Common Foley Practices
Spotting Sheets and Cue Sheets
When creating Foley for a scene, many artists will first break down what they see in a scene by watching the video clip and taking a note of what sound effects occur onto what's called a "spotting sheet". According to Bravyha Menon, an experienced audio engineer and artist, "The spotting sheet is a piece of document which has the breakdown of all the scenes with the timestamp and their corresponding sound. It is very useful to have a spotting it as it helps you organize your session and plan your project," (Menon, 2019). These types of documents have been used for decades to organise sound in media.
Ref: Menon, B. (2019). Foley Session – Arctic. [Online]. Bhavyasm. Last Updated: 26 February 2019. Available at: https://bhavyasm.wordpress.com/2019/02/26/foley-session-arctic/ [Accessed 20 March 2024].
An example of a spotting sheet:
These sheets will usually detail:
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The title of the piece of media
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The name of the foley artist(s)
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The name of the effect
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The category the effect falls under (ambience, for example)
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The timestamp of when the effect occurs (sometimes both "in and out" if its longer)
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A description of the sound occurring in the scene
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The source of the effect, be that how the effect is made or where its externally sourced from
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Any additional costs to production
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Additional notes the Foley producer has for each specific sound effect
This is similar to a "Cue Sheet" which does the same for the music of a film. It's a required document that lists all the music and compositions in a piece of film or media with additional information such as time stamps, music artists, music sources, and a description of the scene. Similar documents can be used for ADR too (automatic dialogue replacement) which lists the time stamps of where dialogue audio needs to be replaced. Shown below is a Music Cue sheet from an episode of The Simpsons (left) and an ADR cue sheet from Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (right).
It's important to note that the timestamps listed on these documents are usually in SMPTE Timecode format which is the industry standard for labelling time in motion picture media. It's a format that allows easy synchronisation and editing within the media. SMPTE timecode appears as hour:minute:second:frame when displayed digitally. Frame rate can complicate things a bit with this format. David Zylber on 3PLAYMEDIA states: "Frame rate is important for SMPTE timecode because it dictates how many frames per second (fps) appear in the media. The final part of the SMPTE timecode reflects the frame number; this number can only go as high as the frame rate. For instance, if your frame rate is 29.97 fps, the timecode after hh:mm:01:29 would be hh:mm:02:00," (Zylber, 2023).
When do spotting for my own project I should try and use SMPTE as it's in line with professional practices and Logic Pro does have an SMPTE timecode mode. Knowing my project's framerate will help me understand the displayed timecode too and be crucial to how I sync my recorded foley audio.
Ref: Zylber, D. (2023). SMPTE Timecode Explained. [Online]. 3PLAYMEDIA. Last Updated: 14 March 2023. Available at: https://support.3playmedia.com/hc/en-us/articles/227730848-SMPTE-Timecode-Explained [Accessed 20 March 2024].
In regards to this this information and my project, creating a professional style spotting document in Microsoft XCEL or Google Sheets with SMPTE timecodes is a very efficient way of organising my project. It works as a way to plan out how I work in the studio after gathering my final video clip(s) and will help me sync up the recorded audio accurately. I can also use it to plan what materials and equipment I may need to gather for individual sounds.
Foley "Recipes" : A Summary of the Recreation of Sound Effects
As mentioned in my "Overview of Music and Sound in Film" page, Foley artists will record a variety of props to represent different sounds in movies because it could be impractical to record the exact same action into a mic for. Additionally, recording the same action, may not sound as good from a creative alternative. Using these objects might also be more cost effective for the movie (my own project itself will be made on a very low budget too so this research could help in that aspect too).
A good example of all this is violent sound effects for action scenes. If a movie needs a punching sound effect, you are not going to record someone being physically punched into a microphone. That's assault, and painful. Also, the pain wouldn't be worth it as it doesn't sound good or exciting, as according to Ric Viers in "The Sound Effects Bible" "they are a quick flesh impact with not really much sonic life to them," (Viers, 2008) (don't ask how he knows this). Viers continues by suggesting a better way to produce a more exciting sound effect:
"Personally, I like to start with a leather impact and sweeten it with some vegetable splats to help emphasize the fleshy tone of the punch. You can also layer bone breaks and other impacts underneath the punch. Some sound designers add a little reverb to create a larger-than-life crack. And speaking of cracks, the crack of a bull whip can also simulate a punch." (Viers, 2008)
Reading this gives insight into how professional Foley artists use a variety of objects at hand to produce a given sound. For my project, I can research these different "recipes" to create certain sound effects at a professional quality. Foley artists will also layer multiple sounds at times to create a bigger or busier sound effect that could be impossible to produce if it was a single sound on its own. It also helps add and emphasize detail to the scene seen on screen. All this raises the quality of the sound effects. Again, I need to take this into account when making my sound effects as my aim is to create sound effects of a professional quality.
