Audio Pro-Forma

1. Audio
Emma S

2. Existing Products Research
• The Archers – Helen and rob
– Sound effects are used to show action of the drama. There is a lot of violence, and this is shown through sound effects
of doors slamming, stomping around, things being hit, and the sound of a knife being taken out of the draw. The voice
actors use a lot of voice changes to make it sound like they are walking around or when action is happening. The
episode is clearly set at night as suggested by the storyline of them having supper and their child was put to bed at
the beginning of the episode. There is music throughout the episode in the background to make the episode calmer
even though it is tense. Their voice is raised when there is more action, violence and anger building. The sound of
crashing plates are used to imply that rob threw the plate on the floor, him hitting her and the sound of sudden
silence when they were shouting and fighting and then a sudden drop to the floor to create the effect of him dying
after the stab and the sound of a muffled voice to show that she was on the phone when she called Kirsty to tell her
what happened.
– The narrative of the story starts as a quiet, calm setting. Helen is sending henry (her son) to bed and Kirsty has come
round to see Helen before rob comes home. Tension begins to build quickly when Helen tells Kirsty she will be leaving
home. This is represented through the sound of their breathing getting heavier. When rob comes through the doors
you hear the door open, and keys drop onto the table. This instantly creates tension and Kirsty is not allowed to be
seen by rob as Helen is not allowed visitors. They start talking faster but quieter to try and hide her from him. The
tension then quietens as they are both talking calmly in the kitchen. When he puts on music it is calmer still but then
he raises his voice when he asks her to make homemade custard instead of using shop-bought custard and is being
controlling towards her and you know this through the way he is speaking to her. He then goes up stairs and comes
down shouting after discovering the half-packed bag on their bed that she was preparing to leave with. The music
is getting a little louder which shows the calmer setting soon to be broken again through raising voices. Followed by
more controlling voices, leading to crashing of plates on the floor when he gets angry. You then start to hear sound
effects of the draw opening and more raised voices from rob when he starts controlling her and trying to convince her
that she's not well. Voices are once against raised when rob goes upstairs to put the son back into bed. They use a
sound effect of a phone ringing to show the phone call conversation between Helen and Kirsty. They use sound effects
of the draw opening and rob rummaging through the cutlery draw and grabbing a knife to control her and convince,
voices are raised again as rob goes to shout at the son. A lot of screaming and shouting is then stopped to a sudden
silence when Helen stabs rob and you hear her voice start to shake and she is clearly scared.

3. Existing Products Research
• The Archers – making mince pies
– This episode of the archers relies on sound effects to make sense as
they are making Jill's 'famous' mince pies. Sound effects are used so
that you can hear all the ingredients going into the bowl, slowly
forming the pastry and then wrapped in clingfilm to go into the fridge.
Afterwards they are rolling the pastry out, using sound effects and
using dialogue to tell you what it is that they are doing next and to tell
a story whilst she is making the pies so that it isn't quite as silent and
keeps it moving rather than the audience getting bored. There is no
music other than the intro music and the outro music which is
included in every episode. This makes it clear that it is a calm, quiet
environment. From the very faint sound of birds from outside it is
clear that this is also set during the day and is probably good weather
as there are birds outside tweeting. This also gives it the country/rural
setting that the archers is based in.

4. Existing Products Research
• The Doorstep Murder episode 7
– The episode begins with a voice over from the son of a father who was killed
on his doorstep. This then continues onto a narration from a woman telling
the story to what happened to the man. There is music to introduce the
beginning of the podcast and then music is played whilst the podcast carries
on but quieter than before. This causes a suspenseful, eerie, feeling from the
slow piano music. It switches throughout the show between the narrator and
recorded footage from an interview from the son who was only 4 at the time
of this events.
– The narrative of the story is explaining the story of Alistar's death. The events
of him getting shot after receiving a blue envelope with the name 'Paul' on it
from a man at his front door. He then went back inside the house, and he was
confused as the envelope was empty and had someone else's name on it. He
then returned to the front door and stepped outside where he was shot twice
in the head and once in the body. When explaining this summary, the tension
is building by the quickening of the narrator's voice and from the background
music getting louder and faster, then back to slower.

