I plan on designing my audio project to mimic a scary story through mostly sound and some dialogue (I want to avoid narration as much as possible). My working script is as follows:

Begins with fade-in intro music that sounds spooky, like from the X-Files, and then the title of the story, which is currently “Kitchen Encounters”. I am aware that this title may be too silly, but until something better surfaces I’m sticking to it. My story’s premise is that there’s an old women cleaning dishes in her kitchen who is extremely paranoid that aliens are out to get her like she remembers them vaguely doing a few months prior. Everyone she knows thinks she’s crazy, and it’s up for the listener to decide what’s really up.

So the story starts with the sound of squeaky floorboards. A murmur can be heard coming from the old woman, who stops to turn on her radio. There is some fumbling noise, an exclamation of annoyance, and then the radio will finally tune into the music station she is looking for. “Comin’ Home Baby!” by Mel Torme plays (track plays the entire time) and the woman audibly relaxes (gives a long pleasant sigh) before squeaking over to the answering machine.

She hits the “play” button and the usual answering machine beep will sound followed by two messages: one from her therapist and the other from her daughter–both wondering if she’s been taking the medicine she has been prescribed to deal with her paranoia. They will go something like this:

“hey mom…just checking in to make sure you’re taking your medicine. And that you’re well. Give me a call when you can mom, and remember…you’re okay. everything is okay, and you’re safe…………ok love you, bye bye.”

“Hello Barbara, this is Annie, your therapist…just wanted to check in, haven’t heard from you in a while…want to make sure that you haven’t been having any trouble with the medication I prescribed you…give me a call back whenever you can”

Listening to the messages makes the old woman angry, and she knocks the machine to the ground. That’s when she hears the car go by the kitchen window, causing her to jump in surprise and rush (as quick as an old lady can) to the window to see if anyone is there (cue that spooky music from before). No one is, and so she’ll mutter something to herself like “Calm down Ruthie, nothing there” or something. Then she’ll put the kettle on for tea. She reads that it “helps with her insomnia”

Right as it comes to a boil and while pouring herself a cup, the woman will hear a door slam. This causes her to hide in the broom closet. She hides in there for a few seconds, hearing only silence. She opens the door holding a broom and jumps out, shouting. Then she goes to clean the tea when the radio starts to freak out and fill with static and strange noises. She unplugs the radio and it all goes quiet. Then she hears the sound of breathing behind her.

And then the story ends. I want it to have a mysterious ending that doesn’t clarify what exactly happened or if anything happened at all. If it’s not long enough, I will add in more instances when she hears spooky noises. Any tips on how to make it scarier or more interesting would be much appreciated!

My audio project is centered around a couple on a blind date, one that is not going well. The clip I have included as a preview is the first 30 seconds of my project. It follows a girl named Emily into a restaurant, including her inner monologue, as she meets a blind date set up by a friend. Within 30 seconds he has made her uneasy by ordering her a drink before she got there.

There are four characters in this story so far including Emily, the protagonist. She is meeting Eric who is a mutual friend of Jenny. We have also met the hostess, to what sounds like a french restaurant. Eric did pull out the chair for Emily, showing that he does have a gentlemanly side, and making a good first impression. But starting her off with such a strong drink, put Emily on edge for the date.

Underneath the clip is the ambient noise clip that a fellow classmate uploaded onto our box folder. I like that it adds a subtle background noise to the otherwise quiet restaurant scene. I am still working on how to incorporate soft music in the background without drowning out any of the other sound effects. In this, you can also hear the sounds of a chair being pulled out, and a coat being taken off. I plan to add in footsteps as she approaches the table. My favorite part thus far is using the reverb effect to distinguish Emily’s inner monologue from her speech in the scene. I believe it gets my point across without sounding too goofy as it would if I changed the pitch.

Will Emily leave when Eric answers his phone at the table?

Find out in this audio project!

My audio project is going to be made in a “podcast-like” kind of format.  I will be telling a story in my audio project, but will be using audio as another element to add another dimension to my project.  The preview included with this post is non-linear.  Meaning that what you hear is not the order that they will appear in the project.  Instead the preview is just a mix of the various sounds that you will hear throughout the project.  This preview is non-comprehensive as there are many elements of the story that I could not fit in a 30 second clip.

