The Foley Grail This page intentionally left blank The Foley Grail The Art of Performing Sound for Film, Games, and Animation Vanessa Theme Ament AmsterdAm • Boston • HeidelBerg • london • new York • oxford • PAris • sAn diego • sAn frAncisco • singAPore • sYdneY • tokYo focal Press is an imprint of elsevier Focal Press is an imprint of Elsevier 30 Corporate Drive, Suite 400, Burlington, MA 01803, USA Linacre House, Jordan Hill, Oxford OX2 8DP, UK © 2009 Elsevier, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Permissions may be sought directly from Elsevier’s Science & Technology Rights Department in Oxford, UK: phone: (+44) 1865 843830, fax: (+44) 1865 853333, E-mail: [email protected]. You may also complete your request online via the Elsevier homepage (http://elsevier.com), by selecting “Support & Contact” then “Copyright and Permission” and then “Obtaining Permissions.” Recognizing the importance of preserving what has been written, Elsevier prints its books on acid-free paper whenever possible. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ament, Vanessa Theme. The foley grail : the art of performing sound for film, games, and animation / Vanessa Theme Ament. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 978-0-240-81125-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Motion pictures–Sound effects. 2. Animation (Cinematography) 3. Digital video. I. Title. TK7881.4.A48 2009 791.4302′4–dc22 2008048986 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: 978-0-240-81125-3 For information on all Focal Press publications visit our website at www.books.elsevier.com 09 10 11 12 13 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America Working together to grow libraries in developing countries www.elsevier.com | www.bookaid.org | www.sabre.org Contents Foreword vii Introduction ix Preface xiii Part 1 ● What We Do and Why 1 ChAPTer 1 holy Foley: The evolution of a Craft 3 ChAPTer 2 Noise vs. Sound: Foley As It Is Used in the Various Genres and Styles of Film, Animation, and Games 17 ChAPTer 3 Single or Married: Foley Used Independently or Combined with Sound effects 27 Part 2 ● The Protocols, Conventions, and hierarchy 33 ChAPTer 4 Fire in the hole: The Players and Their responsibilities 35 ChAPTer 5 Let’s Go Ahead and Go Back: Spotting and Cueing 43 ChAPTer 6 Scene Change: The Foley Stage, Mixing Booth, and Prop room 53 Part 3 ● The Art and Craft of Foley 73 ChAPTer 7 Walking in Their Shoes: Performing the Footsteps 75 ChAPTer 8 What We Use For ... : Performing the Props 89 ChAPTer 9 hang It as a Unit: The Knack for Sync 103 ChAPTer 10 Magic Wind: Unusual Foley requests 109 ChAPTer 11 Mix and Match: The Foley Mixer 117 Part 4 ● editing and Mixing 129 ChAPTer 12 I Miss Mag: editing Foley 131 ChAPTer 13 Fix It in Post: The Dub 139 Part 5 ● Looking Forward 147 ChAPTer 14 The Ivory Tower: The Film School 149 ChAPTer 15 Checkski: Final Thoughts of experts 163 Part 6 ● Appendix 169 “Post” Script: An homage to Our Tutor 171 Glossary 177 Index 183 About the Author 196 About the DVD 198 This page intentionally left blank Foreword When my then-future publisher asked me if I felt I could write an entire book on the subject of motion picture sound, I asked, “How many volumes would you like?” Frankly, every chapter of my own book could be fully expanded into a comprehensive book on its own. I have been practicing the art form of sound for more than 30 years, and I am happy to say that I still learn new things virtually every day. Nobody knows everything on a given subject—I mean nobody. There are few finite rights and wrongs in any art form. Certainly in the sound arts there is always room for discussion and the sharing of different points of view and techniques. Many readers and some professionals have graciously commented that Chapter 17 of my own book was arguably the complete word on the art form, technique, and disciplines of Foley. Nothing could be farther from the truth. When I received an email inquiry from my publisher asking if I thought there was room for a dedicated book on Foley, I snapped back a reply without hesitation. I wrote that there absolutely was room for a book on Foley—but, in my opinion, only if it were written by Vanessa Ament. As a veteran filmmaker myself, I am well aware of the lack of under- standing among some producers and directors about how much value good Foley can bring to their soundtracks. I would like to think that my own chapter has opened many an eye and especially many an ear of both professional filmmakers and of the future producers and direc- tors among our students. As an educator at North Carolina School of the Arts, I know the added value that Hollywood professionals can bring to college film programs around the world, so I always thought I would love to see a dedicated book on the subject of Foley. I had hoped such a book would delve into the many facets of the techniques, strategies, and recording disciplines that are so fascinating to anyone who visits a Foley stage. But I had also hoped that such a book could better inform those industry people who have the power to make scheduling and budgeting decisions for postproduction sound. It is common, but com- pletely