audio pro forma

1. Audio
Your Name Here

2. Existing Products Research
• Haunted House Soundscape
– When making the soundscape they clearly had some very
good ideas as to what could be considered as haunted
house sounds. But I think that how the final product
sounds all together doesn't work great. I found that maybe
they went to overboard with the sound effects and it made
it a bit difficult to follow and imagine what could be
happening. I think it helped though that they didn't just
used sound effects, they had dialogue and some voice
acting such as crying which helped immerse me I found.

3. Existing Products Research
• Short Cuts- Red
– I found that the way this was made worked really well. The
part of one that I listened to was just a woman talking
about her experiences, and to make it more immersive and
intriguing they added a soundtrack as well as some sound
effects. For example one part the woman talks of being in
a crow and they added a sound effect of a crowd, it helped
by adding layers to this part of story telling that just kept
the audience pulled and still listening. Some parts of the
soundtrack as well just helped add weight to parts that
were maybe sad or meaningful.

4. Existing Products Research
• The Archers
– I found that when listening to The Archers it was really well
done, it managed to create an image in my head of where
each scene was taking place, how people were dressed,
how they were acting and even some people's facial
expressions. The use of dialogue and sound effects was
also really well done. Each character has a distinctively
different voice as well as that, when a character is
introduced in each scene another character will say their
name which all then helps the audience to realise which
character is which.

5. Existing Products Research
• Doctor Who
– I noticed that the use of sound effects and soundtrack
really helped the deliverance of the dialogue. The dialogue
was already well done, I thought that maybe the
deliverance was over the top but on purpose because of
the vast there are no visuals so it helps if the moods of the
characters are displayed obviously. On top of that they
used the sound effects and soundtrack to their advantage,
especially for the part where the doctor displays his anger.
It just adds another layer that allows the audience to be
engulfed by his anger, the fact we have no visuals this
increasing almost pressure form the soundtrack adds to
the doctors anger.

6. Ideas

7. Idea Generation/Initial Reaction
• My initial reaction to making an audio project around a ghost
story was not overly confident. I thought it was going to be a
lot more complicated but now I understand what Foley is and
what it consists of I’m a lot more excited to get started making
sound effects and creating my audio project. I really like the
idea of all the potential platforms but I’m thinking of staying
away from doing it as a soundscape as I think that’s the most
difficult one and I think I’d struggle to try and get my story
across, I’d like to give it a go but I don’t want to ruin my
project. Trying to get the right sounds to make a sound effect
convincing might be a bit difficult but I might be wrong, I think
I’ll just have to make sure that I give myself enough time to
practice and work out what is best for what sound wise.

8. Idea Generation/Initial Reaction
• I’m currently thinking of a story named Stick Man but I’m not too
set on what format to use.
• I’m in between either making it as a drama type with actors or
doing it as a documentary but maybe with a few short bits of drama
to help get the story across.
• No matter what I’m doing I really want to use a sound effect for the
walking stick being smacked against a wall, I think it will help the
story seem creepier as well as that it could help the audience feel
as if they are there and create this image in their head.
• As well as that I’d like to use a sound effect for the York Minster
bells ringing as they have a key part in the story but as well as tat
they are linked with the smacking of the walking stick on the door.

9. Experiments

10. Foley
• what went well, what could be better and what you have
learned.
• I think that all together my experiment with the clip from Shaun of
the Dead ended up coming together very well, all the sound effects
I made for the clip fitted well and some worked perfectly. I think
that all my sound effects for when Shaun is in the shop worked
really well. The noise of the cans I think is probably the best. I think
that maybe the noise of Shaun walking could have been better
because we got a lot of noise from the road near college, it doesn’t
ruin the experiment but it think it would be a lot better if it was just
his footsteps and not all of the other sounds. I have learnt from the
experiment that it might actually be better to use other props to
create the sounds instead of using a prop that is the same thing as
seen in the video clip. Trying to use the same prop can leave with
you possibly having to travel or just not finding what you want.

