The document provides an initial response and ideas for an audio story project. Key points include: 1) The student has researched ghost stories from York and settled on telling the story of "the stick man" from 35 Stonegate, finding it has audio-based elements that fit their goals. 2) Narration was considered but the student feels audio-only using sound effects best fits their skills and the horror genre. 3) The student outlines ideas for setting the scene with background sounds and telling the story from a different perspective. 4) Concerns are expressed about ensuring all sounds work together to clearly tell the story, but the student is excited to experiment with sound effects and tension-

1. Audio Story
Task 2: Initial Responses

2. Initial Responses and Idea Generation
Log your initial thoughts regarding the set brief in this document
What stories could you use? How do you feel about the different potential
formats? What are the positives about this project? What could be some difficult
aspects? Etc
Use the format on this document to guide this response – some are set as a
question on one slide, but you should look to add further slides as necessary

3. Which stories have you researched and looked
as potential starting points?
• I gravitated to the stories that included a lot of haunted sounds like, banging,
screaming, light switched and stayed away from the ones that included lots of
dialogue or speaking with the haunted experience. I researched the York mix's 6
spookiest ghost stories which I felt like were short and easy to follow as well as
examiners live spookiest ghost stories. These two articles gave me a chance to get
to know the type of stories I could be creating and audio for and which ones I
enjoyed reading about and which ones I was going to stay away from. I
considered stories like fresh phantoms and treasurers house in the minster yard.
The problem I found with these stories are the I found it difficult to present an
audio for them without dialogue or speaking which is something I didn’t want to
include.

4. Which research into existing products has been the
most useful? Includes examples and explanations
I enjoyed listening to talk show podcasts I found those interesting to listen to however they were not linked
to the horror project and haven't shown any help in my own horror story. Some of the talk shows I listened
to were The Fellas, Anything goes and inner monologue. They were non fiction that talk about gossip, trends,
mental health and embarrassing moments. After listening to these podcasts under the same genre and
realised it wouldn’t be useful, so I listened to more fictional audio base projects that are told like a stories
and create a setting. The audios have multiple roles and usually a commentator to guide you through what's
happening through the episodes. I found this more relevant to my project as I listened to ones that were
horror based and created tension through the episode. However episode were 40 minutes – over an hour
long which gave them time to tell a detailed story and create a picture. The thing I found most useful were
soundscapes found on youtube. The were similar to what I wanted to create and gave me a better
understanding on how to tell a story through just sounds. The thing I struggled when looking at soundscapes
was the fact that there were so little and so little horror ones in particular. They just led me
To Ambient videos that had music behind which I found also very useful. It gave me a grasp
on background sounds that people tend to ignore to create a certain atmosphere.
In conclusion, soundscapes and ambient sounds were most useful to research.

5. Which production format [drama, narration,
etc] do you feel fits your idea best and why?
• I think narration is probably the best and most effective formate for
creating a horror based audio story. It can build tension with lang pauses
and the background sounds can tell the story even further. It also is a much
more effective way to tell the story in a clear way as when researching
stories it was a difficult to find a format I was comfortable with and being
able to tell the story clearly.

6. Which story have you settled on and why?
• I have pick the story of “the stick man” based at 35 Stonegate in York. The
thing that drew me to this story is how I could us sound effects to tell this
story. I found it easier to put this story in a different perspective than its
being told and tell it as if someone is being haunted by this ghost. The story
uses sounds and the key part of haunted, for example things like clocks
hitting midnight and using a bat against a wall to scare away robbers when
heard. These are all audio based things which makes it a better story to tell
than others in York. The story also connected with me because I walk past
35 Stonegate often and never knew the story until now.

7. What ideas have you had for sound effects,
narration and storytelling?
• If I had narration I would want my friend Madalyn from Fulford to narrate it
as they read with good rhythm. However I quickly knew that I didn't want
narration as writing a script to tell the story would not be a strong point for
me. To tell a story, I think of setting a scene first so I want to have
background noises like, rain and clock ticking and breathing (things you
don’t always notice) to create an atmosphere familiar to people who live in
York. I know I want to tell the story from a different point of view from the
people publishing the stories as I find it would be easier to tell it from that
perspective. I don’t have a clear idea of the exact script and all the sounds I
need to record yet but I know an outline of how I want to tell the story and
what feelings I want to create.

8. Initial feelings…how do you feel about the
project currently?
• I'm worried about putting all the sounds together and it not telling the
story. I might be able to get the sounds I listed perfect but I'm worried that
when I put them al together that it would be hard to follow and the
listeners wont understand the story. However I excited to create more foley
and I enjoyed doing it in my experiment. Doing a range of different sound
and trying to create tension with the sounds I create will be interesting to
see. I think if I had narration it would make it much easier to tell the story
and create tension, however I have decided not to. I'm happy where my
planning has gotten to and I'm getting a clear idea of what I want to do
with the story. I’m also excited to create rain sound with dropping rice onto
paper into a plastic container as I have researched creating foley sounds.

9. What other research do you think you need to
do?
• I think I need to first listen to more soundscapes even if the aren’t horror
themed to understand how to create a story just by using background
sound. I also think I need to experiment more with adobe audition to get a
better understanding of the app. Last thing is just marking out my time
management correctly as that is something I struggled with doing the
music video assignment so making sure I have a clear plan is important.