5. Existing Products Research
• Five Ghost Stories by john Connolly
– The episode starts with a suspenseful music introduction before
getting into explaining the aftermath of the events. Explaining
that he stills locks all the doors and windows at night, this
making it instantly clear that something had happened for him
to do this. He also checks the shadows before he sleeps and lets
the dogs wonder freely amongst the house so that they can
protect him from anyone who is there, saying he will be ready if
'he' comes again and saying that 'he' will take nobody from his
house. He uses narration throughout the podcast to tell the
story. He suggests what happened before explaining the story to
create the feeling of concern to the audience to know what to
expect but make you want to carry on listening to find out how
this was going to happen .

6. Ideas

7. Idea Generation/Initial Reaction
• I am unsure as to what stories I could use at this moment in time,
for my project. However, I am planning on trying to speak to my
brother to get some help/idea generate as he does paranormal
activity videos (used to). However, something I have decided
already is that I feel that after reading about the different formats
and the different ways I could go about making this audio piece I
am leaning more towards the idea of having a mix of both narrative
and acting in the recording, using sound effects and suspenseful
music. I think this will be a good opportunity for me to work
towards radio and experience for that as well as being able to learn
more skills in voice acting, editing and learning how to create
different sound effects using ordinary objects. However, this could
be difficult for new to produce the creative parts of it, the planning
and script writing is something that might hold me back as I
struggle sometimes to idea generate with something I don’t think
about very often.

8. Idea Generation/Initial Reaction

9. Experiments

10. Foley
• Include your work on foley and some writing
about what went well, what could be better
and what you have learned.
• You should include a link and a screen shot.
Don’t embed your work, it won’t work.

11. YouTube Link, Screen Shot and Reflection
• https://youtu.be/_kLebBufkbQ
The foley task I did was adding audio to a clip from the film 'shaun of the dead' and I
did this on premiere. This was a great chance for me to learn how to use the
equipment and gave me an opportunity to use the software and experiemnt with
audio. Even though I did have to rush the editing a bit, I did like my final project piece.
One thing I did find worked well and something I did well was putting all the clips
together. However, I did have a lot of issues when doing this as the computer kept
playing up and deleting bit that I already did but it worked well where I put each
sound effect and the footsteps were in time. I think with more time this could have
been done better than it has but it still went well. I used a range of different sounds to
create more of a scene rather than just silence with some walking. I also liked the siren
use and the radio clip I used to make it sound like the news was playing in the
background 'warning people about the zombies'. I also experimented with the
volume changes which made certain things that needed to be louder/quieter to do so
and make it so that what needs to stand out, does. I am still in the process of
attempting using audition to experiment.

12. Recording
• Write about your experiences of recording in
different places.
• What effect did it have? How will this
influence your project?

13. Reflection
It was difficult in places to record as there was a lot of traffic and background
sound. It was also difficult to get some sounds to pick up on the mic as there
was too much background sound at times or we just couldn’t get the volume
of the sound effect to be loud enough and turning the volume up in premiere
would have messed up the sound.
As I didn’t record any more sound for me to edit, I used some pre-existing
sounds to edit so I chose a siren which had audio and I edited this to sound
deeper and tried to turn this into a ghost/ demon voice following a tutorial. I
did struggle to follow the tutorial for audition and as it was my first time
trying to use the software it didn’t go too well but I played around with some
of the effects such as pitch, volume, modulation chorus’s using the project
nightmare preset... This did not go as planned but still wasn’t done terribly.
This influenced my project as I now have ideas of how I can change my voice
to make the project sound more interesting and intense when telling the
story. It will also allow me to add sound effects which is what I was planning
on adding whilst telling the story which after this practice project and playing
around with the effects it has allowed me to find ways that I can do this.

14. Garage Band
• Include your work with Garage Band, and
some writing about what went well, what
could be better and what you have learned.
• You should include a link and a screen shot.
Don’t embed your work, it won’t work.