Side note from 27/04/2024: Initially, before I started my project I thought I would need to research quite a lot of Foley recipes. But to my surprise so far, I've actually been able to use my own creative intuition to determine how I should make specific sound effects. For example, in my Toy Story 2 clip I was able to recreate a pump noise using a toy Nerf gun I found under my bed from 15 years ago. I also manged to recreate a squeaky chair noise using an old rusty vice from my dad's garage. I've had good feedback on these effects too that say they sound very professional (see evaluation section). So overall, I'm proud of myself that I've managed to this with little research and gives me a lot of confidence in my own work. I have researched recipes so I'll list some interesting things I've found, then I'll talk about one of the sound effects I know for certain I'll need to research for a future section of my foley clips.
Here's a list of some methods Foley artists will use to create convincing sound effects:
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Monster sounds can be made by shouting or growling into a metal bin, which creates a good amount of resonance to your voice. Varying the size on the object you shout into can give different effects.
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"Woosh" sound effects can be made by whipping a stick past a microphone
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Star Wars created its blaster rifle sounds by hitting a large metal wire
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Vegetables are great for creating crunchy breaking sounds, slimy squishy textures, juicy impacts, eating sounds*, and more.
*I ended up recording many sound effects involving carrots for my Wallace and Gromit clip. Gromit chops up a bunch of carrots and a hoard of bunnies eat the carrots.
Ref: Viers, R. (2008). The Sound Effects Bible. Studio City, Los Angeles, CA: Michael Wiese Productions. p.255
Researching Specific Sound Effects for my Clip
Horse and Carriage Sound Effects
In one of the clips I've chosen to redub in my project, Lord of the Rings, there is a scene in which Gandalf arrives on a horse drawn carriage. This could, in my opinion be a complicated scene to do foley for. A horse drawn carriage has a lot of different parts; the horse, the carriage wheels, the movement of "clutter" aboard the carriage, and the creaking of wood. So, this sound effect will require a lot of careful layering. But how do I create these layers in the first place?
First, the horse itself. Surprisingly, this is easy, and I already know what to do. Horse hooves are one of the most well known Foley tricks out there. You simply use two halves of a coconut to recreate the rhythmic "clip clop" sound. This has been referenced many times in pop culture too, probably most famously in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Michael Palin even did a short comedic bonus step-by-step section about how you recreate these horse hoof sound effects. Using this unconventional but surprisingly highly accurate information, I will do the same. I just need to find where I can buy a coconut.
Next, the wagon, the clutter onboard, and the horse bridle. For this, I looked around online for some form of tutorial on this. I managed to find a video from Routledge's "Companion Websites" YouTube channel talking about this subject and they analyse how Foley was created for the horses in the 1994 film "City Slickers II". It gave me further insight into using the coconuts for the horse hooves and it detailed some techniques for the carriage. She used a desk chair on a pile of wooden pallets to recreate it. I think I can do something similar for my scene as I can easily find a desk chair and similar materials in college which will hopefully recreate a good effect. She also used an actual bridle for the bridle sound effects and went in to detail about how muffling the metal sounds with different materials can create different sound textures which add detail and depth so a scene's sound. I think I may be able to recreate bridle sounds with maybe a leather jacket, some chain jewellery, and carabiner clips but I'm open to some experimentation.
For a wider pool of information, I also watched a video from the "Foley Tricks" YouTube channel. For the carriage creaks they also used wooden pallets but instead opted to use large wooden sticks with them to recreate that "creaky" sound. I'm unsure if I can find large wooden pallets so I don't know if this option is open to me so I think the desk chair may be better.
They also used a small vice to recreate some squeak sounds. I have an old squeaky vice in the garage which was also going to be used for a small chair in a previous clip too so that is definitely an option.
Finally, for the wheels themselves, they used a Foley pit to scrape a log along some gravel/dirt. As of right now, I do not have a Foley pit and it may be impractical to build and take a full scale one into college with a large, heavy bag of gravel. Instead, I'm thinking of taking a very large shallow plastic tub of gravel into college may be a good alternative. My only worry is that the tub may cause the timbre of the Foley to sound unnatural, accentuating the higher frequencies of the effect. Again, I might have to do some physical experimenting on the day of recording.
