Che-Cheh

Ok here’s the post about Foley Sound Effects. At the Singapore’s Star Wars exhibition we went to a studio called Foley studio. There was a TV screen that come with 3 buttons: record, play and rewind, several stalks of plastic leaves, pots, dustbin cover, broom, baking utensils, etc. We waited a minute or two for more people to join in the fun.

We were shown the fighting scene between ewoks and stromtroopers as we had seen in Return of The Jedi. Then we were shown the “ORIGINAL” fighting scene where we heard plenty of unwanted sound such as the director’s cuts, people talking, etc. We were assigned to make sound effect of the fighting scene by using the apparatus in the studio such as pots, leaves, plastic sound, etc. There was a lucky guy who was assigned to sound like C3PO. The end result ? We created sound effect just like the fighting scene in the movie but C3PO voice was lost in the making. Hehehehe…Oklah actually it was the worst fighting scene sound effect that I have ever heard but it was fun learning this technique.

“Jack Foley was the developer of many sound effect techniques used in filmmaking. He is attributed for inventing the art of Foley which is the process of adding sounds effects such as footsteps and enviromental sounds to films. Because most of the time sound effect are rarely recorded at the same time as dialogue and action, since the sound mix is so difficult to balance; the foley artist listens to the dialogue track for the (usually quite faint) sounds of, for instance, footsteps, a door slam, etc. and records them onto a new track in synch with the action onscreen.

The foley artist also adds sounds that may not exist at all on the original track: for instance, thumping watermelons or cracking bamboo to create the sounds of a fight. Many foley artists take pride in constructing their own sound effects apparatus, frequently using simple, common materials. Some of the “making-of” features show foley artists at work. The contrast between the action on the screen and the down-home effects is striking.

How Effects are Sometimes Made

Horses’ Hooves: Banging empty coconut shells together
Kissing: Kissing back of hand
Punching someone: Thumping watermelons
High heels: Artist walks in high heels on wooden platform
Bonebreaking blow: Breaking celery or bamboo
Footsteps in snow: Squeezing a box of corn starch
Star-Wars sliding doors: Sheet of paper pulled out of envelope
Bird flapping its wings: Pair of gloves
Grass or leaves crunching: Balled up 1/4″ audio tape”

source from wikipedia. I edited some of it.