The document describes Benjamin Birney's process for creating an audio crime story in multiple parts. Some of the key steps included researching technical elements to make the story authentic, developing story ideas, casting voice actors, acquiring sound effects and music, recording voice lines, and editing everything together in Premiere Pro. There were some challenges finding certain sounds and making last-minute changes to voice actors. The process was repeated for part 2, including researching the time period of a flashback scene.

1. Production
Reflection
Benjamin Birney

2. Process
• Before I started writing up the script for the
story, I did a little research into certain elements
of the story, like specific parts of a boiler heater
because how that part will work would play a
vital part in the story.
• In my research I found technical terms that
would help make the story more authentic, for
example describing certain parts of a pressure
regulator, like a diaphragm that help regulate the
gas flow.
• During the easter holidays I have been spit
balling some ideas for the potential story, like
maybe one of the detectives old war buddy open
a heating company causing some intrigue as
listener won’t know if he’s friend or foe until
later.
• After I got back to college, I wrote down the
ideas I formulated while also adding in the
research to create the perfect scene to start the
story.

3. Process
• When I got all the story ideas written down, I then
started to assign who should voice who in the story, like
from my pervious product from audio I would play the
role of one of the detective coloured blue and my friend
Harrison would also play the role of the other detective
coloured in red because it would be stay true to the
original source material from the audio project. When I
came casting voice actors for my characters I would say I
found it a little tricky, because I had a good idea in my
head about how I wanted the characters to sound, but I
had to work with what I got which was me, my friends
and the rest of my other class mates. So I casted myself
and my friend Harrison to play the main detectives,
while the rest of the class mates played some minor
roles and I had my dad voice some of the narrations
lines.
• I have decided that the narrator in this story will be
different compared to the pervious product where I
voiced the narration, I voiced the narration and one the
detectives in the last project, but in one I will have
someone different be the narrator as it will be told in a
3rd person point of view. The reason decided for the
change from 1st to 3rd person was because I wanted to
something different from my audio project, I just didn’t
want to seem like I was repeating myself by doing the
same thing I did in a pervious project.

4. Process • I have acquired these sound effects from
various websites, an important one being
Freesound.org mainly because the sound
effects are free and easy to download.
When I came to searching for the right
sound effects, the search bar for the
website required you to be very specific on
what sound you wanted. When I would try
to put a vague description of the sound I
wanted I would get something else, so I
would need to make sure my description
was as specific as possible or else I
wouldn’t get my sound which would waste
more time.
• I chose these specific sounds, such as car
door and old telephone ringing etc because
I would like my story to sound authentic
like they are actually there. There were a
few issues regarding finding certain sounds,
if I couldn’t find the right sound I would
instead try to find another different sound
that the same but with a few extra changes
like lowering the pitch or using the razor
tool to make it shorter.

5. Process
• After the sound effects were
downloaded, I then sent out to find the
specific music to go along with my story.
So, I went to a specific website that
specialized in background music for all
forms of media it was called khinsider
mp3. when I try looking for the different
kinds of music for my story it was difficult
finding music that weren’t the same so
my soundtrack wouldn’t become
repetitive.
• Thanks to my organization I sorted all my
voice lines into separate folders for the
rest of my voice actors, with the addition
of colour coding the folders with the
exact line for the actors made arranging
the voice lines a lot easier.

6. Process
• Along with a word document of
the script and my phone, I set out
to record my friends doing
different voice lines to show that it
wasn’t just me that did the voice
acting. Thanks to the script I
provided for my voice actors it was
easy for them to read their lines,
but we had to go through multiple
takes because sometimes there
would be a few bloopers with
some words or phrases.
• Next we recorded our voice lines
onto my phone so could download
them straight to my one drive to
use in my production.

7. Process
• When all the voice lines, music and sound effects were either
downloaded or recorded, I then went onto editing on
premiere pro to put all those elements together to create my
finished part 1 audio story. The first time I started the editing
I didn’t arranged all the music, sound effects and voice lines,
so I was going in blind. But thanks to a mode on Premiere
Pro which lets me preview the sound I was able to continue
the work but with some carefully steps to make sure I wasn’t
using the same assets. Thanks to some help I was able to
install another sound layer onto my work some editing them
would be a lot easier then trying to bunch all the sound
effects, music and voice lines onto just three separate layers.
• I originally wanted my brother to do voice lines of the
narrator but was change to my dad filling the role instead.
Because my brother had a personal issue, I had to make a
last-minute change for the narration, nearly all the lines that
my dad record were spot on.

8. Process
• After part 1 of my audio work was complete,
I went to work on making part 2 of my crime
story, by following the same way as part 1,
by doing some research for the start of
which goes back to a time where ww2 was
still going on, and also researching what type
of weapons were used back then. I also used
the time online to find the right sound
effects to the atmosphere of the past seem
more authentic to how life was for soldiers
back then.
• I also used the technique of a flashback to
make some good character development and
would be a new way to start off the story.
Thanks to the audio of a stinger effect I
made it seem like the listener was going back
in time to experience what the war was like
for the main character.

9. Process
• Like the process for part 1, I
assigned different colour
coded roles for my voice
actors, some remained the
same. Myself and my friend
Harrison would be the role of
the main detectives, and my
friend would return to the role
of the crime scene
investigator.
• Like last time I will get
someone else to voice the
lines of the narrator, so I can
keep my word to my audience.

10. Process
• I have acquired these sound
effects from various websites,
an important one being
Freesound.org mainly
because the sound effects are
free and easy to download.
• The sound effects I have
acquired are linked to specific
actions and events in the
story, like the weapons and
screaming will take place
during a flashback to WW2.

11. Process
• After the sound effects were
downloaded, I then sent out
to find the specific music to
go along with my story. So, I
went to a specific website
that specialized in
background music for all
forms of media it was called
khinsider mp3.

12. Process
• When all my assets were
downloaded onto the file, I soon
got to work complete the entire
audio story for my crime podcast,
with so many sound effects and
music I had to make another audio
track in order for my work to fit
completely and not seem hastily
put together.
• On some sound effects and music I
had to add some effects to them to
help them sound better and run
smoother, one of those effects was
lowering and highting the pitch
and the last effect was adding
fading audio so the music and
sounds so they could transition for
one moment to another.

13. Process
• When all was said and done I
saved my work and exported it
into an audio file and
downloaded it onto the
production reflection.
• I had originally planned for my
dad to voice the closing line of
the story, but some files went
missing so I opted to voice the
closing lines, as this would also
give the audience some
narration from a 3rd and 1st
person point of view from the
detectives mind.