Foley

13/10/14

Foley

A foley artist (AKA foley operator) is a person who creates foley sound effects. 

Deffinition:

Fo-Ley

1. A technical process by which sounds are created or altered for use in a film, video or other electronically produced work

2. A person who creates or alters sounds using this process.

(after Jack Foley 1891-1967, pioneering sound effect at universal studios in the 1930's)

Foley is the art of recreating incidental sound effects (such as footsteps) in synchronisation with the visual component of the movie. Named after an early practitioner. Foley artists sometimes use bizarre objects and methods to achieve sound effects, e.g snapping celery to mimic breaking bones. The sounds are often exaggerated for extra effect, fight sequences are almost always accompanied by loud foley added thuds and slaps. Sound is a vital and vey powerful component within the production of film and animation. It can enhance the overall experience exponentially.

For this project i will be given a sort film sequence and i will record my own sound effects and add them to the film. 

I will watch the sequence fist and decide where i think sound should go and what type of sound it should be. I will identify ambient sounds and, soundtrack and foley. I will consider how i will create the sounds i need with regards to props or actions and what locations if need be they would need to be recorded in (eg road for traffic sounds). I will not however watch the origional sequence with sound, as this could cause me to simply try and coppy the sound add in the origional animation as opposed to thinking my self about what the sound could be, what would fit in and what would work best.

 Gary Hecker Doing foley sounds:

This video show how foley artists work and how unusual objects can be used to made the desired sound for the film. 

i decided to look at examples of foley artists who have created sound for animation as the short clip i will be working from is a clip from the animation Wall-E.
Interviw with Gary Rydsrom, Sound designer on Toy Story:

This video shows how cartoon animations can in a way have their own separate world to create with the sounds not necessarily always having to sound so realistic as with films that involve people and recorded shots of acting location dialog etc. The Foley artist for animation can use more bazaar sounds and the nature of the cartoon world will create a sense of different laws of the world for the audience and there for making the audience believe in that world and the sounds within it this can be heard even in the dialog of the actors speaking for the characters in the animation of toy story. One example shown in this video is the part when the artist is trying to record a sound for bulseye the toy horse licking woody's face. The noise he uses is is an over the top sloppy loud licking sound, and he uses the noise of a cows long sticky tongue licking peanut butter to get this sound.

This is the sound i made and added to the short clip for Wall-E.
The clip involves a lot of metal and so when looking for objects to use to make sound the metallic objects were the go to objects. I looked at each of the movements within the clip and decided what sounds to make. The heavy door movement in the scene when the door opens and hits the ground. i used an electric razor to make this sound (the same noise i used for when wall e moved as it made a robotic buzzing sound that was effective for this movement) and slowed it down to sound like a heavy machinery sound and to emphasise the slow movement of the door and its weight. this  noise leo sounds a bit echoey and the metal building it is attached to would vibrate and echo slightly as this was move and so again this noise was very effective at this point. Another noise i created for the door movement was metallic squeaks to suggest rusted metal forcing past each other and friction of metal as it moved. I made this squeaky rusted sound by rubbing the wires of a head massager against metal.
Metal head massager:

There were small sounds to consider swell such as when wall touched or grabbed things i added a small metal noise that sounded like his metal hand grabbing whatever it was. Also there was a part in the animation where he brushes something off him straight after he moved the metal strips around near the door. I added sound for this which was simple scraping of two metal objects together quickly.
Over all i think the effect of this piece is good as the sound is all in time with the actions that happen in the animation and they sound like the actions being perfumed.
I used a variety of different types of sound such as ambient sound with the wind at the beginning, foley sounds such as the metallic clanks of when wall e touches things and also music, when wall e turns on the music play and music plays. I have also experimented with overlapping different types of sound when i had the music and the foley sounds playing at the same time when wall e is moving around and doing things while the music was playing. I made sure that the two sounds didn't sound too busy together and that they were the right levels in comparison to each other.

 Running a spoon along bumpy metal to make the noise for wall e cranking to when he needs to reach the light switch and the tv. the bumped metal noises one after the other makes a mechanical cranking of levels sound.

Some of the objects we used (mostly metallic).