FLUTTER

What is Foley?

The soundtrack of a film or any other audio-visual production consists of three major elements: music, voice and sound effects. Foley sounds belong within the category of sound effects. In French they are called ‘bruitages’ and in Dutch ‘acteerklanken’.

Not all soundeffects are Foley. Although the borders between the different kinds of sound effects are not always clear, with Foley sound a typical “performance” element is important. Therefore a ‘Foley artist’ makes these sounds synchronous with the projected film images. Foley is about daily human sounds of putting down a glass, walking towards a door, putting on a leather coat, grabbing the doorhandle, ... Each person does this in his/her own distinct manner; there are a thousand ways of putting down a glass and walking towards a door. In addition, different glass/shoe - table/floor combinations make the sound even more specific. The editing of these sounds from a sound library would be too time consuming or even impossible, thus the Foley artist comes in and makes these sounds. A forest ambience, a gunshot, the motor of a spaceship, etc. are types of sound effects that are very suitable for collecting into a data base, but they are not Foley (no perferomance!) or usually not done by a Foley artist.

Foley supplies the subtle sounds that are mostly impossible to capture during the film shoot. Foley sounds have to be lifelike and clearly reflect a suitable emotion. A burglar, a man in love, an old woman or a child, each walks in a very different way. In daily reality we register these differences unconsciously, and so we must also perceive them in the movie theatre. When the Foley is not right or absent, the illusion of film doesn’t work so well anymore and we are pushed out of the story.

Foley is also of vital importance for animation films. It breathes life into the animations and makes them credible. Therefore the animations have to be Foleyed meticulously, but not necessarily realistically. For example, one can use the sound of the stretching of a balloon for the animation of an elephant's trunk being stretched.

In practice, Foley sounds are always traditionally generated by means of the most diverse materials, objects and apparatus.

 

The Foley studio

Foley is recorded in a sound studio especially designed for that purpose. The studio floor is embedded with a whole range of different surfaces (concrete, tiles, parquet, ...) and ‘pits’ with sand (sea sand, forest sand, gravel, ...), so that the right footstep sounds can be made. Because you have to be able to provide all kinds of scenes with the appropriate natural sound, a Foley studio is even equipped with a collection of chairs and doors, a kitchen, a water tank (the ‘splash tank’), half a car, a piece of stairs, ...

 

 

The Foley artist

The Foley artist “becomes” the personage on the screen. He performes the sounds efficiently, precisely and with respect towards the movement of the image and the story. This not easy because:

• the body has the tendency to tense up when it wants to do something synchronous with an image and in this way will not make the sound with the right natural quality.
• certain sounds (like footsteps) are very difficult to perform on the spot (near the microphone); Foley artists do a strange kind of dance when they make footsteps!
• a good deal of creativity is needed to be able to make all the sounds out of the available material.
• The Foley artist has to work very fast, since renting a Foley studio is an expensive affair. Many sounds have to be made in a day.

When the Foley artist goes to work, he brings suitcases full of his “instruments”. For example, for the sound of a fluttering pigeon, he hits his hands with a moist chamois!

The term Foley is named after ‘Jack Foley’ who invented this practice at the end of 1920’ies when films started to have synchronous sound. Universal Studios produced the silent film ‘Showboat’ which was in need of a soundtrack in order to be able to compete with the new sync-sound film ‘The Jazz Singer’. Jack and his 'sound men' came in the recording studio and made footstep sounds, hand claps, props, ... right beside the orchestra. Together they all played in sync to the projected picture and the first Foley session was born! Much later, recording technology would change the approach and Foley became a one-man show in a specialised studio.