Documenting The Doing #28: Foley

Production number 28 was well underway, and taking into consideration that we only had 1 day to plan and record this, I think we did quite well. Myself and fellow colleagues; Matthew Jury, Naomi Doddridge, Chloe Binding and Sam Shaw were all in a group together.

Our task was to recreate a scene from a given film, however only using sound. Foley was the key inspiration here and we had to use everyday objects to produce sounds which matched the scene from the 1979 hit film Alien. Our scene consisted of 2 main characters that appeared to have been in a ship which had crashed, hence the volume of sheer panic and catastrophic events.

Firstly, we had to create a Gantt Chart, which would make our lives a lot easier when it came to recording the sounds for the final production. A Gantt Chart is a type of bar chart, which was developed by Henry Gantt in the 1910s, that illustrates a project schedule. Gantt Charts illustrate the start and finish dates of the terminal elements and summary elements of a project.

Our Gantt Chart

We used this Gantt Chart to illustrate the specific sounds we would make, how long for and in what order. This made it a lot easier to edit, as it was just a case of matching this up with the footage. Before we began the chart, we watched the clip we were given and tried to think of ideas as to what sounds we could remake with everyday objects.

Foley Sound List

As we only had one day to complete the recordings, we were restricted on time and destinations. When it came to recording, we used Zoom and Boom microphones. In some cases, we used a 'dead cat', which is a fluffy texture that covers the Boom mic that blocks out any background noise, and focuses on the foreground noise that we made closest to the mic. 

We made sounds like with jewellery clanging on metal, heavy breathing, and deodorant spray for the steam/smoke. Taking everyday objects to create the sounds was easier than we thought it would be, as we just continued to find random things to bash together. Looking back, the planning was more work than the actual recording. 

OUR FINAL PRODUCTION: Foley

As stated before, as we used the Gantt Chart, is made our lives a whole lot easier when it came to editing. All we really had to do was follow it and make sure it matched up to the original clip we were given which had no sound on. We edited it all together as a group, because if we all followed the charts individually, we would pretty much have the same edit. Each and every one of us did have a specific input during the edit.

If I have the chance to do a Foley production again, I'd like us to be given at least a week to complete it, as I feel we rushed it and it wasn't as good as we thought it would be. We were so restricted on time that we didn't really plan any destinations to record in. I hope we get to experience another Foley production as I'd love to do a longer segment of a film, and maybe a film of our choice.

Cheerio. :o)

- Olivia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gantt_chart - accessed on 2nd-June-2014
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078748/ - accessed on 2nd-June-2014