The document provides a summary of an audio project created by Jay Wood. It discusses a poorly written "Creepypasta" story about strange events in a haunted version of Minecraft. Jay Wood created an audio drama reading of the story, adding sound effects to enhance the comedy and horror elements. The summary describes Jay Wood's research on other audio works, planning process for the project, daily reflections on production, and evaluation of the final work.
2. Story
• The story I have chosen is a poorly written Minecraft
‘Creepypasta’ anonymously written in 2013. The story tells of
someone playing an implied ‘haunted’ version of the game,
where strange out of place things keep happening in the
game. Because of the lack of any structure or intelligent
writing the story is more of a list of potentially scary things
that could happen to a player whilst playing the game. That
being said reading it is very entertaining with the abundance
of spelling errors and clear lack of any research e.g. a “crafting
table” is referred to as “crafting thing” and the completely
baffling title that has little to no relevancy to the actual plot.
3. Existing Products Research
• Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds
– This version of H.G. Wells novel “War of the Worlds” is an experimental
musical album released in 1978, which is a retelling of the story presented in
the book using sound effects and songs to recount the narrative that is found
in the book. The music was very experimental for the time using lots of
synthesizers and string orchestral with leitmotifs and spoken dialogue sections
to keep the story going forward. The time period the story is set in is the late
19th century, sound effects that represent the infamous “Heat Ray” are
synthesised to contrast against the underdeveloped technology of the
Victorian era England that’s being invaded.
4. Existing Products Research
• Welcome to Fanfiction.net! (and Wattpad)
– This YouTube video is a satirical “introduction” video to the websites
Fanfiction.net and Wattpad that includes several parodies of different genres
of fiction presented on the websites, one being of course Creepypasta which is
my main focus. In the Creepypasta section they poke fun at the lazy writing
most subpar low effort fanfictions have and the clichés that can be found in
most pieces of Creepypasta—video game ones specifically—by mentioning
things such as “hyper-realistic graphics” and blood pouring from in-game
characters eyes, and how the narrative always begins with the protagonist
buying the game at some bargain bin sale with the seller claiming the
cartridge/disk is ‘haunted’. The sound effects are used when relevant to give
more impact to each prose of text, which adds to the humour as the subject
matter is so ridiculous and poorly written when contrasted to the high quality
in sound mixing.
5. Bibliography
1. Minecraft Deathnote – Crappypasta
2. Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds - Story
3. Welcome to Fanfiction.net (and Wattpad)
4. Classified Elevator Music
5. Dark Souls – YOU DIED sound effect
6. Realistic Gunshot sound effects
7. Stock scream effects
8. Pistol cocking sound effects
7. Idea Generation/Initial Reaction
• I considered doing a musical audio drama like Jeff Wayne’s
version of War of the Worlds, but creating good music that
can match the themes and allow for a narrative is very
difficult to produce.
• The idea of doing a podcast based on retelling a story be it
true or fabricated by either myself or someone else was on
the table, adding some light sound effects and have it co-
hosted with someone else as we read through ghost stories as
ourselves and not “in character”
• The podcast idea could’ve also been done whilst in character
as someone involved in the story, a witness recounting the
events or as the protagonist, including any relevant guests to
provide additional voices for characters
8. Proposal
Working Title: A Dramatic reading of “DeathCraft – The Minecraft Deathnote”
Audience:
My audience is 15-19 year old people of both gender who have pragmatic knowledge of both
Creepypasta’s & the vastly popular and widely successful video game Minecraft. This project
would appeal to this demographic of people as it is a comedic parody of early 2010’s dramatic
readings of early internet ghost stories such as; Slenderman, Jeff the Killer, The Rake, Smile Dog
to name a few.
Project Concept (approx. 200 words)
The idea is to create a serious-in-tone reading of a negatively reviewed internet fan piece
including lots sound effects work and sound scaping to back up the audio as to not leave it down
solely to the narration of the piece, spelling mistakes and grammar issues and all. For research I
looked at legitimate pieces of horror audio work and experimental pieces that use sound effects
in conjunction to narration. I also looked at another parody of Creepypasta readings (that had
been animated, too) to get some inspiration and directions on how and what effects to use to
create a semi-serious tone whilst also keeping it light enough to be actually entertaining.
9. Script
(taken directly from here)
Hello, and welcome to a dramatic reading of some of the internet’s finest literature. Today we will be
reading a haunted tale of software that has been possessed by the devil himself! Unfortunately this
particular piece comes from an entirely anonymous source, therefore I cannot pass on any
recommendations of any other work made by this creator of true art. With that being said, let us begin…
The MineCraft deathnote.
