Hey everyone this week I will be talking about the art of
foley. For those of you who don’t know what foley is, it’s the reproduction of
sound effects that are then added to the film, video or other types of motion
picture. These sounds can be as simple
as footsteps walking on certain materials, to doors opening or the sound of
sitting on a leather couch.
The term comes from Jack Donovan Foley who is considered the
creator of foley art. He started in 1927, the way he did foley incorporated a
team of people who would watch the film in real time and create the sounds of
things happening like people walking or zipping up jackets and etc… They had to
be perfect in time because it was happening on real time and they had to record
on one track. His basic methods are still used today however the technology has
improved so that you don’t have to do it live or on one track and if you’re
late you can synch it back up using a DAW.
One of my favorite uses of foley comes from Disney; they had
to create props or devices to create the sound effects of cartoons. For example
if they needed to create thunder they had a huge sheet of metal and would hit it,
which would cause this thundering sound. Another example would if they needed
rain they had a cylinder looking prop that had nails on the inside and beans. When
they would turn the cylinder the beans would come into contact with the nails
creating the rain sound. There’s a video I will include at the end of this post
that will go more into detail on this.
I think that foley creates a big part of sound design
because it adds a touch of realism to the sounds that SFX banks cant produce. To
be a foley artist you need to be pretty creative and think on your feet to
figure what kinds of objects will give you that certain sound your looking for.
Hopefully the video will inspire you to look more into Foley and decide to use
that method instead of using a SFX bank.
This is the link the disney portion starts midway through.
In my opinion foley artists are some of the most creative people in the business and they certainly don't get enough credit for what they do. I feel that If we watched a film today without any foley added, it just would't sound right. It would probably sound empty (or like Primer). It also takes a lot of patience and a LOT of time getting a sound just right, and occurring precisely at the right time for the right duration. I remember trying to do foley for my sound design project and having to redo sounds over and over again until I could even get close to the sound I was looking for. Afterwards I spent a long time processing and tweaking the audio. And even after all that, It still didn't sound "right" so I can only imagine the struggle foley artists go through on a daily basis. Then again, it must get easier after doing it for a while.
ReplyDeleteI remember seeing a documentary on foley and these guys had a huge stock room full of items they had used successfully to recreate sounds. I remember one of they guys walking over to a shelf line with boxes, all of which contained shoes. He pulled a few out and demonstrated how each shoe could be used to make a distinctly different footstep. The foley studio also had these long boxes that the staff would fill with different types of dirt, gravel, cat litter and such that would then be used to simulate a certain type of surface like mud, snow, dirt roads etc. It seems to take a lot of preparation and careful thinking but thats we call them Foley ARTISTS, not Foley technicians...
I couldn't agree with Jordan anymore. I am always astounded at how much work goes into just getting a few seconds of reel recorded for Foley. I have a ton of admiration for the techniques used to create soundscapes and find it very interesting. I saw a piece about trying to recreate the sound of a single person riding a horse. It sounds so simple to do, but hooves need to be recorded, leather, chains, chainmail, horse breathing, dirt flying.. I felt like they had about 10 different takes and effects to record. If I could do one thing in the industry, it would be Foley. I think the mix of creativity and technical knowledge needed to do the job would be both challenging and exciting.
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