Sea Legs

In my exploration to better understand audio storytelling, I listened to a podcast episode called “Sea Legs-The crossroads” from Spooked. In this story, the narrator tells a first hand account of a ghost spotted while on a U.S Coast guard ship. He wasn’t the only one to see it, either. There wer many techniques used in this story that continually caught my attention and had be raising questions. For that, I think this was a successful audio story.

There were a lot of essential autio techniques used in this story that really tied it together.

• Introducing the podcast with intense, spooky music, a deep narrators voice to set the tone of the channel itself. Even having not listened to any other podcasts from Spooked, I could tell they introduce every episode this way.
• As the Sea Legs story began, I noticed constant backgorund music layered on the sound of ocean waves as soon as the setting was revealed. This makes sense for the story since the whole thing took place on a ship out at sea.
• The story was told in first person, and as the narrator recalled details, snippets of sound backed up his words.
  • When a large door was described opening, a sound of a large creaky metal door was added in the background.
  • When he mentioned being at sea, the sound of the waves got louder.
  • When there was a ceremonial mulitary burial, there were sound effects such as instruments playing colors.

While the narrator himself may not have had much inflection or excitement in his voice, the subject of the story and the use of sound effects was important. He recalled events in a chronological order, and the music was added under his voice to create questions, mystery, suspense.

I will be implimenting techniques like the ones used in this story next week, stay tuned for my next blog post to watch me learn.