“ I had just bought MineCraft. I thought that looking for diamonds in a zombie-infested cave would be
cool. I also made a ninja skin. I spawned near a village. What was rather…odd…was the villagers were
skeletons. They had no bow, nor attacked the player. I also checked the chest in the main house. What i
saw… Was 64 netherrack. Also a bucket of lava. I also pressed f5 to see my character in my view. I
screamed at what I saw. His used to be ninja outfit was scratched up. There was blood all over. He also
had a black eye void. But I noticed in his inventory he had 14 obsidian. He also had a Fire Charge. I made a
nether portal.
But first, I mined. I found some iron, coal, but I found a strange ore. It was red. It wasn’t redstone because
it didn’t glow when I pursuited it. It was also much darker. I mined it. It was a smeltable ore. It sayed:
‘Blood Ore.’. Ignoring the creepy name, I smelted it. The mineral was a dark red emerald. It read, ‘Blood
Ruby’. I also used it to make a shovel. When I used it on dirt, it instantly changed to the netherrack
texture. If I then mined it (Yes, mined, because the dirt changed to “netherrack”) The items name would
be called…
Bloodstone. I found it useful because I could turn stupid and annoying gravel to cool bloodstone. I hopped
into the nether portal about 10 minutes after. The portal when in the nether was on a fortress, right next
to a blaze spawner. The blazes were much more red. They emitted dark red particle. They also shot Ghast
Fireballs instead of Fire. The zombie pigmen were normal, except they instantly kill you when provoked.
10. Script
(taken directly from here)
But the ghasts were just plain wrong. Instead of the usual tear, it was pure blood dripping from the ghasts
teary eyes. When he opened the eyes and mouth, they were pure black. It then shot a red ghast tear
which surrounded the impact site with a ring of lava. If I killed it, it dropped something called…
Soul. It also dropped something named Blood. If I mixed the blood with a bucket, it would craft, Bucket of
Blood. It had infinite source. It made a liquid with the lava texture. It was more like water with the lava
texture. But if you put one iron ingot in the crafting thing, it would make a bullet. If you make iron,
gunpowder and another thing called “Trigger”, it would make… Gun. It was 3 times stronger than arrows.
It went faster too. Enderman were unable to dodge it. But if you go to bed while holding it, a chat line in
the chats will say…
(you*): I can’t live anymore… (*being the player)
Then the GAME OVER screen popped up.
I have died.
“(you) have committed suicide.”
There was not an option to restart.
If I try exiting and going back to the world, The ghast face texture would pop up, with the fireball-shooting
texture. Like the velocirapter screamer prank made up. “
NARRATORS NOTE: I have no idea what the ‘velocirapter screamer prank’ is either. Let’s continue.
“ It would also make a distorted Ghast Harm sound effect, with a much lower pitch and speed. The worlds
name also changed to ‘Hell’. On the 10th time I tried, I spawned into the Nether. There was no escape from
the area.
11. Script
(taken directly from here)
If you had obsidian and a flint of steel, and escaped through another nether portal, you would
spawn in a platform in an endless lava pool. There was also a sign that said ‘Too late. The
world has ended.’ If you fell into the lava, it would simply say the usual lava death saying, you
tried to swim in lava. But there was a mob living in the lava. The spawn egg was called.. Spawn
Lava Serpent. It was an ender dragon without legs or wings or arms. It also had the magma
cube textures.
Good game gone wrong, suicide in a survival game”
That was some fantastic work from Crappypasta.com, a big thanks to the anonymous user
who submitted this excellent piece in March of 2013, a time to remember, and thank you all
for listening to this dramatic reading. Goodnight, sleep tight…
12. Sound Effects
Sound Effect Needed How I Will Create the Sound
[Minecraft] EXP twinkle sound Download
[Minecraft] Ambient cave sound Download
[Minecraft] Zombie Mob noise Download
[Minecraft] Skeleton Mob noise Download
[Minecraft] Chest opening noise Download
[Minecraft] Lava ambience Download
Stock female scream / Terrified scream Download / Record separate from
narration
Laceration noise w/ blood splatter Sharpen knife, splatter water
[Minecraft] Nether portal SFX Download
[Minecraft] Mining noises / picking up an
item
Record in-game
Smelting noise Record fire sounds
[Minecraft] Shovelling dirt SFX Record in-game
[Minecraft] Entering Nether portal Record in-game
13. Sound Effects
Sound Effect Needed How I Will Create the Sound
[Minecraft] Blaze noises Download
[Minecraft] Zombie Pigmen noises Record in-game
[Minecraft] Ghast noises Record in-game
[Dark Souls] Item pickup noise Download
Short scream Record
[Minecraft] Lava ambience Record in-game
Stock bullet sound effect Download
Cocking of gun sound effect Download
[Minecraft] Arrow sound Download
[Minecraft] Enderman hit noise Record in-game
Stock gun shot Download
[Minecraft] Ghast noises (2) Record in-game
Fire ambience Record real fire
Splashing sound Splash some water
[Minecraft] Ender dragon noises Record in-game
14. Resource List
Resource Owned/Cost What sound effect will it be
used for?
