Foley Reflection

What the project involved:

The project for this task was to do a Foley on Cloudy with a chance of meatballs dock scene. My group also had to do voiceovers of the 2 main characters and other ambient sounds such as footsteps, ocean, dropping of food, bird noises, eating sounds, and clanking noises. I worked in a group of 4 with Zack, Bruno and Max plus myself, we each had individual cues and roles for what we were going to be recording individually, we developed a cue sheet to help us with our organisation of this.

How I developed my ideas:

I developed my ideas for this Foley project by tapping certain materials and objects to try and recreate realistic sound effects for specific scenes, communication with my group also helped me to develop and expand on the sound bank we already had, to recreate the sound of burgers dropping we used our own bodies by slapping them. Most of the ideas that were developed were experimentation and worked well, there was little error on any of the sounds we came up with. The cue sheet helped to develop my ideas for the 30 seconds slot I had to record in, this meant when I went into the recording studio I knew everything that I was going to do beforehand.

Research I needed to do:

For my research I watched a video on Foley which showed us two actors who recreated different sounds in a studio live whilst the film was playing so there were many different objects scattered around to try and recreate realistic sound effects by smashing, throwing, stepping and walking.

How my research influenced my ideas:

The foley video I watched helped me to experiment with many different sounds when me and my group got hold of different objects, it allowed me to use my own body as a sound too rather than looking for an object to recreate this.

Software that I used:

The software I used was Adobe Audition Pro CC 2018 to edit the sounds and crop anything that wasn’t needed.  I also used Premiere Pro CC 2018 to add the video to the audio.

Tools that I used:

I decreased the volume levels on certain recordings to try and make the overall sound one consistent volume. I used the razor tool to cut off unneeded audio, e.g. dialogue that wasn’t part of the script.

How I exported the project:

From Adobe Audition Pro CC 2018 I exported it into Premiere Pro CC 2018 so I could then add the video and link up the audio. I then exported the final piece as format H.264 and then uploaded it to Youtube.

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Here is my completed Foley work..

What went well:

  • Recording the sounds.
  • Making the sounds.
  • Working in a group.

What I found difficult:

  • Getting rid of the echo in the audio.
  • Recording footsteps.
  • Thinking of where certain sounds would work in scenes.

What I would do differently next time:

  • Next time I would be more organised on where I put my cue sheet so I can share it with my group.
  • Record more audio so I can get more quality sounds to work with
  • Audio files were messed up so I should bring in my my hard drive in the future.

Is it a successful piece of work:

Its mostly successful as we recorded most of the main audio and there was a lot of dead air in some scenes, sometimes audio would cut out and cut back in again; if this could have been avoided it would have been completely successful. Overall the main dialogue was recorded so the large part of it was finished.

Film audio worksheet

Watching the videos about Foley and sound effects, answer the following questions.

 

  • What is production sound?

Production sound is the dialogue on set with is either recorded live on set or in a studio.

  • What is Ambience?

Ambience is the atmosphere of the props create on set giving the film a more horrifying vibe and make the setting. (rusty swing, creaky door etc)

  • What are Library effects?

Library effect is the music track which is put into the film making a scene more special or if its an action movie and theres a fight scene it makes the song look more EPIC.

  • What is Foley?

Foley is a room which is use to record sounds that didn’t pick up as well on the camera so these people go in and tap on the ground with their feet, break glass, play with materials to make a scene have no awkward gaps.

  • Why do film makers use sound effects?

Film makers use sound affects so the viewer and have fun and be in the moment of that film instead of being silent…unless the film is made intentionally without sound affects.

  • How much of what you hear in a film do you think was recorded ‘for real’ by the camera.

i feel like a film would 50% be for real as some films which have dialogue or no cgi. But scenes with cgi would be recorded in the Foley

  • Why is it called Foley?
  • When did filmmakers first start using Foley effects?
  • How is it usually recorded?
  • Where did it initially come from in history?
  • What films are famous for using it?
  • Describe a foley session.
  • What do you notice about the microphone placement in the 1970s foley session. Why do you think they placed the mics like that?

 

 

Then, watching the ADR videos.

  • What is ADR?
  • Why is it used?
  • What does ADR stand for?
  • Describe an ADR session?
  • What does ADR allow you to do?
  • What do you need to consider when organising an ADR session?
  • How ‘automatic’ do you think it really is?