Mini-Project 2: Audio

For this audio mini-project, I chose to bring in a vibe of suspense and horror to the audience. The audio piece is about a girl walking through a haunted house, with various different sounds surrounding her. As she walks through the house, she hears water leaking from certain places, alarms going off in the abandoned location, and scary howls from the area around. Throughout the audio you head random voice add-ons to keep the surprise and ‘flight or fight’ style feeling with a person going. At the end, you hear the girl scream, primarily due to a jump scare that comes in her way as she navigates through the house. In the book, “The Principles of Sonic Branding”, Joel Beckerman expresses the true meaning and effectiveness of sonic surprises on the audience. However, with sonic surprises come the internal feel part, of how you make that person actually make meaning of that surprise. For that, Joel explains, “Effective sonic branding often involves creating or facilitating sonic triggers that break expected patterns, get the listener’s attention, and then using that attention to call to mind positive experiences with the brand or story” (Beckeman 69-70). While usually brands try to create a positive experience and vibe for the users, in this specific case of a haunted house, the experience is really created by the scariness of the house. These sound effects allow the user to understand what type of a horror-involving experience they are going to face, something a person going to haunted house is looking for. For this specific case, it entails all segments of a haunted house the audience may be potentially looking for, with the water effects, alarms, and scary noises. Additionally, it creates that vibe within a person of the scariness, through the yelling the does in the end of the audio piece. The audience understands what feeling they can expect when present at the haunted house, as well as builds a message that them screaming at that place is totally expected and encouraged knowing the scary circumstance in mind. Additionally, Beckerman brings on the idea of how “As listeners, we tend to hear music in moments” (Beckerman 69). The audio piece brings forth the scary howls in a very systematic approach, allowing the user to grasp the first howl and sound, thinking through it, gain the intended effect of it, and then move on to the next scary sound.