In terms of soundtrack, the beginning of our film features a music box, and so we'll need our composer, Clara Mallon, to write a lullaby song for the first few scenes of our opening. Following that, the music should become more "solid" using the addition of an increased amount of backing instruments, until it leads into the chase sequence music which ought to accompany the moments leading up to the culmination and ending of our footage.
Davy Jones's lullaby from "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" is a good example of the kind of soundtrack we'd like. The atmosphere is austere and wistful, which is exactly what we want, considering the fact that the song from the music box and the corresponding necklace are what links the two main characters together, transcending the boundaries of their respective parallel universes.
The tone of "Woolworm / Angry Son" by Indian Summer, however, is even closer to the sort of ambience that would suit our film. It's slightly more surrealistic and urban than the above track, and so something like this would, in my opinion, suit the dystopian theme of our film even better. However, having to blend the staticky guitar tone of a song like this with lullaby notes may be difficult or sound terrible. Nevertheless, it's certainly worth a shot!
Another very inspiring lullaby-like song is the main theme of "Interstellar". This song is, like the first one, composed by Mark Zimmerman. It has a similarly mournful but somewhat dreamy tone (reminiscent, of course, of space travel, due to the theme of the film). This track is nevertheless rather suitably melancholic and, most importantly, memorable; something that any film soundtrack from a piece as serious as this should naturally strive for.
"King's Meadow" by Mogwai perhaps lacks the feeling of purpose and pace we'd want in our opening scenes, but is nevertheless a good reference point for our lullaby song because it has a very melodious tune. The rhythm also evokes the feeling of travel, which is apt in regards to our plot, wherein the two protagonists would have been forced to leave all they'd known behind in order to save our planet.
However, for both our lullaby and our chase sequence, we would also like the music to have slightly more creepy undertones in order to highlight Alesandese's origin stemming from a parallel world. A good example of the sort of atmosphere we'd like to highlight at certain points throughout the piece would be that of Bernard Hermann's "Twisted Nerve" soundtrack from the film "Kill Bill".
Similarly to the above, "Pater Noster" from "American Horror Story: Asylum" is another excellent example of a creepy soundtrack. The introduction of the violin about 40 seconds in is an accurate representation of the sort of solidifying mood-change we'd like to happen in our lullaby music. Of course, this particular song is too centred around the intervening church choir to be a fully accurate model for our lullaby, but it's a fairly cohesive template nonetheless.
Apart from changing the shape of the actual tune, another widely used technique of creating a surrealistic or scary atmosphere is that of subliminal messaging within both audio and video. A film that makes good use of this is "The Exorcist". When creating the voice of Satan for the girl to speak in while possessed, many sounds were blended into the voice to make it more unnerving, not all of them human.
Still more [sounds] came from hundreds of other recordings of an array of diverse sounds, including croaking tree frogs, and bumblebees. - The Independent on compiling the voice of Satan for the film "The Exorcist"
Some enthusiasts of the film even claim that these sounds, including others (such as the squealing of slaughtered pigs), had been added to the infamous soundtrack, "Tubular Bells" by Bassie en Adriaan. I didn't find particular video proof of these being included in the soundtrack, but I did find several articles and videos pertaining to the visual subliminal messaging in the film, making it seem more likely that the audio messaging is present too. It seems as if, to terrify viewers subconsciously, scary images had been cut into the film for 0.002 seconds at a time.
A lot of these things come from fan-run websites so could possibly be completely false, but even if these conventions we'rent used in "The Exorcist", the importance of underlying noises and images is nevertheless indisputable. Therefore, in terms of ambient sound backing, it may be safer to stick to roughly the sorts of techniques used in other horror media, such as video games. Of course, we won't use the strength of beat or extremity of sound effects shown here (because we're working in the thriller genre and not in horror), but nevertheless some valuable lessons can be gleaned about creating a surrealistic atmosphere from the sorts of tracks shown here. The first one is especially useful as a reference to us, as it is taken from a chase sequence.
In conclusion, soundtrack will be of paramount importance to our piece, especially the tone and pace of the music and the ambient sounds we mix into it in post-production.
DY
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