12. Recording
• Write about your experiences of recording in different places.
• As a group we found recording in different places harder than we first
thought it would be. One problem was that we never realised how loud
the road outside of college was and how well the audio recorder would
pick it up. We also maybe made it a bit harder than it needed to be
because instead of experimenting with different sounds to see which one
fit well, we went and tried to get the real sound, for example with the
sound of the fridge door, instead of trying other types of doors we tried to
use a fridge door in Tesco's which was very difficult.
• What effect did it have? How will this influence your project?
• I think that it has definitely made me want to, if not do a soundscape or
audio drama, include sound effects and maybe parts of drama into a
documentary as I really enjoyed making the sound effects. I think when it
comes to making sound effects, I’d like to try and experiment more with
making the sound effects with different props. When making the sound
effects for the Shaun of the Dead clip we used prop that were the same
props in the video, I’d like to try and not do that with my own product.

13. Audition Practice
• When I was making my audition experiment, I it found quite tricky to figure out
how to use Audition. I didn’t have any recorded audio for this experiment but
from the last Foley experiment, I still had an audio clip of one of my group
members making a zombie noise, my idea was to take that and turn it into some
sort of monster or demonic creature. I found some tutorials on YouTube that I
tried to use but I found them a bit difficult to follow, although, they did give me
some steps and ideas to follow which did help. To change my audio clip, I used
effects such as pitch shifter under ‘Time and Pitch’ as well as well as full reverb
under ‘Reverb’.

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. Proposal
Working Title: The Author’s Neighbour
What is it called? This can change if you think of something better later
Audience:
I think that the target audience for my Audio Project would most likely be the younger side of teens so like 13 or 14 all the
way up to people maybe I their mid 30s. I think that these projects like audio dramas and soundscapes probably have a
wide range of audience. I think that in this instance, social status and psychographic have a bigger part in what the target
audience is. I believe that maybe for this project the psychographic for this target audience would be Belonger. I think
that my product would appeal to this age range and psychographic as I believe that that age range is most likely to listen
to a soundscape, I think that maybe anyone above or bellow might either find it odd or just boring, and that group of
psychographic as I feel as if they’re most likely the ones that would enjoy a soundscape. I think that gender doesn’t really
have any say over this target audience as it’s a very wide ranged, soundscapes could be any genre and a ghost story one
would probably appeal to any gender. I also think that geodemographics won’t matter too much either as I think that the
idea of a ghost story is liked world wide but the fact that this on is based off of one found in York, I think that people who
live around York will definitely be more interested than say someone from Australia.
Project Concept (approx. 200 words)
The concept for my project is to make a soundscape that will relate the infamous story of the ghost from York, Stick Man.
The story is about an Author that lived next door to an old gentleman. The old man feared being robbed in the night, to
try and scare off what he thought were robbers her would bang his walking stick against what was a shared wall between
his bedroom and the Author’s. It was said that he would smack the walking stick against the wall as the York Minster bells
would strike midnight. The scary part of the story is that after the old man died, he left the house he once lived in
derelict, but every night, when the bells struck midnight, the author could still hear the banging of the walking stick
against the wall. I learnt from my research that if your sound effects aren’t close enough to sounding like what you intend
them to be, or, you add in too many sound effects or too loud of a soundtrack, it will ruin your soundscape, I found that I
listened to one that followed what I just said, and I thought it ruined the product.

16. Planning

17. Story
• The story is about an Author that lived next door to an old
gentleman. The old man feared being robbed in the night, to
try and scare off what he thought were robbers he would
bang his walking stick against what was a shared wall between
his bedroom and the Author’s. It was said that he would
smack the walking stick against the wall as the York Minster
bells would strike midnight. The scary part of the story is that
after the old man died, he left the house he once lived in
derelict, but every night, when the bells struck midnight, the
author could still hear the banging of the walking stick against
the wall.

