Sound: Dubstep & Music Website Research

For the sound we decided upon using a new form of music which is emerging now as popular with young people. I began looking for unsigned dubstep artists who were creating heavy but non-techno or synthesized music. A lot of famous dubstep artists are signed to a labels which have copyrighted music meaning we couldn't use their tracks, so it made it more difficult to find good quality sound clips. It was important to find an UN-signed artist.

 Finding The Music:
To search I checked out websites like YouTube, Sound cloud and MySpace for a quality piece of dubstep that we could use. A few screen shots below are sites I searched upon for music which we could legally use.

SoundCloud is an online website where artists can audio distribute from a platform which can promote unknown artists. For this reason it seemed a good place to start from when looking for the music we could later use in our film opening.

MySpace has always been used by a lot of unsigned musicians. So looking on there proved to be a really helpful tool for our group, however finding dubstep artists was a lot harder than I thought! As most of MySpace is filled with bands or solo singers who are creating alternative, Indi or pop sounding music and there was only a limited selection of dubstep to analyze.

YouTube was a brilliant tool to use when researching dubstep tracks as there are millions of clips and tracks uploaded by unknown artists. It also has a huge range of self uploaded music. For dubstep there was a wide range: from soft, mellow old school dubstep to dark, heavy bass dubstep. However they varied in sound quality so it was important to find one of high quality otherwise it would give a scratchy sounding effect over our film as well as lower the overall quality.

Reasons For Choosing Dubstep
The reason we chose dubstep is because it's a modern, urban music genre, which is parallel with the tone we are aiming for with our gritty British drama film.

Here is one of the best in keeping sound clips I found:

This video clip found on YouTube is one of the group's favorite as it has a dark, heavy bass. It is mixed with grinding metallic noises which give it the heavy-non techno feel we were looking for. We looked for non techno, because much of dubstep music has bursts of sounds created by synthesizers which give the music a more disco feel/tone and wouldn't fit the dark drama we are trying to create. Looking back to this clip: it slowly builds up suspense with a quiet opening before introducing a really heavy bass at 00:34. It's from 00:30 on the track that we decided could be the best part to use as it becomes more intense at this point with the pitch of the music increasing.  

We wanted dubstep music as it is connotative to: underground parties, gangs, teenagers and is a contemporary music form. It links well with the non-stereotypical teenage drama film as it is unlike the music conventionally used i.e. the sprightly, pop music form Mean Girls or 17 Again. Using this type of music will hopefully make our film seem more edgy and show that we are trying to break the stereotype of a middle class girl without us having to use violent messages or swearing in our music an example being if we had chosen rap music instead. Also there is a repetitive loud booming noise which creates a source of momentum within the track parallel to a fast pumping heartbeat and the motion of running, which is just what we were looking for. The sound quality of the clip is also relatively high and the whole track has a clear sound without muffling in any areas, despite it coming from YouTube.

This video clip, also found on YouTube, has a slightly softer bass, with a lower pitch but it has a faster pace than the first track. The sound quality of the track isn't as high as the one above as it isn't as loud so might become slightly distorted if we tried to increase the volume. Yet, the opening of the track has a repetitive beat typical of dubstep music, which is part of the reason it is catchy and fun to listen to. There is a scene within our film opening were we plan for our actress to be running down the stairs on her way out and the momentum of this track could be useful to create a deigetic sound which works in parallel to the non-diegetic sound of her feet as they hit the steps. The track was made by an un-signed dubstep artist called Dark Elixir. 

Montage Research

In our film opening, we want to include a montage to show real footage from the London riots. We feel this would be a really effective way to convey the inspiration for our opening and would look really appealing and interesting. We want the montage to include a series of fast moving images and footage to represent how chaotic it was and to be overwhelming for our main character.

The montage allows us to easily within the opening include a lot of different views of the London riots from various people's perspective, for example people involved and people on the streets.

I researched London riot footage on YouTube and selected what I thought would work best within a montage for the most hard hitting effect and clips we could edit best.
  

I found this clip particularly good in showing the crowd mentality of the riots which we researched into earlier. I also think this would be good to include in our montage because it is quite dramatic when the crowd suddenly appears and charges. I thought the high angle also represents looking on at the riots and how some people were just spectating. I thought we could perhaps include the dialogue 'are you fucking kidding me' on top of the music. 

This footage was filmed by an onlooker and I thought it would suit the montage as the rioters are throwing rocks at the police. This reflects the violence demonstrated as well as reflecting on of the possible titles of our opening, Rocks and Bottles. We could edit the clip to show the rocks being thrown at the police officers.

This is perhaps one of the most recognised pieces of footage to emerge from the riots. It shows an innocent Malaysian student who looks like he is getting help from passers-by after he suffered an injury from being caught in the riots however, he was actually getting mugged by the mistaken helpers. This is a shocking and well known clip from riot footage and so I think we could include this in the montage.   

This clip starts of showing the damage caused in the riots from a point of view perspective. The fires and throwing of bottles demonstrates the violence experienced. I like that this footage focuses on both the rioters and police and the struggle between them. The crowd mentality is shown once again here in the first part and I like the dialogue 'our streets' and the smashing of bottles which can be heard. The second part of this clip shows a drunk girl who says its 'the best day ever' and 'this is Hackney for ya' which sums up how some rioters felt. Her drinking a large bottle of wine to herself also I think would be a good image to include as it shows the personal greed of people involved in the riots. 

 

Overall I think that we could sample images from these and perhaps other similar videos to create our montage which would be fast moving to convey the sense of disarray and chaos caused by the London riots.

An example of a fast moving montage would be the Skins opening sequence which we could perhaps consider when creating our own montage scene.

Amy F