“A Foley artist is a person who re-creates sounds for film, video, and other media in post-production to enhance audio quality. They replace sounds that cannot properly be recorded on set. ” (Maio, 2020)
Why Foley is important:
Foley is very important when creating films, animations or games as it enhances the experience for the audience and players as it immerses them and doesn’t feel fake so it creates a better experience. For example, in shooting games, if there is no sound when shooting the bullets, it won’t feel right for the player and maybe uncomfortable which makes the experience rubbish for the players. Whereas if there was sound when shooting the gun the player will feel immersed and will want to play and may not get bored as quickly. The best foley sounds must seem natural and seamless to the audience as they should not notice the difference which makes the experience more realistic and better. In addition, foley makes the scene immersive as it played a key part in storytelling as it creates an atmosphere which draws the audience in as cutscenes use film techniques and foley to create the scene and make it more immersive.
How was foley created:
Foley was first created during live broadcasts of radio plays in 1920. The sound effects played off a phonograph did not sound great as it was low quality and were very unreliable. Radio stations then hired sound artists to create the effects and sounds on cue which then moved over the movie industry by jack foley which created the methods and techniques to this day. Jack Foley is best known for the sound of soldiers marching in the movie Spartacus. (Lynch, 2020)
There are 3 main categories of foley sound:
first is the feet which is the most common production a foley artist creates for footsteps as this can be difficult to capture when shooting a scene. They mainly create these using different types of shoes and surfaces to create different sounds when footsteps on different surfaces.
Next is a movement where people may be walking and slightly brushing past each other which these subtle and tiny sounds can enhance a scene.
The last one is specifics, this sounds that are not movements or footsteps but are for sounds like a phone ringing or a helicopter flying past.(Lynch, 2020)
Here are some examples of how some sounds are created
old chairs and stools are used to create a creaking sound, heavy staple guns are used to create good gun noises, twists and snaps stick of celery to create the sound of bones cracking, roll up a large phone book to create realistic body punching noises.
Foley artists also use different shoes to create sounds in different environments and materials such as walking on a wooden floor and or snow. (Hecker and Lunsford, 2020)
How is foley done:
“Foley is usually performed by Foley artists. Ideally, they stand on a Foley stage (an area with a variety of possible surfaces and props) in a Foley studio (a specialized sound studio), though any post-production sound studio will do with a little modification. The Foley artists can clearly see a screen which displays the footage they are to add sound fx to, and they perform their sound effects while watching this screen for timing. The actions they perform can include walking, running, jostling each other, rubbing their clothing, handling props, and breaking objects, all while closely observing the screen to ensure their sound fx are appropriate to the vision.
Increasingly, many simple Foley sound fx are done without Foley artists – the sound effects are stored electronically and performed by the post-production sound engineer on a keyboard while watching the visual. Done poorly this type of “Foley” sounds bland and repetitive, and it is nowhere near as flexible as the real thing, but it is much cheaper than renting a Foley stage and paying Foley artists to create the foley sound effects.”(Mavros, 2020)
Example
Star wars (1977)
In star wars (1977) the effect used for the blaster pistol was created using a steel cable. It was done by beating a cable with a hammer which sounded like a blast from a pistol. Also, the sound for the lightsaber was created from microphone feedback from a tube TV. (Ben Burtt, 2020)
This is how he came up with it
“I was carrying a microphone across the room,” Ben Burtt explained, “and I passed a television set which was on the floor which was on at the time without the sound turned up, but the microphone passed right behind the picture tube and as it did, it produced an unusual hum. It picked up a transmission from the television set and a signal was induced into its sound reproducing mechanism, and that was a great buzz. So I took that buzz and recorded it and combined it with the projector motor sound and that 50/50 kind of combination of those two sounds became the basic lightsaber tone.”
To get the additional sense of movement as the characters swished and clashed the weapons, Burtt simply played his sound over a loudspeaker. “The humming and the buzzing combined as an endless sound, and then I took another microphone and waved in the air next to that speaker so that it would come close to the speaker and go away and you could whip it by, and what happens when you do that by recording with a moving microphone is you get a Doppler shift: a pitch shift in the sound and therefore you can produce a very authentic facsimile of a moving sound.” (Ben Burtt, 2020)
Terminator 2: Judgment day
The sound that they wanted to create was a crushed skull and they used pistachios to replicate the sound of a skull-crushing. Also, the sound for the bullets hitting T-1000 was created using yoghurt and an empty glass. (Rydstrom, 2020)
Wall E
for this movie many sounds were created to create a robot and mechanical like sounds for example for Wall E movements noise was created by using an old army radio generator fo slow speeds and for quick movements, a bi-plane starter motor was used.
Transformers
“The impish little ghetto-blaster Decepticon had a human voice courtesy of Reno Wilson, “who can do amazing contortions with his throat”. Soundman Erik Aadahl, however, also revealed that his “growls, chatters and movements” were “ticks from a metal wind-up clock, synced to the waveform cadence of a young cougar growling”. (Erik Aadahl, 2020)
Also, the sound used for Optimus Prime flying was fireworks to replicate the sound of a jetpack and him flying. (Erik Aadahl, 2020)
This shows how foley is used to create sounds in movies using random objects or props to make it sound realistic and in sync and make sure that the audience can not tell that the sounds were fake and created. This means that the sounds need to sound as close to what action is happening in the scene
bibliography:
Maio, A., 2020. Foley: The Art Of Sound Design. [online] StudioBinder. Available at: <https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-a-foley-artist/> [Accessed 24 November 2020].
Mavros, S., 2020. Foley Effects | Foley Artists | Foley Sound | Sound Ideas. [online] Sound-ideas.com. Available at: <https://www.sound-ideas.com/Page/what-is-foley.aspx> [Accessed 24 November 2020].
Moore, A., 2020. The Magic Of Making Sound. [online] Youtube.com. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UO3N_PRIgX0> [Accessed 15 December 2020].(Moore, 2020)
Hecker, G. and Lunsford, D., 2020. Foley Artists: How Movie Sound Effects Are Made. [online] Youtube.com. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_tqB4IZvMk> [Accessed 15 December 2020].(Hecker and Lunsford, 2020)
Lynch, D., 2020. Film 101: Understanding Foley Sound And Why Foley Sound Is Important. [online] Film 101: Understanding Foley sound and why foley sound is important. Available at: <https://www.masterclass.com/articles/film-101-understanding-foley-sound-and-why-foley-sound-is-important> [Accessed 15 December 2020].(Lynch, 2020)
Williams, O., 2020. The Secrets Behind 44 Classic Cinema Sound Effects. [online] Empire. Available at: <https://www.empireonline.com/movies/features/cinema-sound-secrets-foley-artist/> [Accessed 15 December 2020]. (Williams, 2020)