Nonverbal Story

The prompt

Protagonist is being chased by bullies when they duck behind a dumpster. The bullies lose track of them and, after searching for a minute, continue running down the alley. Once they are gone, Protagonist leaves the dumpster and starts running the other way.

I recorded these sound effects in my dorm on my computer. The footsteps is me slapping a pair of my shoes on the ground, getting closer or further from the microphone, although I don’t think it made much of a difference. The sounds of the dumpster is me throwing myself against a dresser with the pins for a loft bed in one of the drawers. The breathing and grunts are just me, but since they are not verbal communication, they follow the rules of the assignment. I mixed and timed the pieces in Audacity, and the only editing I did was that I realized I didn’t have a “getting up from behind the dumpster” sound, so I copied the “diving behind a dumpster” sound and made it quieter.

I got the idea for this type of story from Never-Ending Story. It’s a fairly simple, straightforward bit that doesn’t require any words exchanged or any visuals for the audience to understand what’s going on.