18. Script Draft
• The Author goes to bed one night to be woken by the Minster Bells and
the banging noise at midnight
• Woken again by the Minster Bells but in the morning, so we know he’s
slept
• Forward through the day, he goes to bed and is awoken again at midnight
by the man and the bells
• This repeats another time or 2
• We hear the noise of the old man dying,
• Maybe noise of a funeral, so church bells, digging a grave
• The author goes to bed again, bells strike midnight, the smacking of the
cane again, author freaks out, goes to sleep again
• Author stays up to see if it happens again the next night, it does and he
freaks out but then it won’t stop
• Finishes with author freaking out and loud never ending banging

19. Script Final
Starts with the noise of a fire lit room and someone writing on paper
A few moments later we here the distant noise of bells striking 10 o’clock
The Author then moves through his house, putting out candles on his way and moves upstairs into his bedroom
A woosh through the house into next door
We hear the same routine happening but an old man with a cane, so two slow steps and a wooden cane on the
floor.
A woosh back to the author
He gets into bed and then falls asleep, It falls silent, a distant noise of bells strike midnight and the a smacking of a cane
against the bedroom walls begins. The author then begins to wake up in confusion, listens for a bit and then falls
back to sleep ignoring it.
With the bells then striking 9 o’clock, he awakes and gets up.
We hear a clock ticking allowing us to pass time, again, the bells strike 10 o’clock and he goes to bed
He is awoken again by the noise of the bells. Striking midnight and the old man striking his cane against their shared
wall, he grunts but shuffles back to comfort and falls asleep. Again, the bells strike 9 o’clock and he awakes
We woosh over into next door to hear crashing and a fall
The old man is having a heart attack, we hear his last breath and the house falls silent, just a ticking clock.
We clearly move to a funeral of the old man, crying and bells striking
The bells strike 10 o’clock and the author does his usual bed time routine, he settles into bed and falls asleep. But,
same again, the bells strike midnight and he hears the banging of the cane, louder than ever before, confused and
startled he jumps out of bed but the banging stops, he stands, creaking floorboards, he rubs his eyes and gets back
to bed.
With the bells striking 9 o’clock he awakes, ticking of a clock allows us to pass time again, bells strike 10 o’clock again but
he’s asleep at his desk, we hear the bells strike 11 o’clock and it awakes him and he goes to bed.
The bells strike midnight and the banging of the cane begins but so loud it’s booming, deafening, he jumps out of
bed in shock, panic and fear is shown, it won’t stop, he bangs on the wall
AUTHOR: “STOP”
The banging stops, a bit of a creek of the floorboards, he sighs. The end.

20. Sound Effects
Sound Effect Needed How I Will Create the Sound
Floorboards creaking Mix of a wooden floor and a squeaky
hinge, balloon
Distant minster bells Probably just the minster bells
Banging of a cane through a wall Wooden stick on either a thin wall or door
Ticking clock Either just a clock, or metallic tapping,
scissors
A teleportation woosh Voice acting
Hands banging on a wall Banging on a bucket
Fire burning Crinkle a crisp packet
Candle burning & blowing it out Match stick burning and blowing it out
Walking up wooden stairs Hand on a banister and fading steps
sleeping Someone pretending to snore
Old man dying, snoring, shouting Voice acting

21. Actors/Locations
Actor Role Location for recording
Myself Most of the Sound effects My Home, York and maybe somewhere with a lot of
floorboards and maybe college

22. Resource List
Resource Owned/Cost What sound effect will it be
used for?
Minster Bells free minster bells
Crisp packet owned fire
balloon owned creaking
matchstick owned candle
scissors owned clock
bucket owned Banging on a wall
Pen and paper owned writing
Stick free Cane on a wall
Shoes owned walking
Voice acting free Author shouting and teleportation
woosh
Phone owned recording
Tascam free recording

23. Production

24. Daily Reflection Day 1
• Today was all about checking over my script, making sure it
was exactly what I wanted, making any changes if it needed
them and then recording as much as I can. I decided to add a
bit more description to the sounds in the script to help me
make them when it came to recording. I’ve managed to record
everything but one sound effect, the author writing on some
paper at his desk but luckily that won’t take too long to do
another day. I was surprised by how long it would take me to
try and get all the sound effects done and how many attempts
it could take to just get one sound effect.

