Sound Design - Building tension + your favourite pieces

[Lucifa]

Watching last week's episode of Breaking Bad, I thought the sound design was absolutely sublime, especially in the final scene.

[spoilers obviously if you ain't seen eps. 11.....]


Coupled with the direction and acting it created one of the most tense experiences I ever witnessed. Listening more intently I don't suppose it's that complex, just expertly executed, those big heavy knocks and that crescendo of white noise at the finish

Anyone study film sound design or have any tips for establishing tension?

Also, post any bits of sound design you've appreciated recently or just generally enjoy. Some off those 70s/80s Sci-Fi or Horror films are filled with intense atmospheres, even the really wanky naff ones.

[Turnipish_Thoughts]

Tension? play about with the relationship between the discordant elements of a scale, minor 2nds, 7ths, tritone intervals and not as much major 2nds, 6ths, 3rds.

Minor 2nds work really well actually, two famous uses of these are 'Jaws': Minor 2nd steccato mellody down in the bass register increasing in tempo to create an increasing tension. Another being Psycho, the famous shower scene, Minor 2nd chord laying in harmony up high in the pitch register (I believe its also glissendo moving up a semitone (minor 2nd), my memory may decieve me though), just sounds fucking sharp as is, repeated over and over to really add a massive layer of tension onto what was originally hitchcocks intention of being a silent scene (score wise, not including the scream and other folley).

yeh, basically, find really tense scenes in films/visual media you like and deconstruct whats going on sound wise to create tension.

[Eridu]

breaking bad is awesome i cant wait for the next episode.

What is a min 2nd? Or to be more precise what do you mean by it? min and maj scales have the same interval between the root and the 2nd. Maybe minor 9th`s?

[eldoogle]

Yeah I can't wait to watch Breaking Bad tonight.

[MadSci]

his laughing in that episode gave me chills. i felt like i was watching the very first moment of someone cracking and going insane, like every problem he had piled on since the first episode finally broke the camels back.