Binaural Sound Experience

As narrating a story is a huge part of this project and given that I have never done anything like this before, I wanted to make sure that I don’t run into any of the common problems that can occur when recording narration.

• Initially, when recording my narration, I was not very comfortable doing it and this was made worse by the fact that I don’t like my own voice very much, so to combat this, I started to play music in my headphones, whilst recording, so that I couldn’t hear my own voice, which actually led me to be more comfortable doing the narration.
• Something that I originally thought would be a good idea was to change the way I said certain words or add inflection at the ends of words, however Emily said that it could come off as almost parodying the way that narration is done or could take away from the scary effect that I am trying to put across.
• I found that speaking clearly and not too fast, was one of the hardest things to do. I would often pronounce things incorrectly, either due to my accent or rushing over the words. It took me some time to get used to speaking slower and pronouncing words clearly.
• Something that became apparent when recording the voice over was that if I recorded each piece the same way, it could become boring for the listener. So I decided to experiment with the way I recorded certain pieces, to make them more interesting to listen to.

Part of this project is writing a few different short stories based on the events/ghosts of a place in Lincoln. My original idea was to just write a more factual based story that focussed on the telling of the actual story, however, this proved to be rather boring, for both the listener/reader and also for me to write. So instead I focussed on creating a more interesting story that took the events’ main points and either putting it in first or third person and also adding things to the original ghost story to add more depth and a backstory.

The first story I drafted was for the area around Brown’s Pie Shop:

 

I have been stuck in this building for nearly two hundred years now. People come and go every day, but I have to stay here. I am so jealous of the other children that come here with their parents and get to leave as a happy family. I really miss my parents.

I tend not to bother the customers or the cooks that work here. But I sometimes make noises to see if they notice me, and most do. However, some of the cooks don’t acknowledge me…and I don’t like that. It’s not nice to be ignored.

Around fifty years ago there was a new cook hired at the shop and he didn’t believe I was real, so I started being louder than usual…but that didn’t seem to bother him. So I started moving things in the kitchen to try and spook him…but still nothing. I felt that the only way he would believe I was real is if he saw me…I scared him so much that he fell backwards into the sink, where there was a knife facing upwards…There was blood everywhere and his eyes were so lifeless... I never wanted to hurt him…I just wanted to be noticed.

The original ghost story does not specify anything about the boy in the story, just that he doesn’t like to be ignored and that he occasionally moves things around in the kitchen. The only thing that I find holding me back from adding more detail and going further with the story is my self-imposed word limit of 200 words (as this is around 1.5 minutes of talking).

Prior to writing, I set out a list of things that I could touch upon from the original source material and a list of things that are seen a lot in media so that I could see how I could incorporate them into a story:

• Ghost Child – Would be the main character/Perosn who’s experience I am writing about.
• Blood and Death – Used in a lot of horror movies and often has an effect on people.
• Being ignored – I used this as a plot device to get to the climax – also a problem that children can experience often.
• Emotions – In the first two parts, it discusses how he misses his parents and that he feels stuck in a single place, which explains why he doesn’t like to be ignored – as he doesn’t get much attention.

I tried to take as much of the source material as possible, but also add enough to make it interesting.

---

Source for the story: https://hauntedhistoryoflincolnshire.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/lincoln/browns-pie-shop-2/

Basic pointers on generating a story: http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Horror-Story

Help with first person and the climax : http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/creative1/shortstory/#view

During the first few weeks of having my Roland, binaural microphones I have had a chance to experiment with them and experience what they are good at and also experience the problems that can come with recording binaurally.

One of the immediate problems that I encountered is wind noise is very noticeable even with the pop-shields placed over the headphones. I think this is mainly due to the fact that the microphones have to be placed in the ears so they are always quite high in the air (around 6ft).

The microphones are surprisingly sensitive which is both good and bad, on one hand it allows you to get the most from a recording as it can give you a real experience of that place, however it will pick up sounds that are quite far away or the sound of birds, which I don’t really want when trying to create a gloomy atmosphere.

As I am using in ear microphones as opposed to a static, fake head with mounted microphones, recording narration/voice-over can prove difficult/awkward as I either have to jerry-rig a fake head to simulate the spacing of a head or I have to ask a friend to wear the microphones whilst I do the speaking to them. I attempted to record voice-over with the microphones in my ears but the result was not good and you could hear every movement of my head and mouth.

 

I think the main goal to try and get the best binaural recording is to wait for the weather to be fairly mild and the wind to be low and also try and find the quietest times of the day to do the recording. And when it comes to recording the voice-over, I will likely stick to recording in either mono or stereo.

To begin with, the radio drama is not scary at all, it is full of exposition to explain to you who the characters are. However, once they begin doing the experiments to find ghosts, it begins to get rather uncomfortable, the low hertz frequencies and the recordings they do, really do start having an effect. The way that the story is told is similar to what you would see from a drama on TV, it cuts between different scenes and it is fairly obvious when it does so. The speech is recorded binaurally and gives it a real space and at times brings you incredibly close to an actors dialogue, which only adds to the tension.

Some notable points of the show:

At around the 35 minute mark, they have the female actor speaking very close to the microphones which is then cut off by a horrifying scream which is terrifying and incredibly affective at scaring you.

Multiple times throughout the piece, when they perform experiments, the way that they use oscillating frequencies is unnerving and has quite a visceral effect.

Around the 50 Minute mark, the scream that you are used to hearing is no longer heard when you expect it and what it is replaced by isn’t necessarily scary but the sudden subverting of your expectations is what scares you.

---

 

Fright Night – The Stone Tape, 00:00 30/10/2016, BBC Radio 4 Extra, 60 mins. https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand/index.php/prog/0B0512FC