Minecraft Owned Ambience/Monster SFX
Bonfire Owned Fire crackling
Knife Owned Sharpened for a laceration SFX
Water in a bowl/bucket Owned Blood splatter SFX & Filled bucket
SFX
-
-
-
-
-
15. Music
Band Name Track Name Link
Noctilucant Befalling Silence https://youtu.be/W1Mwc_LC13c
Classified Elevator
OST
Elevator https://youtu.be/Rj9ApWbYqhw
17. Daily Reflection Day 1
• I have compiled most of the sound effects needed for
my piece. I’ve also found some ambient music to use
as a backing track for the piece. After doing some
volume mixing I’m pretty happy with the quality of
the audio. I’m now implementing the sound effects
to see if they match well with the audio.
18. Daily Reflection Day 2
• Today I added most of the sound effects necessary to
the audio session. I’m debating whether to source a
few more sound effects to polish the audio just that
little bit more, but it may over saturate the piece
with the amount of sound effects that are already
present. I’ve also had to dip some of the audio to try
and mask some of the plosives present in the audio
recording track as shown here--
19. Daily Reflection Day 3
• I have finished editing my audio project and the final
result has been uploaded to Soundcloud. I’ve sent
the private link to a few close friends to get some
initial reactions to the piece overall and it has been
overwhelmingly positive, with the first half being
praised for being the funniest section as well as later
on in the section describing the ‘gun’.
21. Research
• My research helped me properly scope the project with what could and
couldn’t be used in relation to sound effects and music. Through my
research I learned that the music should just be for atmosphere and very
much in the background, with the accompanying sound effects level with
the audio recording that is front and centre in the foreground. The
weaknesses of my research were that if anything had me more geared
towards the music aspect of the project which in practice was barely
utilised. If I were to make another project similar to this in future I would
go exclusively towards other parodies of serious fiction readings and take
notes from them on which sound effects to use in which parts to improve
the comedy aspect that little bit more, such as being able to properly tune
out plosives without having to spline curve the audio.
22. Planning
• In planning my project I made sure to source all of the sound effects and
music before even beginning to record the audio portion of my piece, this
allowed me to when recording give myself enough wiggle room necessary
between sentences for cutting and splicing different takes together so I
could then go in afterwards and add sound effects like gun shots and
screams etc. When going over my script I also annotated each sentence
with notes on what sound effects would be used in each section. Despite
the broad success I’ve had whilst planning however, I do think there was
some instances of going a little too far with the amount of sound effects
needed as well as planning for recording foley sound which in retrospect I
did not have the time for when considering what sounds I actually wanted
to record which needed very specific things.
23. Time Management
• I think my time management was good considering the time given, the
amount of time spent on pre-production—sourcing all the effects and
doing research—was well timed and didn’t end up cutting into precious
production time. The recording portion of the actual spoken audio itself
was done in about 30 minutes with only a handful of retakes that needed
to be done purely because of misreads and the usual mistakes that are to
be expected during recording any verbal audio. On the production side of
things I think by having a little extra time I would’ve gone back after
editing all of the audio and added a few extra sound effects for
atmosphere as some last minute polish. Although I didn’t have the exact
amount of time to do so, I don’t think the project overall has suffered
greatly from that last little piece of polish not being present in the final
product.