The music soundtrack that is being played at some points is from Kevin MacLeod’s collection.  This will serve to set an atmosphere throughout the podcast that will assist in the telling of the story.  This soundtrack will also be working with sounds that I create, and from the library of sounds created by those in the class.  This will hopefully give the listener an idea of what they might have heard had they been with me when the events of the story occurred.

I expect that the hardest part of this project will be trying to find a balance between the use of the music and the sound effects that I create.  In addition to this I expect that trying to find a balance between the loudness of the various layers of audio will be difficult as well.  I don’t want the transitions between the audio to be harsh, so that will also be another thing that I will want to carefully address.  Other than these minor obstacles I’m excited for the final product of my project.  Even though doing a podcast means I have to listen to a recording of my own voice.  Which I’m not happy about.

For my preview, I’ve attached a clip of approximately 30 seconds of my soundscape. This clip is most likely going to be the very beginning of my soundscape. This clip consists of four layers of sound: 3 layers of city noises, and 1 keyboard typing noise. My soundscape is going to be set in a city and I’m going to have noises of a city subtly in the background during the whole duration of my soundscape. The premise of my soundscape is to incorporate both city noises and technological noises to create a stressful mood. Through this preview I’m attempting to create the environment of someone sitting their room in a city and frantically typing something.

After this moment, I’m going to include text message noises and the sound of someone texting on a phone. Then, I’m going to have a phone ring and go to voicemail after a few rings. After that someone’s going to knock on the door, and the main character of my soundscape is going to answer it. The person knocking (the main character’s friend) is going to ask the main character to hangout and the main character is going to say that they can’t because they have a huge paper due. I think the premise of my whole soundscape is just going to be someone attempting to write a paper and being really stressed out and facing many temptations that hinder them from successfully doing what they need to do. I know it’s a simple concept, but I want to focus more on making my sounds seem realistic than focusing on a really complicated plot.

For my soundscape I’m creating the sounds of someone going for a run through Oakland. I’ll be using the fade in and fade out in different ears to mimic things passing by or being passed by. Cars, people, and buses are a couple of obvious sounds to have pass by. I’ll use different frequencies of cars to help portray the different areas. For example, in central Oakland there’ll be many more cars passing by than in Schenley Park.

However when I was trying to come up with all of the sounds I would use throughout the soundscape, there was only a small number. To prevent the track from being really repetitive or boring, I decided I’d have to add in something extra. The idea I finally decided on was to characterize the different buildings on campus with certain sounds.

The first and easiest idea that I came up with was having sounds of someone making a chemical reaction while passing Chevron (the Chemistry building). Because of this, I started to plan out a specific route and pick buildings that I could characterize easily. So far I’ve picked out Chevron, the Athletic Association, Cathy, the Porch, and Phipps conservatory. I’ve decided on sounds for all of those other than Cathy. The ideas I’ve tossed around for it are church bells (because it’s the cathedral), a clip of Sweet Caroline (to represent the victory lights), or maybe a short part of an instrumental piece that sounds similar to Harry Potter (since Cathy looks like Hogwarts on the inside).

I’d like for these sounds to be fairly prominent, but not overwhelmingly loud. The footsteps of the runner and the sounds of the surroundings should still be audible.

For my soundscape, I plan on using urban sounds to set a backdrop for the story of the displacement of a family in Pittsburgh. The idea behind the soundscape is to narrate the story of a family who lived in East Liberty for years, and due to the rapid increase of gentrification happening in the area that they were noticed on 2 weeks before they need to leave their long time home. The script will start with the mom finding a letter on the door stating that a private developer has bought out the building and that the tenants of the building need to be out within 2 weeks. This will start a conversation between a mom and dad about how they’ve lived in East Liberty and their apartment building for 20 years. It will then continue with them discussing the changes that are happening within the neighborhood and how they have been noticing the increase in price of homes and shops. As well as discussing the changing demographic of the neighborhood.

I want to use very urban sounds to lay in the background of the dialogue between the mom and dad. I want it to be prevalent that East Liberty is a busy, urban neighborhood with a lot of life in it. I think this is a good way to show the changes happening within the neighborhood and the real issue that is being ignored by the displacement of low-income families in the neighborhood who don’t have the means to just up and move like the landlords and developers are expecting from them.

The media I am most excited about is the track of the story because I just think that it’s a really important story to tell. I want to compose this piece of audio in an interesting way that makes people intrigued and willing to listen to what’s happening. There won”t necessarily be a climax and I don’t believe the story will truly follow a typical story outline but I don’t think that diminishes the interesting aspects of the story.