Aaron Smith- MA Sound Design
Confession
I am a sound designer whose route into the field came through a filmmaking background and creative ambience work, building worlds through atmosphere and texture. That ground work led to shaping my practice, which now centres on binaural and spatial audio and is drawn in particular to folk horror, gothic storytelling, and the ways sound can place a listener inside a story rather than in front of it.
For my Independent Project, I created Confession, a binaural folk-horror audio drama retelling the Legend of the Blakemere Mermaid. Framed as a priest's confessional monologue, the piece positions the listener as the penitent: spoken to, judging, and ultimately implicated in the tale. Acting as director and sound designer, and working closely with writer Mia Kathleen, I shaped the drama's movement from the close confines of the confession booth to the spatial unease of approaching figures and the climax of a witch trial.
Moving forward, I am looking to develop my practice in immersive and narrative sound design, across audio drama, spatial audio, and atmospheric sound for games, theatre, film and installation. I am particularly interested in roles and collaborations where sound is not just an accompaniment, but the space the audience steps into.