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In sound design, Foley is the reproduction of everyday that are added to films, videos, and other media in post-production to enhance audio quality. It is named after sound-effects artist Jack Foley. Foley sounds are used to enhance the auditory experience of viewers across film, audio dramas, and video games. They can be anything from the swishing of clothing and footsteps to squeaky doors and breaking glass. Foley can also be used to cover up unwanted sounds captured on the set of a movie during filming, such as overflying airplanes or passing traffic.Singer, Philip R. "Art of Foley". Marblehead Publishing Co. Web. 1 July 2010.
Places where the Foley process takes place are often referred to as a Foley stage or Foley studio. A Foley artist recreates the realistic Background noise that are portrayed in the film. The props and sets of a film often do not react the same way acoustically as their real-life counterparts, requiring filmmakers to Foley the sounds. The best Foley art is so well integrated into a film that it goes unnoticed by the audience. It helps to create a sense of reality within a scene. Without these crucial , movies feel unnaturally quiet and uncomfortable.
Jack Donovan FoleyAll Things Considered. " Jack Foley: Feet to the Stars : NPR:" National Public Radio: Mar.–Apr. 2000. Web. 2 July 2010. started working with Universal Studios in 1914 during the silent movie era. When Warner Studios released The Jazz Singer, its first film to include sound, Universal knew it needed to stay competitive and called for any employees who had radio experience to come forward. Foley became part of the sound crew that turned Universal's then-upcoming "silent" musical Show Boat into a musical.
Because of the time could not pick up more than dialogue, other sounds had to be added in after the film was shot. Foley and his small crew projected the film on a screen while recording a single track of audio that captured their live . Their timing had to be perfect, so that footsteps and closing doors synchronized with the actors' motions in the film. Jack Foley created sounds for films until his death in 1967. His basic methods are still used today.
When Warner Brothers introduced the Vitaphone, allowing for sound to be synchronized to the moving picture, it included a musical score and sound effects in its 1926 film Don Juan.
Modern Foley art has progressed as recording technology has progressed. Today, sounds do not have to be recorded live on a single track of audio. They can be captured separately on individual tracks and carefully synchronized with their visual counterpart.Bloom, Leslie. "YouTube – Leslie Bloome – Foley Artist." YouTube – Broadcast Yourself. Nov.–Dec. 2009. Web. 1 July 2010. Foley studios employ hundreds of props and digital effects to recreate the ambient sounds of their films.
Foley sounds are added to the film in post-production after the film has been shot. The need for replacing or enhancing sounds in a film production arises from the fact that, very often, the original sounds captured during shooting are obstructed by noise or are not convincing enough to underscore the visual effect or action. For example, fist-fighting scenes in an action movie are usually staged by the stunt actors and therefore do not have the actual sounds of blows landing. Props, sets, and costumes are often constructed of relatively cheap and lightweight materials that visually resemble but do not actually sound like the materials their real counterparts are made of. Crashes and explosions are often added or enhanced at the post-production stage. The desired effect is to add back to the original soundtrack the sounds that were excluded during recording. By excluding these sounds during field recording, and then adding them back into the soundtrack during post-production, the editors have complete control over how each noise sounds, its quality, and the relative volume. Foley effects add depth and realism to the audio quality for multimedia sources.
Foley artists review the film as it runs to figure out what sounds they need to achieve the desired sound and results. Once they gather the material and prepare for use, they practice the sounds. When they accomplish the desired sound, they watch the film and add in the sound effects at the same time. This is similar to the way actors re-record dialogue, lip-syncing to the video or film image.
Scenes where dialogue is replaced using dubbing also feature Foley sounds. Automatic dialogue replacement (ADR) is the process in which voice sounds are recorded in post production. This is done by a machine that runs the voice sounds with the film forward and backward to get the sound to run with the film. The objective of the ADR technique is to add sound effects into the film after filming, so the voice sounds are synchronized. Many sounds are not added at the time of filming, and microphones might not capture a sound the way the audience expects to hear it.Pramaggiore, Maria, and Tom Wallis. Film: A Critical Introduction. 2 ed. London: Laurence King Publishing Ltd., 2008. Print.
The need for Foley rose dramatically when studios began to distribute films internationally in countries that mandated dialogue to be dubbed in their respective language. As the actor's voices are muted in order to make way for the voice actors, all incidental sounds recorded on-location are lost as a result of them being captured with the same equipment as the dialogue.
Foley art can be broken down into three main categories — feet, moves, and specifics.
Foley effects help the viewer judge the size of a space. For example, a large hall has strong reverberation, while a small room may have only slight reverberation.
In Star Wars, Ben Burtt introduced a number of custom effects used for the franchise. The light saber buzz was a film projector motor mixed with television Cathode-ray tube hum and further mixed. Blasters were based on the sound of taut radio tower being struck with items such as small wrenches, Darth Vader's breathing on a diving regulator. The TIE fighter swoosh is a mix of slowed-down elephant herd noises and cars driving through water, Chewbacca's voice includes the moaning of a walrus stranded in a dry pool along with other animal vocalization, and R2-D2's booping talk includes Burtt's own voice mixed in with the synthesized sounds to humanize its robotic affect.
The Firesign Theatre, a comedic radio play troupe, occasionally broke the fourth wall to poke fun at these conventions ("It had been snowing in Santa Barbara ever since the top of the page and I had to shake the cornstarch off my mukluks"), as did comedy players Monty Python in their film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which included a running joke of knights pretending to ride horses as squires followed behind, clapping coconut halves.
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