hey guys welcome back to another
installment of our sweet sound tutorial
videos that we're doing in conjunction
with the dolby institute so sit back
relax and learn some cool tricks on how
to make the foley in your videos sound
better than ever
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so you're on set you have your mic and
you're focused on recording the lines of
your actor like any good mic operator
but what about the other sounds the
sound of their clothes what they're
interacting with their footsteps well
it's not really practical to have 12
mics on set capturing all of this but
that's the kind of detail that really
brings the scene to life so that's where
foley comes in so what is foley foley is
simply the recreation of everyday sounds
in film and video that aren't usually
captured by your microphone so too
mundane but good examples are footsteps
and clothes shuffling but foley isn't
really just the boring stuff take an
action scene for example handling of
weapons and gear the wrestling of combat
are all usually added in this foley
process most professional audio
engineers record fully from large
high-tech sound stages and studios
around the world filled with sandboxes
and random items that they can quickly
draw sounds from but that doesn't mean
that you can't do it at home just as
easily so when we're recording foley
this is our checklist first set up a
reference video to watch at the same
time we use adobe audition for this
it times up if we're doing gear for a
fight scene it makes it a lot easier to
match the audio with the video you'll
also want to use the same microphone you
used on set if possible it makes the
audio match up that much easier exactly
and last but not least make sure it's
quiet fans windows dogs everything out
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and trying to get reverb in your
recordings that really sells that you're
in a room rather than the space where
you film this shot yeah unless you're
actually in the room when you film in
the shop unless you're actually yeah
in the room then ask yourself
what am i trying to recreate
let's say we have a character running
around with a ton of swords and a cool
jacket
i'll kill you at 20.
unlikely
sales stores are really plastic props
and they kind of sound like it also
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yeah that was cool not to mention the
boom operator is most likely recording
the character's voice so the mic is even
aimed at the weapon what
so for our scene we'd sit down with a
couple of dull metal weapons
or some aluminum swords instead because
we got these
and uh record similar motions with them
or heck you know get kitchen knives
whatever something that works and for
kicks we'd grab our cool jacket too and
get some great sounds whipping it around
so that it sounds good with each swing
fully sounds for the jacket ready
cool
hold the sword
fully sounds
yeah
when doing fully try not to uh
how awesome your sound is yeah
yeah don't do that sometimes when
recording adr too that happens like
someone says the line you're like they
scream super loud and i start like
laughing and you're like laughing in the
background
i don't edit it out
yay but above all don't be afraid to
think outside the box here for sounds
sometimes sounds on set or the actual
sounds objects make don't sound very
good and you will need to kind of use
some abstraction there to find something
that works case in point all sprinkles
commercials are like they're snapping
into those chips
yeah that's eggshells being crunched
really oh just thinking about what
cool examples from our videos include
blood dragon where our sound designer
used this distorted low bass guitar for
all the futuristic sword effects
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[Applause]
and uh also sometimes we find that uh
using snow packed like crunching sounds
and walking through that sounds way
better than actually walking through
dirt if you have a character walk
in dirt get creative one thing that
people get very confused about with
foley is they're like oh so like mean
sound effects put sound effects in your
piece to make it better well that's why
foley is different it's not like a
singular sound effect that you're
putting into your piece usually these
objects people are interacting with and
these movements span entire scenes and
sequences rather than going
and making that one sound effect file
and like placing it in every single spot
where an action like that happened it's
way quicker and easier just to watch a
scene
just make all the movements as you see
them happen on camera basically timing
everything up he basically can do the
entire scene in one pass rather than
having to finagle like a thousand
different little clips exactly when
watching a piece you'd be very surprised
at how much stuff is added in later um
even though it sounds like oh the guy's
opening the door it's like no that's
that's well that's a door sound effect
or like a guy's rustling through files
and paper on his desk is like there's no
way they're actually capturing all that
audio on set you have to go to your
studio and record it all there duh
don't worry hey stop stop stacy stop
come on
stop drop it
[Applause]
i mean the big thing is foley lets you
make your movie hyper real it makes you
hyper aware of everything that's going
on and it helps to elevate that like
magic of cinema exactly because you know
audio cues are very powerful as we're
saying and when you bring attention to
these objects that normally seem mundane
or simple people pay more attention to
it you know they focus on well like
what's what's the point why why is this
important and basically just keeps the
audience more engaged with your scene i
hope you guys learned something about
foley here and uh audio design in
general i know i certainly did wow we're
doing a lot more audio videos so if you
like this stay subscribed and we have a
bunch more cool tactics such as audio
mixing and a mystery topic coming up
soon
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