a horror scene may seem obvious, but you should still pay close attention to what kind you're creating with your sound design.

Intent

Not all killers are the same; some are huge and lumbering, while others are crazy and ravenous. So, before you begin adding sound effects to your timeline, think about what kind of threat you're working with and then design accordingly. Your huge, lumbering monster may have slow, heavy footsteps and your crazy, ravenous one might be crashing into off-screen objects in its pursuit of your character's sweet, sweet sanguine life juice.

Proximity

The all too important detail in horror is this: how close is that monster to the character? Keep this in mind as you go about your sound design, but remember, the closer a threat is to your character the more anxious/scared your audience will feel, so if you want to build tension and suspense, you might want to keep some distance between the two and slowly bring the threat closer until BAM! Rusty chainsaw to the face.

Subjective Sounds

Subjective sounds are the whooshes, impacts, and other non-diegetic sounds that represent what the character hears in their own mind. To explain it more clearly, objective sounds are literal, subjective sounds are metaphorical. The video shows a couple of great examples of this: a whoosh represents the passing of a shadow, an impact represents the sudden arrival of the killer.

So, there you go—a handful of sound design elements to get you started. If you want to put what you've learned into practice, RocketJump Film School is sharing the horror scene from the video, as well as some links to free sound effects resources on their website. You can access them here.