unnecessary, for simple mistakes made at this stage to limit the logistics and creativity that Foley artists are eager to contribute to our soundtracks. The true mettle of a veteran Foley artist is the ability to create more out of nothing in less time than would be believed possible, even by experienced supervising sound editors. Such has been my personal experience through many movies with Vanessa. ii I was once handed two pictures in a row that had been burdened with Foley budgets and schedules that could only be described as ridicu- lous—they were virtually structured for failure. I went to Vanessa hat in hand and knowing that there was no way to get any more Foley time into the budget. Both of these pictures should have had at least a ten- day Foley schedule to adequately cover the sound. Instead, each feature had only two days of Foley stage budgeted—only two! I knew exactly what sound cues I could dig out of my sound library to add in. Vanessa and I sat down and quickly reviewed what cues could be recorded “wild” on the Foley stage, but which I could cut as if they were “hard FX,” and which other cues I absolutely had to have per- formed in sync on the Foley stage. Motion picture sound equipment and software are changing every six minutes, but you cannot go to the store, plop your money down, and buy 20 years of experience. Here you have the book on the art of Foley, written by one of the industry’s best supervising Foley artists. Vanessa and the many veteran Foley artists, editors, and mixers she ail has interviewed for this long-awaited book have all generously shared r their experience and the everyday details of their crafts with the reader. G y Expect to be empowered and inspired throughout this journey with e ol everything Foley is capable of doing for a film, for a computer game, or F e for any animation project. Vanessa shows you how, in every movie, h T sonic reality is re-created on the Foley stage. Using imagination, you | can take the simplest props to create audio magic and turn a prosaic i ii moment on the screen into a delicious moment, finding the sound that so many directors are seeking: “The sound that nobody has heard before.” I will be the first in line to buy and immerse myself into Vanessa’s book, which I know will be a wealth of great advice and artistic techniques. Enjoy. I know I will. David Lewis Yewdall Supervising Sound Editor Motion Picture Sound Editors (MPSE) Film School Faculty, North Carolina School of the Arts Author, Practical Art of Motion Picture Sound (Focal Press) Introduction This is a story about a handful of unusual people working in the arts. Not one of them planned on or expected to be where we find them now, in a profession that really didn’t exist when many of them were born. To tell this story well, I want to introduce you to an extraordinary woman, who herself embodies a collection of the rare qualities enjoyed (in different combinations) by all the subjects of her writing. The author sometimes thinks that she wears a lot of hats—perhaps too many hats to have real credibility in any single profession. But so, too, do the people she writes about. They are the many-hatted people of motion picture postproduction. Of Vanessa’s many personal facets, the flamboyant and fashionable “Auntie Mame” part of her would prob- ably say that what makes people interesting is, indeed, all the various hats they have worn in life. But there is a point to be made regarding this multiplicity of figura- tive chapeaux: People in the arts count themselves lucky when they find paying work in some field that is even remotely related to their art of preference. I believe that these people most often have a surprising variety of skills, including the ability to creatively transliterate the dis- ciplines of one art form to another. I tell my own students, for instance, that my experience as a visual printmaker has helped me learn to layer sound effects in movies. While the movie business has always been unfairly derided as a magnet for narcissists, loonies, misfits, irresponsible flakes, crooks, and rascals of all kinds (no less than Washington and Wall Street, come to think of it), it is also an industrial magnet for smart, earthy, well- grounded, and very substantial creative people, and most of these will never be famous outside of their working community. This is a place where they can sublimate their artistry using specialized skills in the performing and the technical arts and discover a way to do so consis- tently as a professional worker. Musicians, painters, actors, and writers are among the animators, editors, mixers, Foley artists, and sound designers with whom we have had the fun of working. A hairstylist may change an appointment because she has an audition. An independent producer may be deliver- ing your pizza. I am not referring here to the ridiculous mythology about stars being discovered at Schwab’s Drug Store. (This was the essential myth of fame for a couple of generations before American Idol.) Rather, Vanessa tells us about a population of real working people, middle-class people, who make a living in the film industry. There probably is not ix
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