The Art of Foley & why the film industry needs them. Know what a foley artists does, and the various equipment they use to create the various sound effects.
Introduction
In Hollywood, everything is make-believe, even the sounds. When you watch a film that immerses you completely in its world, much of the credit goes to the sound artists.
If the work is done right, you won’t be able to tell that the “natural” sounds on screen are actually manufactured inside the studio using studio props. That’s what Foley artists do.
Foley is another layer of sound for movies, and was named after Jack Foley!
If you get the opportunity to watch post production work, you will hear terms like foley studio, foley sheets, foley footsteps, foley reels, foley walker, foley editor. And they all are named after the man — Jack Foley.
Awesome documentary shows how movie sound effects are created behind the scenes
Why You Need Foley Artists
Here are top reasons why foley artists are required for any movie or video game production.
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Need for Realistic Sounds
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Re-dub Original Dialogues
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Remove Undesired Sounds
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Need for Better Sound Coherence
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Experience Counts
- Footsteps
- Door shut
- Fight sequencer
- Pouring water in glass
- horse rides, and more
On most sets and in most scenes, almost everything is fake from the walls to the ground, so the original sounds need to be reproduced more realistically for a much deeper impact on the audience.
Original dialogues that don’t sound good (polluted by unwanted noises) are replaced during ADR session (Automated Dialogue Replacement) to have a much better quality sound.
But when you do that, you create “sound holes” because there is no more “ambiance” (clothes sounds for examples), so you need to fill those gaps with something that sounds more natural and free-flowing to the ears.
There are always polluting noises that cover the original sounds, when shooting, that need to be replaced. That is where these guys can help using special software.
Almost every sequence is shot nowadays using multiple cameras, from different angles, and placed in different places.
So you need someone to make all those originally recorded audio, sound more coherent.
You do get tons of sound effect libraries but at times you need to be more creative to add that true personality/character to the sound.
That’s where experience can drastically improve the sound (the top artists do charge a bomb).
Here’s a video showing Foley artists at work on the cut scenes of SOCOM 3 (Playstation video game):
Foley Artist Equipment Tricks
Foley Artists are the unseen heroes who use their wizardry to create some amazing sounds for movies. Here are videos that demonstrate the tricks & equipment that they use to create some awesome sound effects, which we all just take for granted.
Foley Equipment
To achieve all those foley effects, the artists have tons of tricks, and their equipment usually includes a huge collection of everyday shoes, clothes, doors, plates, glasses, toys, tools, and even vegetables.
It’s fun to see them work with all their secret objects, to reproduce unexpected sounds, in order to give life to a movie.
Here’s a behind-the-scenes short film of Foley Artists performing live foley effects to an action caper (Track Stars):
So how do you learn this art?
Sound courses can definitely help you to learn the basics of software, but after that it’s experience and a lot of time spent in experimenting what works and what doesn’t.
Here’s another one (fun and realistic) showing foley artistry at work.
Foley Artist Job Description
When it’s comes to audio use in movies, it’s not always about music and rhythm, you also need a lots of sound effects more on the lines of “natural human sounds”.
That is where these artistes play their part; they reproduce all the “natural human sounds”, which includes sounds for:
On the other hand, sounds for laser guns, car engines, explosions are created by sound designers (mostly by using computers).
How Do they Record?
The recording session is known as a “foley session” and it happens in a post production studio, after the editing is done.
Every specified sound is performed live and recorded, while the image is projected.
As you can see, this job requires excellent synchronization skills, a lot of “feeling” and of course the ability to reproduce a particular sound instantly.
At times, it does get act very close to acting.
What Qualities Do Foley Artists Need
Foley artists are excellent “listeners” of everyday life sounds and perfectly know what material is needed to reproduce that sound.
They also have very good idea of microphone placements to reproduce different levels of sound perception.
A foley artist really has an important role to play, and is a tremendous help in many situations.
How Much Do Foley artists Get Pais?
The sky is the limit if you are good at your job, and also spend time meeting the right people and keeping the right relationships.
Top professional sound designer or foley artists can easily cost $around 1 $million.
Here’s a video that demonstrates the job description of a foley artist and how they create the various Sound Effects.
Useful Links
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