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'The Haven' Audio Drama (Mixed Media)
Project type
Audio Drama
Date
March-May 2026
Location
Bath
Project Context
The Haven exists within a type of audio storytelling that uses sound design and narration to create immersive fictional worlds without any visual component. Three key works are relevant as points of comparison and inspired this project with the writing and the formation of the project itself.
Orson Welles' 1938 radio broadcast of War of the Worlds is the foundational reference for this kind of work. Welles showed that audio alone (voice, ambience, and sound effects) could generate a strong emotional response. It's power came from conviction in the world-building and the strategic use of silence and atmosphere. I drew on this directly with my decision to keep the sound design sparse in quieter chapters. This allows the narration to carry the emotional weight, reflects War of the Worlds in that restraint is often more effective than density.
The Walking Dead, whilst being a visual medium, is also a significant influence on The Haven's world-building. My post-apocalyptic setting, fortified community, and tension between survival and humanity are all themes shared between the two works. Where The Walking Dead uses visual horror and character drama to explore these ideas, The Haven has to achieve the same effect through vocal performance and sonic atmosphere alone, which is a considerably more challenging constraint that demands precision in the writing and delivery.
Attack on Titan offers another comparison, particularly in its creature design. The Disciples in The Haven share characteristics with the Titans, who are enormous, humanoid, physically distorted, and unsettling in their movement and appearance. Both works use these monsters as a metaphor for forces beyond control or a dark side of human nature, and both set their human drama inside a walled settlement surrounded by these creatures. In sonic terms, representing a creature of this scale requires low frequency ambience, gargling sounds, and the a deep visceral roar. This challenge shaped the sound design approach in chapters 2, 8, and 9 specifically.
Compared to these works, The Haven operates on a smaller and more intimate scale, being a stereo mix with no musical score, relying entirely on voice and environment. This is both a limitation and a deliberate aesthetic choice, prioritising the written word and vocal performance over production indulgence.
Project Description
The Haven is a post-apocalyptic audio drama based on an original story written and narrated by myself. Set in a world overrun by enormous humanoid creatures called Disciples (who are skeletal, eyeless, and sense their prey through ground vibrations), it follows three survivors navigating a crumbling city known as The Haven, the last refuge of humanity. The project spans nine chapters (so far), each one a distinct scene and location, from a locked cell to a ruined arena to the streets of The Haven itself.
The project began with the writing of the story itself, developed for this submission. The world-building process involved designing the creatures, setting, and narrative arc in detail before any audio work began - notes include the Disciples physical characteristics, the layout of The Haven, and the backstory of the main characters. This foundation was important because the sound design decisions in each chapter needed to serve a clearly defined world rather than being applied generically.
Once I was happy with the story, the nine chapters were broken down into a spotting document identifying the key requirements and events for each scene. The structured approach meant that sound sourcing and recording could be planned efficiently rather than developed during production. Each chapter was allocated two to three ambient layers to establish its setting, alongside approximately five foley events, the majority of which were recorded or significantly processed to match specific moments in the narrative. This limitation was imposed so I wouldn't get carried away and I could pay equal attention to each chapter and not spend too long on the first then trickle off in effort towards the end.
Narration was recorded using an Aston Spirit microphone across several sessions, with attention given to varying the vocal delivery to suit the tone of each chapter. My vocals are quieter and more internalised where the protagonist is alone, and more urgent as the story develops and other characters are introduced. Various foley sounds were captured using a Tascam portable recorder, including door knocks, creaks, slams, and wind textures recorded specifically to match moments because some of the library sounds just didn't sound right to me.
Ambience was built in Ableton Live, with each chapter constructed as a separate group within a single project. Layers shifted in response to narrative events - crowd noise building toward a climax in Chapter 3, eerie silence punctuated by sudden impacts in Chapter 8. Chapter 4 presented a unique challenge as this chapter is written as a fictional broadcast monologue about the existence of God, delivered through a degraded transmission. To achieve this, my narration was processed with a slapback delay and a Cymatics Origin lo-fi plugin, stripping back the frequency range and adding a big sense of vintage and unreality. This distinguishes it clearly from the other chapters and signals to the listener that they are hearing a pre-recorded and otherworldly voice rather than a direct narrator.
The full project is approximately 23 minutes across nine chapters. The playlist is linked to the left via SoundCloud, allowing you to navigate the story at their own pace.
