Foley (cont'd)

What are some examples of sounds you make and props you use?
I have a metal hinge I use. I can put it on a piece of wood and it resonates to sound like the creak on a wooden gate. If I take the same hinge and put it on a piece of metal, it will be "echo-y" and eerie, like the creak of a metal gate at a haunted mansion. I have a creaky chair that I use for wooden floor and door creaks. Then, I can rotate that chair on a wooden platform that we have on the stage and make massive creaking noises that sound like a giant ship. That sound is also processed with a harmonizer and pitched down in the mixing control room. A harmonizer pitches sound up or down in octaves. The mixer uses this and other audio gear to enhance what the Foley artist does when recording the sound.

Sometimes the actual props that are in the movie don’t sound as good, and that’s part of being a Foley artist, too. You have to find other props that make those sounds. And a lot of it is improvising and knowing what props to use and that just comes with experience.

There are also many different surfaces on the Foley stage: wood, cement, gravel, and dirt, for whatever the character is walking on. Other sounds we commonly make are windows breaking, car crashes, horse hoof steps and galloping.

For something like a car crash, for instance, would you do multiple passes?
Yes, lots of passes: a screech, an impact, glass, glass debris, a "ronk" (a metal screech). Then we play all those channels at the same time. We have the big boom, the glass breaking, glass debris dropping on the car and hitting the ground. It sounds like a huge car crash.

How long does it take to do Foley on a feature film?
It takes anywhere from two to seven weeks. We normally work on six to ten minutes of a film in a day, covered wall to wall with sound. The number of tracks or channels recorded depends on the number of props used or passes made.