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In my journey to learn more about different jobs in audio, I have decided to share what I learn within these article posts. My first topic is one that I am most familiar with: Foley. As a Foley mixer and editor, I am often asked: what exactly is Foley?
If you’ve watched a film lately, you’ve heard Foley. Foley is the reproduction of sound for any visual medium. Foley is in film, television, video games, VR and digital media.
The art of Foley is named after Jack Foley, an early sound effects artist. Jack was a pioneering developer of performing sound effects live and in synchronization with picture. We need to re-record these sound effects because often what is recorded on set is unusable. Microphones on set are focused on capturing the actors’ dialog as cleanly as possible; therefore all other sounds become neglected. Everything you hear in a film – from footsteps to handshakes, kisses to puking – is created specifically for and in sync with a picture.
Foley as we know it today consists of a team of usually 2-3 people in a studio performing, recording and editing everything you hear on screen. Okay, maybe not everything… we leave the explosions to the sound effects editors. Each member of the team plays a different role in creating and capturing the sounds for a project. And those members are:
These are the people who begin to bring characters to life, sonically. They are tasked with recreating the sounds for anything the actors interact with and anything on screen that would make sound. The Foley artist manipulates props to create these sounds as well as performing footsteps for the characters on screen.
While the whole team has a role to play in the sonic quality, the mixer works with the microphones, preamps, and other gear that may be used to capture the Foley. We generally use two microphones (a ‘close’ mic and a ‘far’ or ‘room’ mic) for interior locations on screen and one close mic for exterior locations. The mixer is in control of the balance of these microphones and uses the two in combination to create perspectives or distance in the sounds.
This is a fairly fluid role and is often varied depending on the Foley studio. The editor may be part of the team before or after the recording stage. Sometimes the editor and mixer roles are combined. In general, though, the job of the Foley editor is to ensure that all of the recorded sounds are in sync and without any artifacts or distortion. The Foley editor uses software such as Pro Tools to perform these edits. The editor may also play a part in the creativity of the sounds; manipulating what was recorded into something different. For instance, they may pitch down a set of footsteps to give a character more weight.
First, we begin with the footsteps. The artist chooses a pair of shoes to suit the character and we go through scene-by-scene capturing footsteps. On our second pass through, we cover all of the props. These are items that the actors interact with that would make sound. This includes simple things like putting down a glass or shaking someone’s hand to more complex sounds like swords unsheathing or a person skateboarding. The final pass is the cloth pass. This is where the artist manipulates different types of material to capture the sounds of characters’ clothing movements. The cloth pass adds another layer of subtle depth to the soundtrack; giving the characters even more life.
Once all passes have been completed, and everything has been edited and synced, we prepare the session for delivery to the final mix stage. There, our tracks will be combined with the sound effects, dialog, and music to create the complete, finished soundtrack.
When Foley is done well, you generally don’t hear it. That’s because it fits in so seamlessly with what you are visually seeing that you shouldn’t notice it.
We often are so absorbed in what we are creating that it becomes almost a challenge to get a reaction out of each other.
When the artist performs a perfectly in sync, great sounding footstep pass, we all cheer. When we build a really gross sound, the usual indicator of where we’ve reached peak grossness is based on those reactions too. If the artist looks back and sees my face contorted in disgust, we know we’ve just made magic. Ultimately, the natural human elements that Foley can bring to a soundtrack are irreplaceable.
Article by SoundGirl: Chelsea Body
Another great article by SoundGirls: Dancing on the Demon of Ignorance
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The mission of SoundGirls.org is to inspire and empower the next generation of women in audio. Our mission is to create a supportive community for women in audio and music production, providing the tools, knowledge, and support to further their careers. SoundGirls.Org was formed in 2013 by veteran live sound engineers Karrie Keyes and Michelle Sabolchick Pettinato and operates under the Fiscal Sponsorship of The California Women’s Music Festival, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. In 2012, Karrie and Michelle participated in the “Women of Professional Concert Sound” panel at the AES Conference in San Francisco. The panel was hosted by the Women’s Audio Mission (WAM) and moderated by WAM founder Terri Winston. Terri brought together five women working in live and broadcast audio. The groundbreaking panel (which also included Jeri Palumbo, Claudia Engelhart and Deanne Franklin), provided young women and men a glimpse into life on the road, tips and advice, and a Q & A with the panelists. More importantly though, was how incredibly powerful the experience was for the panelists. We had all been in the business for 20 years or more, yet most of us had never met before that day and within minutes we bonded like long-lost sisters. We were struck by how similar our experiences, work ethics, and passions were and wondered why our paths had never crossed and how our careers would have been different had we been there to support each other through the years. Each of us are strong on our own, but together we were even stronger and a powerful force. We were empowered. Each of us had been asked hundreds of times in our careers: Are there other women doing sound? How did you get into sound? How would a young woman go about getting into sound? Through creating SoundGirls.Org, we hope to establish a place for women working in professional audio to come for support and advice, to share our success and failures, our joys and frustrations, and for empowerment and inspiration.
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