The Use of Foley in Films

The use of Foley in Films

Foley is the reproduction of everyday sound effects which are added in post production to enhance the quality of audio for films, television, video, video games and radio. These reproduced sounds can be anything from the swishing of clothing and footsteps to squeaky doors and breaking glass. 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 background noises, movies feel unnaturally quiet and uncomfortable. 

Foley is often recorded by the artists watching the film and recording sounds that create a normal effect for what the audience is seeing. For example, if the audience were to see a woman running in high heels the Foley artist would watch the clip and record themselves tapping a pair of high heels on a surface that matches the sound of the surface shown on the screen in time to the woman running. 

Foley allows filmmakers to put more realistic sounds into the production of the film. Sounds, also don't have to be   recorded in a studio, Foley allows for film makers to record sound effects on location so that the right atmosphere is recorded at the time rather that adding it in as an after effect. 

An example of this is in Peter Jackson's The Hobbit : an Unexpected Journey. In the scene in caves with the Goblins and Dwarves all of the sounds you hear for example, the sword fighting and the sounds of things breaking like wooden boxes, were recorded in some caves in New Zeland to create the echo that caves naturally have. 

  
In the video clip you can hear the sound of the swords, clashing against one another and the wooden structure of the mines collapsing. All of the sounds you hear have a slight echo, the sounds is not repeated like a normal echo but smoothly held and faded which really gives you an insight to the surroundings and puts the audience in the same spacial awareness that the characters are in. 

According to Chris Ward (co-supervising sound editor) a technique that they used to create this echo is impulse responses. Impulse Response is a technique that allows you to measure the sound response to changes in the environment, by picking up the frequencies from different airwaves. For example the frequency picked up from a clap recorded in a, studio would come back much sharper than a clap recorded in some caves, because caves have a natural echo due to their acoustics and studios have flat surfaces that reflect sound much more clearly.
If you would like to know any more on this the video I got my evidence from is linked here: http://soundworkscollection.com/videos/hobbit

In my opinion one of the most interesting and fun parts of Foley comes in after the recording. For a lot of films, especially in the Fantasy and Sci-Fi genre, common sounds may not suit the need so in comes sound modulation.

Sound Modulation is simply taking the recorded sound and changing the pitch, level and the frequency that it works on to create a new sound. You can also layer different recordings to create something very unnatural. An Example of this is in George Lucas' Star Wars movies, the sound of the TIE fighter is a drastically altered Elephant bellow.

At 3.02 you see the fighthers come in and the sound you hear with them moving is the sound of the Elephant's bellow. This scene also contains a lot of SFX for the laser blats coming from the various ships guns, the sound for which was created by, according to Filmsound.org, Ben Burt (Foley artist for Star Wars) tapping a hammer on the guy wire of a radio tower, illustrated here by this image.

  This, personally is my favourite part of Foley because they take something that's and organic sound that you would find anywhere, in the real world, and turned it inorganic to create the unnatural world that the films are set in. This scene in particular has a very good example of this with the TIE fighters but as well with the sound of the laser blasts, you can hear the attack as the hammer hits the wire and the reverberation as it fades out. All of the sound is synchronous and diegetic so it puts the audience into the films, making the story seem more realistic than it is.
All of my information on the creation of these sounds and a few more was taken from filmsound.org/starwars

Wes Craven's Nightmare on Elm Street displays a much simpler take on Foley. According to Michael Payne, Supervising Sound Effects Editor,created most of the “finger-knives” sound effects using a variety of long blades:
machetes, bayonets, Titanium martial arts swords. To Help the sound of he blade ring out more.

At 1.36 you hear the sound of Freddie Kruger flexing his hand and scraping his blades whilst he is doing this. The sound diegetic, so it is coming from within the film world, you can see that also the other characters can hear this sound, due to their reactions of fear. This technique of Foley is similar to that of the one used in The Hobbit, as it uses layering and a variation of organic sounds, to create the desired sound. The layering technique is also used in Star Wars, however, Nightmare on Elm Street have stayed away from sound modulation, which, although the film is based on a fictional character, it is set in the 'real world', so the Foley Artists need to maintain a sense of realism. The combination of the sound coming from within the film ( being diegetic ) and the use of organic sounds,  blurs the line between the film world and the reality that the audience are in, with the addition of the setting being the present day for when the film was created, this, in turn adds a more chilling effect to the scene and brings the audience out of their comfort zone. 
All of my evidence for how the Foley was created in this scene was taken from an interview at this web address: http://designingsound.org/2010/05/a-nightmare-on-elm-street-exclusive-interview-with-andrew-decristofaro-michael-payne-and-david-farmer/