25. Daily Reflection Day 2
• Today I mainly focused on trying to put it together as much as
I could. I did manage to basically finish it, my plan for
tomorrow is to just come back and listen to it again and see if
I’m happy with it. I found it pretty easy to put it together as I
knew exactly what I wanted to do and could follow my script
but also the experience I had gained from the Shaun of the
dead experiment helped me by giving me this almost
procedure to follow, what to do with clips and how I could
format the timeline and so on.

26. Evaluation

27. Research
• Looking back on my research I think that it went rather well
resulting in something handy to look back on when making
my own project. As well as that it also taught me subtle things
to use when making my own project. It helped me learn what
I could do and what impact certain aspects would have, good
and bad. I think that it gave me good base ideas to follow
when it came to making my own but it maybe would have
helped me to research a bit more, but that’s always the case.

28. Planning
• My planning also went very well, I found that I had a made a
good script to follow full of the sound effects that I needed
and what kind of effect they need, for example, if someone
was walking to bed, they might be relaxed and taking their
time to get there, making sure everything else is ready for
them to leave. And I found that really helped build character
to my sound effects and it just let me follow instead of try and
make them on the spot. This was improved even more when
it came to the sound effect and resource lists, it just allowed
me to follow what I wanted to do.

29. Time Management
• My time management was a lot better in this project than the
last, I didn’t take too long to do my research and I even ended
up being a bit ahead when it came to my planning. I made
sure as well not to leave it late when it came to recording my
audio, I got onto it at the start of the weekend to make sure if
I ran out of time in one day, I would have several days after to
get it done. But it kind of ended up being a bit frantic on the
Tuesday when it came to putting my audio together, it was
stressful as I had to have Monday off due to illness but I
needed it to be all but done by Tuesday. But I think I manged
to pull it back together and I got it done and myself back on
schedule.

30. Technical Qualities
• I think my audio product has quite a lot of good technical
qualities. For example when it came to the noise of the fire in
the background it’s actually two noises, it’s crinkling of a crisp
packet but it’s also popping of bubble wrap to sound like to
popping of the wood. As well as that when it came to my
voice acting I tried to deaden the sound as much as I can by
doing it under a duvet because if I wanted the voice to echo
or have a certain sound to it, I wanted to do it afterwards in
post instead of having it sound a certain way that I didn’t like
and wouldn’t be able to fix it. But on the other hand I think I’d
maybe like to do the whole project again with a better
recording device as I did it all on my phone.
Crinkling of crisp packet, fire
Popping bubble wrap, popping wood

31. Aural Qualities
• I think that my work overall has managed to sound how I sort
of wanted. It I think has got the story across and has managed
to add a sense of creepy but maybe also scary but I do think it
has a few weaknesses. I think that maybe the “scary” bit at
the end didn’t hit as hard I wanted it to, I don’t think it’s
maybe as scary as I wanted it to be. As well as that I think that
maybe the repeating of the bells didn’t have the effect that I
wanted, the idea was that the constant repetition towards the
“scary” bit could give the idea that maybe their isn’t a ghost
and actually the Author has gone crazy but I don’t think that it
worked.

32. Audience Appeal
• I think that it would appeal to the target audience as I think
that anyone who likes soundscapes, likes maybe all kind of
soundscapes. So I think that it will already appeal to the target
audience as I think it has a good and intriguing title. I also
think that the building of my project helps keep my audience
wanting to listen on. Where I think that maybe the audience
could end up starting to lose interest I put the death of the old
gentleman, being a very key part of the story I think it pulls
their interest back in. I think that the story would already
appeal to the target audience but I believe that what I’ve
added to the story like some dramatic parts for example the
knocking getting louder I think adds to the story. The target
audience would probably enjoy the story as a soundscape
more with it dramatised.