Have you ever watched a film and wondered how the tiniest sounds, such as footsteps, doors creaking, drizzling rain, and creaking floors, somehow feel real? That’s the magic of Foley. Simply put, Foley is one of the core techniques in sound design, where every day noises are recreated to enhance the atmosphere and impact of a scene. And for this blog, we got to dive into it ourselves.
The theme for this production was simple: think of an everyday action, record a soundtrack around it, make it approximately 30 seconds long, and then figure out how to bring it to life in the Audio Production studio. After bouncing ideas back and forth, we decided upon… drum roll please… Opening a bag of chips! Quite anti-climactic, right? But the process was quite interesting…
From that idea, we built a story around it. We recorded Elina leaving her bedroom, walking into the living room, grabbing a bag of chips from the counter, settling onto the couch, and finally opening it. Even though the main act was the opening of the bag of chips, we had to factor in how many other sounds had to be layered in the bedroom door opening, footsteps, clothes rustling, grabbing the bag, sitting on the couch, the crunch of chips, and even the sounds from outside. Elina recorded those background sounds with a shotgun microphone to nail down the details (cars passing, kids playing).
Once this part was done, we met the next day for the fun part: recording the sounds. We stepped into the studio, divided the Foley tasks between us, and finally began recording. Some sounds took multiple takes, but in the end, it went a lot faster than we expected… that was before we received feedback.
The main roadblock that made us go back to re-recording was the misunderstanding of the ‘definition of what we were doing. Our biggest mistake was using / recording the actual sounds of the objects heard in the video (e.g., using a bag of chips to recreate the sound of a bag of chips) instead of using other objects that recreate the same sounds with more ‘life or accentuation (e.g., parchment paper / aluminium foil).
While recording the audio, we encountered a few difficulties. The first one is the steps on how to properly recreate a sound that would accurately resemble steps, and how to make it loud enough. Note, this was walking while wearing socks on a carpet. In the end, we decided to use socks in hands and clapping. Another challenge we faced was finding the right volume for the pop of the bag of chips. It kept being a bit too loud, so we decided to roll it down while mixing the sounds. Sound recording perspective plays a role, but that’s another blog altogether.
If I could describe this experience in one sentence, it would be: the most creative project I have ever done in my life. To anyone looking to start a Foley project, be prepared to come up with the most spontaneous ideas, use the most out of your creativity/imagination, and have lots of fun!
Watch the video to hear about our Foley sound choices!!
~ Elina Pavlovica and Melissa Matusse
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