15. YouTube Link, Screen Shot and Reflection
• https://youtu.be/XEi5kJJIGD4
For the first time of me using garage band I was still learning what to do and how to
make things fit together. I was struggling but it got easier as I went along. I think that
even though it is only a short clip it worked well and I put beats together and played
and recorded things that went well with each other. I used the volume to make some
sounds stand out more than others which went well and made it work better. What
did go well also was that I managed to try different types of beats, instruments etc and
used several types rather than just the same one in different notes. I liked the timing
and what I used. However, it wasn’t my best work and with more practice would be
able to get better at it. With more practice I could make more to perhaps make a
longer clip. I did struggle as there was little option to what instruments I could use, I
struggled to find some that fit with what I was trying to make it sound like. What I had
in my head was very different to what I was able to actually create when I did it.

16. Proposal
Working Title:
The title of the project is ‘The Girl and Her Bunny’.
Audience:
My audience is aimed to be teenagers and young adults of all genders. It is aimed at anyone who
is into true spooky and paranormal stories. This is aimed at anyone across the country. There is
no specific class that my project is going to aim at. It will appeal to Achievers as they will want to
try and listen to all the podcast and videos about paranormal and ghost stories.
Project Concept (approx. 200 words)
What is the concept for your project and what are you going to make?
What did you learning during research that will help you?
The project is to make a ghost story and tell this in a way to make a podcast/audio story for this.
For this project I have decided to make the project so that it will be a mix of explanation and
story drop in so that the the audience drop into the story whilst it is being explained through the
use of sound effects/music and voice change and editing. The editing will make it switch between
narration and characters point of view story. The storyline is of a teenage girl who is home alone
to then find out she has a little ghost girl only up stairs from where she is sitting.

17. Planning

18. Story
• I have chosen a story about a teenager who’s home
alone, she goes up the stairs after hearing a young girl
giggling. She thought it was her tv that she had left on
but when she got upstairs she soon find out that it’s
not her tv.. It was a young girl, aged 4. She walks up the
stairs and looks into her grandparent bedroom, the
back wall is a mirror and she see’s the reflection of a
young girl skipping across the room and then hopping
onto the end of the bed, a little toy rabbit in her hand,
the stairs creek when she gets to the top of the stairs
and the young girl looks up into the mirror, her eyes
were glowing red and then she screams…

19. Script Draft
• NARRATOR: Welcome to Emma’s spooky stories. In this episode we will be telling a story based on a true event that
happened to me personally only a few weeks ago
• ACTORS: (Grandparents of main character) goodbye we will be back soon (outside night time sounds in the background)
• ACTOR: (Main character) Okay, goodbye see you soon
• NARRATOR: half an hour later she starts hearing noises coming from upstairs.. It sounded like a little girl walking up the
stairs
• SOUND EFFECTS: (giggling and the sound of footsteps)
• ACTOR (main character): (On call to her friend) what was that? Did you hear that?
• ACTOR(person on the phone): no. what did you hear?
• ACTOR (Main character): it sounded like a little girl laughing but my grandparents went out ages ago. Wait… Did I leave
the TV on? I thought I turned it off. Oh well, I’ll go upstairs
• SOUND EFFECTS: (footsteps across the hallway and up the stairs.. The sound of giggling again and skipping gets louder)
• NARRATOR: she get’s to the top of the stairs and everything goes silent for a minute… she looks to her right into her
grandparents bedroom, the back wall has a mirror on it which from the landing you can see the reflection of the bed…
• ACTOR (Main character): (whispers) there’s a little girl skipping around the room.. She only looks about 4.. She’s holding
something.. A little rabbit teddy? Who…who is she? And.. How did she get in my house? What do I do (sounded a bit
scared)… do I talk to her?
• NARRATOR: but then she looks closer and see’s something odd about the girl.
• ACTOR (Main Character): (still whispering) She’s so pale.. Is she ill?
• NARRATOR: the girl hops onto the bed singing to her rabbit
• SOUND EFFECT: (creepy lullaby)
• NARRATOR: she takes one step onto the landing (steps) trying to be as quiet as possible so she doesn’t scare the girl.. But
she wasn’t quiet enough. The girl looks up and gives a piercing stare into the mirror, her eyes glowing red and she has a
clear expression of anger on her face. Then suddenly she opens her mouth and screa- (interrupted by a loud scream which
ends the podcast)