Watching these two videos has given me insight into the techniques used by industry professionals. I should take note of these techniques to help me produce a professional, high quality final product.
Using EQ, Effects, and more to sculpt a Sound
Foley artists will use several editing techniques and filters to enhance a recorded sound. This can be to match the action shown on screen, its environment, and the materials in the scene.
The equalisation tool/filter can be applied to a sound to cut high/low frequencies or boost/reduce the gain of certain bandwidths of sound frequencies. This can be used to remove any unwanted frequencies from the mix or articulate certain ranges of frequencies. Applying this in the correct way can alter your sound to make it more accurate or impactful for what's on screen.
As seen on the right, the EQ in Logic has a range of controls. The graph measures the frequencies present in your sound from 20Hz to 20kHz. Each of the points have an adjustable bandwidth which each can be raised or lowered, increasing or lowering their volume. For example, if I wanted to raise the volume of the 4-7kHz range (this range is known as presence), I would take one of the nearby points, adjust its bandwidth appropriately and raise its gain.
This would accentuate this frequency range, which would change the overall timbre and texture of the heard sound. Additionally, I can also use the two points at either end to completely cut off the end frequency ranges. This can be useful if you want to remove excess bass or treble from your sound.
In Foley I can use these methods to change the tone of my recorded sound effects to match what is seen on screen.
"EQ can be applied to almost all elements of Foley, starting from putting corrections to the low cut filter on footsteps, to say, adding more articulation to various kinds of cloth and doing a boost on mids. Of course, we don't process every single region or clip, but we do clean it from unnecessary frequencies for the further mix." (Pridachin, 2020)
Ref: Pridachin, Y. (2020). Processing Foley with plug-ins. [Online]. FoleyFirst. Last Updated: 28 May 2020. Available at: https://foleyfirst.com/blog/processing-foley-with-plug-ins/ [Accessed 30 April 2024].
Pitch shifting a sound effect can be very useful when creating Foley. A pitch shifter can be applied in the mixing channel. The pitch of a sound can help portray whether the object making sound is big or small. Small objects tend to be high pitched, large objects tend to be lower pitched. It's simple physics. Big things will produce a lower frequency sound due to their susceptibility to fewer vibrations and smaller things will produce a higher frequency due to their susceptibility more vibrations. Therefore, in
Foley I can make an object sound bigger/smaller using pitch.
Pitch is measured in cents and each 100 cents is the same difference between a half step in traditional western music (like the difference between A and A♭ or E and F). Pitch shifters are pretty simple in DAWs in that they will use cents to measure how much you want to pitch up or down. Logic's pitch shift effect have a variety of controls:
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Adjust the pitch in semitones: (-12 to 12 semitones or -1200 to 1200 cents)
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Adjust/fine tune the pitch in cents (-50 to 50 cents)
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Determine the mix percentage between the original and effects signal
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Latency compensation: Compensates for delay generated by using the effect
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A variety of algorithmic timing options for the effect
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Effect delay (for foley I should keep this at 0ms)
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Crossfade slider (determines the percentage of the original signal that should be analysed for pitch shifting).
Using these controls effectively will help me develop sound effects that more accurately depict different actions on screen. In the past, I have had issues with pitch shifters causing distortion in my sounds. This could be an issue with the PC itself being unable to handle certain effects as they use CPU and RAM as sometimes these distortions can't be heard in the exported project.
Another effect commonly applied to Foley is reverb. This can really help sell to the audience the ambience of a certain environment. An extreme example of this would be if a character was walking in a large empty hall or cave. In order for their footsteps to sound realistic, you'd need to add reverb to the Foley because in large empty rooms, sound is easily reflected and reverberated. The scene would simply be unconvincing without it. Reverb can be used in different cases in varying amounts depending on the desired effect. In my project, there's a few cases when I've needed reverb. One such case is when Gromit (in my Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit clip) throws some carrots down a long chute. The long metallic tunnel would create a lot of reverb and it would sound unnatural without it.
Like pitch shift and EQ, reverb is applied to a mixer channel and has a variety of controls. I usually use Silververb, which simulates reverb and allows you to control the parameters of the room, including the reflectivity, and size of the room. On top of that, you can make a "predelay" time between the original and reflected signal and control the duration of the the reverb. There's also a low cut and a high cut filter, which is useful for shaping the texture of you reverberations. There's an LFO modulator too, with parameters to set its intensity, and finally "wet" and "dry" sliders to determine the balance between the original (dry) and new (wet) signal.
Using these parameters effectively can help develop convincing soundscapes in Foley for a variety of different scenarios.
