Choosing the Song : Ink Spots - Maybe

We wanted to include a song in our trailer that would add to the overall quality of the soundtrack and give the trailer more authenticity as a professional looking and sounding production. In our mise-en-scene we knew that we could include a gramophone that belonged to an old house, and so we had to think of a song that would sound old and creepy which could be used for the teaser trailer production that plays as both diegetic and non diegetic sound. It's tempo and rhythm also needed to match the pace of the scene as it builds tension.

I suggested that we used a song by the old 40s group The Ink Spots called 'Maybe', which would play as a song from the microphone and echo throughout the house and be used as iconography for the production. There's a couple of advantages towards using old music like this, being that firstly it works well with the conventions of a horror movie where a sense of history and ageing in a house gives it a scarier dynamic. In a more practical sense, we were allowed to use the song because its over 50 years old meaning that its copyright now belongs to the public and so it was viable for use in our non-profitable project. The song itself also has the potential to be very creepy, containing minor tones and when applied to a sinister situation it brings out the foreboding element in it to a unsettling degree. The song's pace is also very slow, meaning that it was perfect for a teaser trailer where we wanted to use a single abridged scene, rather than a bunch of fast paced cuts.

Josh even went on to examine the lyrics more closely, and found that the song applies to our story synopsis very well, making it perfect for use in our teaser trailer.