20. Script Final
NARRATOR: Welcome to Emma’s Spooky Stories (echoey voice)
SOUND EFFECTS: (Spooky sound effect)
NARRATOR: In this episode we will be telling a story based on a true event that happened only a few weeks ago. Let’s get into it.
SOUND EFFECTS: (Swiping, echoey transition sound effect)
ACTORS: (Grandparents of main character) Goodbye we will be back soon (outside night time sounds in the background)
ACTOR: (Main character) Okay. Goodbye see you soon!
NARRATOR: Half an hour later she’s on the phone to her friend and she starts hearing noises coming from upstairs.. It sounded like a little girl walking around.
SOUND EFFECTS: (Giggling and the sound of footsteps)
ACTOR (Main character): (On call to her friend) What was that? Did you hear that?
ACTOR (Friend on the phone): No. what did you hear?
ACTOR (Main character): It sounded like a little girl laughing but my grandparents went out ages ago. Wait… Did I leave the TV on? I thought I turned it off. Oh well, I’ll go upstairs and see..
SOUND EFFECTS: (Footsteps across the hallway and up the stairs.. The sound of giggling again and skipping gets louder and she walks up)
NARRATOR: She get’s to the top of the stairs and everything goes silent for a minute… She looks to her right into her grandparents bedroom, the back wall has a mirror on it which from the landing you can see the reflection of
the bed…
ACTOR (Main character): (whispers) There’s a little girl in there.. She’s... Skipping around the room.. She only looks about.. 4?.. She’s holding something.. A little rabbit teddy. Who…Who is she? And.. How did she get in my
house? What do I do (sounding a bit scared)… Do I talk to her?
ACTOR (Friend on the phone): (Confused) What?..
NARRATOR: The little girl hops onto the bed, singing to her rabbit..
SOUND EFFECT: (Creepy lullaby)
NARRATOR: She takes one step onto the landing (steps) trying to be as quiet as possible so she doesn’t scare the girl.. But she wasn’t quiet enough. The girl looks up and gives a piercing stare into the mirror, her eyes glowing
red and she has a clear expression of anger on her face. Then suddenly she opens her mouth and screa-
SOUND EFFECTS: (interrupted by a loud scream which ends the podcast).

21. Sound Effects
Sound Effect Needed How I Will Create the Sound
Night time background sound Record outside at night
Back door shutting Record me shutting a door
Footsteps across hallway Record me walking across wooden a floor
Footsteps up the stairs Record me walking up the stairs
Stairs creaking Record/edit pre-made audio
Giggling Record my niece
Creepy lullaby Record my niece/edit pre-made audio
Transition sound effects Create/edit pre-made audio files
Spooky Transition/Intro Create/edit pre-made audio files
Skipping across carpet Record my niece skipping
Screaming Record my niece screaming

22. Actors/Locations
Actor Role Location for recording
Laura Main Character York Mix Radio Station
Michael Narrator Michael’s House
My Grandparents The Grandparents My grandparent’s house
Alexis Friend on the Phone Echoey Corridoor
(Online) Little girl (Online downloads)

23. Music
Band Name Track Name Link
Shocking coil Charge https://stock.adobe.com/uk/search/audio?k=452585329
Fable Tracks Drone mission https://stock.adobe.com/uk/search/audio?k=452587249
Blue Skies Music Consultation https://stock.adobe.com/uk/search/audio?k=452585891

24. Resource List
Resource Owned/Cost What sound effect will it be
used for?
Computer Owned Editing purposes
Microphone Owned Recording my actors
Adobe Audition Owned Editing purposes
Adobe Stock Owned Find clips and music
Door Owned Door shutting sound effect
Phone Owned Audio recording (back up)
BBC Sound Effects (Free) Find clips and music

25. Production

26. Daily Reflection Day 1
• After the first day of editing, it is going well, I
like what I have edited so far and I am about
half way through editing. I like the effects and
background sounds I added to give it more
dramatic tension and the voice actors did
really well recording too.

27. Daily Reflection Day 2
• After day 2 of editing I have now finished. I
think it went really well and I really like the
final outcome. I think it goes well together and
blends nicely together too. The voices were
edited to sound clearer using broadcast which
I liked as it made it sound better as well as
using the denoising effect to cancel out
background sound. The project allowed me to
learn a lot about editing on audition and
blending clips together.

