The art of a game, film, animation or tv show is full of complex expression and representation that genuinely make for excellent stories. Each section of a Film comes together in a massive collage of effects, camera shots, lighting, music, characters, action, drama and of course Sound design. In my opinion, the Sound Design to any film is one of the highest levels of importance to any production; it builds the world of the story, so everything needs to be convincing.
That's what catches the attention of the audience, it holds them, and the visual, story and emotions keeps them locked in.
That's what l am fascinated about, the world of sound for a film, tv show, game or animation. Everything l watch nothing gets me more than outstanding musical scores, brilliant dialogue and super convincing sound effects. Sound effects and the Foley process are what catches my attention. I love the sonic landscape that people like Piero Mura, Eilam Hoffman, Mark P. Stoeckinger, James Boyle, Ronald Eng, Sanaa Kelley and many more that seem to create with precision and ease.
That's the topic of today's paper, the art of foley sound. In light of my Major Project where l have to create multiple soundscapes for different stories. All of which have additional requirements for sound. One is looking for realistic everyday handling, and another is looking for more creative, surreal sound effects. Here I will be looking into some technical methods and standard props used in previous foley recording. I will also look at the editing and mixing methods used for getting the sound you want.
Common Props
The art of Foley is the uses of props, objects and other items to recreate the sound created by the character seen on screen. Sound's like footsteps, contacts, the action made by characters, water, doors and even the human voice, these things are all recorded in a studio environment. But they also create the sound for other things like fight scenes, gore, animals and even monsters, and how they do it is supersizing and unique. Foley is all done while watching the action happen on a Tv screen.
The most Common items use are fabrics, shoes, plastic tape for footsteps on grass, varies food items, metal objects like, dirt and small rocks for gravel, glass jars and crazy contraption built to create sounds that sound very close to the real thing. That what makes it so cool, fantastic replacements and substitutions of real-world sound with random household items like sizzling bacon for rain.
Technical
The Foley process is both a fast and demanding while also carefully planned and managed from the start of the film or shows production. But most share the same workflow. Before Foley starts the film/show/animation is complete and is in the editing stage of Postproduction. Once the final edit is locked off (meaning the cuts are final and are not to change.) The film is then past to the required department to complete.
The film will be distributed to the sound departments music, dialogue and sound effects. That when the heads of each department meet with the directors and producers to talk about the design. They will get a short clip, and that's when the sound spotting starts. "Sound spotting", is where an engineer or team of engineers will plot out all the locations of different sound in the scene. Things like footsteps, movements, props actions, everything in the set is marked in the timecode and label ready to move to the next stage.
Next is the studio, where a Foley Artist or Team will use a range of different props, surfaces, actions and movement to recreates the sound while watching the scene on a Large TV for projector screen. The Foley Artist with go through the collection of items most would consider junk and test the sound to see if it will work to the picture, if it doesn't sound right, they will continue to look for things till they find the right item to suit the moment.
While the Artist in the studio there is a Foley Recording/Mixing Engineer on a control desk running the session and keeping tracking of the recording sound. One thing that the Recording Engineer does is continuously work on processing; they use a range of plug-ins and outboard gear to manipulate the audio so is sound Natural, Organic and significantly Big.
The Recorder and the Foley Artist work together to capture the sound for the clip. To make more accessible, the Recording Engineer will add a slider to the picture. A Slider is 2 bars that appear on the screen; one is fixed on the right-hand side of the screen while the other moves from the left side to the right. The slider is a timing device that helps the Foley Artist prepare for sudden action like clap, slaps, impacts and other activities that need precise timing. The Artist watches the bar move closer to the right, and when the two collide, the sound should occur.
Another thing the team needs to consider is music for the scene, as the musical score is produced at the same time by a different team. The sound that they are recreating can't interfere with the music in any way. The Foley team works ways around that issue by changing the way that interacts with the props or process a little differently from the other sound in the scene. Doing this will make each audio section fit better with each other when the time comes to piece the film together in the final stages of Postproduction.
Processing
Depending on the time, length, budget and requirements of the film or Tv show the work in Foley will differ as the production is different, especially if there is more time. The more time, the more the Foley Studio can do in terms of design and recording.
After the recording and processing by the Foley Recorder are complete, a second-team (usually the team that did the sound spotting previously) will collect the session and do a final placement check, editing mixing and processing before they sent it to the client. Some of the best forms of Processing is EQ, Compression, Pitch shifting and Reverb. The point of this is to place the sounds in the scene without drawing attention to it.
More great things to try when it comes to the processing of audio the Reversing, slowing down and even speeding up sound with make for interesting version and a great way to layer and mix the sound.
It's the creative and work that l admire about sound design. Its the level of skill and the ability to turn junk and household items into a captivating sound that resonates with the picture and become more significant than itself. That's why I want to be a part of this industry.
References:
Ament, V. T. (2014). The Foley Grail: The art of performing sound for film, games, and animation. CRC Press. https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=lypEAwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=foley+sound&ots=BvNUDJJo8r&sig=n6HGhbNpLlm7pnghmDOYZ-e-bzg#v=onepage&q=foley%20sound&f=false
Dakic, V. (2009). Sound design for film and television. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/71ba/79e2ac425092453d1ff6cfc644bfccd0676e.pdf
LoBrutto, V. (1994). Sound-on-film: Interviews with creators of film sound. Greenwood Publishing Group. https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=2Um8uZ1OyXAC&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=foley+sound+film&ots=IvRZ66RFU0&sig=0uqQyc_Bca-f0ml21_Pex0QYC7g#v=onepage&q=foley%20sound%20film&f=false
Pridachin, Y. (2020) Processing Foley with plug-ins. Foleyfirst.com https://foleyfirst.com/blog/processing-foley-with-plug-ins/
Wright, B. (2014). Footsteps with character: the art and craft of Foley. Screen, 55(2), 204-220. https://academic.oup.com/screen/article-abstract/55/2/204/1661438
YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQl_-MghIjo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_tqB4IZvMk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfwDLONo7nI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GPGfDCZ1EE
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