24. Technical Qualities
I think the final product has a good amount of detail with very meticulously
placed sound effects that have been matched up with the verbal audio track so
that it is properly synced as well as multiple tracks operating at the same time
that don’t cancel each other out because of the attention I took to balancing
the audio levels so that the verbal audio is always front and center in the
foreground and the background music as well as the sound effects are strictly
kept as atmospheric and not interruptive. Most of my sound effects were
sourced online and downloaded from multiple different sites, this was done to
fit with the source material itself being a video game, so I used sound effects
and ambient sounds that are found directly within the video game to add to
the atmosphere as well as keeping it in tone with the game itself. Other
techniques I used were dips in the audio by using spline curves to attempt in
masking some plosives that peaked the audio output in certain sections, in
future I’d like to find a better method to adjust the audio so that It appears
more crisp instead of lowering the output so the plosives—while still there—
just aren’t as loud.
25. Aural Qualities
In my opinion, I think my project sounds great, although I have heard reports
that the track itself overall is very quiet on many devices and has to be turned
up to the maximum volume to be audible. Despite this being a disheartening
issue, it thankfully isn’t one that completely ruins the project as it is easily
remedied. I also would argue that my project is fairly creative using several
different sound effects from different sources instead of purely and exclusively
sound effects from the source material itself. I also made sure that if I were to
use any other sound effects they would at least work in the context of the
game the project is based on or at a minimum be in relation to video games. As
for improvements, I would definitely find out a way to completely mask the
plosives that are present in my recording and maybe raise the overall volume
slightly without peaking at any point.
26. Audience Appeal
I think I have definitely appealed to my audience with the use of sound effects
included and the way in which I spoke when recording the verbal aspect. The
sound effects being directly from the source material will be iconic to my target
audience and thus will appeal to them more so than people who are not a part
of my target audience as they will understand the references made and
recognize the sounds. The opening in particular seemed to appeal to my target
audience the most as I had changed one of the sounds from a scream/zombie
moan to a stock screaming sound effect, this change from the listeners
expectations seemed to consistently catch people off-guard comedically and
cause them to laugh.
Editor's Notes
Provide a brief summary of the story/stories you have chosen
Go over as many slides as necessary. Research at least 3 products.
Discuss the use of sound effects, music and performance. How have the producers suggested a location/time period and created a tone/feel. Reference audience appeal.
Go over as many slides as necessary. Research at least 3 products.
Discuss the use of sound effects, music and performance. How have the producers suggested a location/time period and created a tone/feel. Reference audience appeal.
Using Neil’s Toolbox, log all the resources you have used
Log your Thoughts and feelings for this project. Reference ideas for your concept and any aspects of construction. Consider mind maps, mood boards, lists, paragraphed text etc.
Who is your audience? Be very detailed; age, gender, social status, psychographic etc. Use the Audience Classifications PowerPoint on Blackboard to help you develop this section.
Why would your project appeal to this person? Discuss each audience element in relation to content (why would your product appeal to the age group? Why would your product appeal to the gender? Etc.)
What is the concept for your project and what are you going to make?
What research did you need to conduct and how will it help you make your project?
Write out dialogue/sound effects/list of events as a script, detailing what will happen in chronological order
Write out dialogue/sound effects/list of events as a script, detailing what will happen in chronological order
Write out dialogue/sound effects/list of events as a script, detailing what will happen in chronological order
What music could you use? This should be copyright free. Explore options online for copyright free/public domain music or make your own on Garage Band
Log your thoughts and feeling related to what you have produced. Discuss methods and tools you have used. Reference everything you have done today. Use screenshots
Log your thoughts and feeling related to what you have produced. Discuss methods and tools you have used. Reference everything you have done today. Use screenshots
Log your thoughts and feeling related to what you have produced. Discuss methods and tools you have used. Reference everything you have done today. Use screenshots
What were the strengths of your research? How did your research help your product?
What were the weaknesses of your research? What could you have done better/improve? What effect would this have had on your product?
What were the strengths of your planning? How did your planning help your product?
What were the weaknesses of your planning? What could you have done better/improve? What effect would this have had on your product?
Did you manage your time well? Did you complete your project on time or would your products have improved with additional time?
What would you have done if you had more time to produce your work?
Compare your work to similar existing products and discuss the similarities and differences
Is your work technically detailed/complicated enough? What effects and techniques have you used? How did you create your effects? How did you record your audio? Did you use any foley methods?
Does your work sound good? Was it creative? What aspects of your audio do you like? What would you improve? How would you improve it?
Discuss the strengths and weaknesses
How have you appealed to your target audience? What specific bits of content would appeal to your target audience.
Refer to your findings from your questionnaire.
Put your final piece(s) in the centre of a page and analyse them
Use text boxes and arrows