29. Evaluation

30. Research
• My research was good because I listened to a lot of different podcasts and
a lot of different styles too which allowed me to see how each one was
produced and edited together, to help me hear the flow of the clips and
how they made it sound professional. My research was also good and also
helpful for my final product as it helped me improve on my editing skills,
learning how to put things together, change voices and more. My research
also included some work experience as when I was going for my work
experience at York mix radio, I was able to use the editing skills that I had
learnt from my research (as well as this being part of my research) and it
allowed me to do some editing which was my task for the day at the
station. This helped improve as I had more experience and had been
showing how to do certain things and was given tips to improve on my
work which I used all of the tips in the final product. These included
switching the voices to broadcast, fading come clips in and out and
changing volumes to layer up the sounds.

31. Planning
• My planning went well, although I did struggle when writing my script as I
struggle to put ideas into words and professional-sounding. However, with
a bit of creative inspiration after listening to some more podcasts, it
helped me to write my script and plan out all of my sound effects and how
I can create them. It would have been better if I could have written a
better script as I do struggle with creative writing and script writing.
However, the final result, I was happy with. This has made the story not
quite as spooky and interesting as I would have liked it too, but it was
close enough.

32. Time Management
• I think I used my tie really well and I had got it done quite quickly.
However when everyone was going onto the start of their recording, as I
had to miss a couple of lessons due to appointments, I was still on my
planning. But I soon caught up and was ready to edit and finished editing
quickly. With additional time I might have been able to find some more
ideas on how I could improve my script or come up with a better story but,
I am still happy with what I have.

33. Technical Qualities
My project is quite simple but with added effects to create more of a dramatic setting. I think that with the music and
only small sound edits and effects, it made it clearer and more professional sounding rather than having loads of effects
everywhere. This is made is simple but still effective. I made it so that the project isn’t too complicated and as this was
quite a simple edit, I’m not sure if it was complicated enough but I know I didn’t want to risk it being too complicated. I
used fading to fade the tracks in and out so that it wasn’t sudden, sharp transitions between clips which along with the
broadcast amplify and compression effect, made it sound effective and professional.
I used echo effects and delays at the beginning and end to introduce the podcast to draw attention and grab the
audience into listening. This was also used at the end as it was the most dramatic and exciting part of the podcast,
therefore, using the echo voice built that tension and created the faster paced feeling that I wanted.
I used the denoising effect to get rid of background sounds from the recordings, but it wasn’t too difficult as I was able
to get the recordings in studios, so it was quiet and didn’t have much to remove.
I used the amplify and compression effect which gives me the option of broadcast, on the multiband compressor, this
allowed me to make the sound clearer and make the audio a bit louder so that it could be more understood and
professional.
All the sound effects were from free effects download websites as I struggled to find certain spaces and people to get
the effect I wanted. Which I think would have made it better if I was able to have used recorded foley that I have
recorded personally as it would have been the exact sounds I wanted.
Compared to the podcasts I had listened to in my research, it is different, but I used a similar style to the final podcast I
listened to called 5 ghost stories by john Connolly which was by using a mic of both first person as the main character
and narration. It also had a mix of the tension and calm voices between narration and dialogue.

34. Aural Qualities
I think that my work sounds good and runs smoothly, it is creative and original. I like the
storyline of the podcast and like the sound effects and editing that I used as it made it very
effective and sounded quite professional. It I was going to improve it I would make it a bit
longer and add some more sound effects but without making it too over the top as I know
it can be quite easily overdone at times and it can make it unprofessional-sounding and
messy. I think overall it sounds good and the sound effects I used were great. However,
they would have been better if I could have recorded the sound effects myself. I do really
like the fact that mine were done in professional set-ups as it made it feel more
professional and I liked that I had used experienced voice actors to take part.

35. Audience Appeal
I have appealed to my audience by making the story tense and adding typical
‘creepy’ sound effects and story lines to out age group. I think that my whole
project would appeal to teenagers as it is spooky, and it is about a
teenager/young adult which made it more appealing to this audience too.
However, I think specifically the ending and the built-up tension would have
appealed to them most as it is the most dramatic part of the story, and this would
have grabbed all their attention and teenagers like to have a dramatic ending.