Ambience and Setting Ideas

http://filmsound.org/

Using the above site I decided to go back through some of the techniques used in the film sound. I wanted to find some good features to make the sound of the Barton Fink clip work. I feel like a lot of what the sound will be in the clip is ambience. Nothing much happens on screen but I feel there is a need to fill out this hotel in an eerie way. Ambience is a better and more subtle way of playing about the psychological nature of the audience. Without any music I feel this would be the best and most subtle way of making this clip seem like it should, of a man in a new and uncertain location. I'm not wanting it to sound like a horror movie though. It needs to be very real and natural and just the basic human nature of uncertainty in a new place. This character is meant to have chosen the hotel due to not wanting to be "Hollywood" so I want to convey how far away from that it truly is. I feel that a more down played darker and subdued ambience would be a big change to the excitement and noise of all the happy people typically in Hollywood.

All of the sound that is heard by the viewer I feel should be Diegetic sound as they should experience the eerie nature of the hotel at the same time as the main character. Everything that is a first for him should be a first for the audience.

I want to add a couple in one of the rooms that the character walks past arguing. I feel that would add a certain tension if done right, and make the scene of a man moving to a new place and living it what seems to be a pretty eerie hotel even more uncomfortable. It would need to be a very muffled argument but one that seems quite one sided to also convey the whole uncomfortable look of the main character. This would help to reinforce the point I mentioned above about the people being less happy here compared to everywhere else in Hollywood.

This is an idea in its early stages and if I implement it and feel it doesn't work with the tone I may remove it. I am still going for an eerie and uncomfortable feel and possibly minimalism and more subtle ambience might suit the mood better.