This week we finalised the recording process of out foley and FX for our sounds replacement for Coraline "Don't Leave Me" scene. This process was extremely rewarding as an engineer I got to use my sound knowledge and skills in a totally different way than I had before. I am going to run through some of the research that we did in order to created these sounds and capture them in the best ability. One technique I researched was how to layer two sounds in order to create a more effective and realistic sound effect (INSIDER, 2016). This was also reiterated to me in a lecture I had this week with an industry professional. He demonstrated how he used location sound and foley blended together to get the final effect that was in the film. Somethings you can not capture on location like you can in the studio! (Jackson, S 2019)
How to layer two foley sounds to created a more realistic sound effect (start to finish foley recording included):
1. Pick the most appropriate microphone. We decided on a shot gun microphone to use in the foley studio as I stated in my previous post. This was due to the directional aspect of this mic that was the most efficient when recording softer sounds. We had a lot of clothing sounds to replicate in the process.
2. look up what sounds you need to recreate and how other people have achieved these. We encountered a few issues with this as the animation is very surreal and creating appropriate sounds was also very subjective. I watched some foley production videos to aid the process of making body hits and foot steps.
3. Set up your protools session- its best to create at least 10 tracks to begin with as you will work through them quickly once you get going.
4. Set up a screen of some sort in the foley room or studio. It is okay to use a regular studio if you need you may just need to use an extra computer monitor in the live room so you are able to see the play back of the video you are creating the sound for.
5. Work out a work flow that suits you. Set the microphone up in a way that will be convenient for a few different things. For example, pointing the mic to the ground in the foley pit to do the foot steps of a character, then the foot steps of another character after for efficiency. Carissa and I decided to get all the little sounds out of the way as we thought they would be the hardest. Then we did some ADR and then the rest of the more obvious foley such as foot steps, body hits and door slams in a separate session. The shot gun mic needs to be pointed DIRECTLY at the sound source. the distance for low volumes sounds could be anywhere between 20cm- 1M and for sharper and louder sounds 3-5 feet (Audio Technica, 2017).
6. We found that the most efficient way to work through the little sounds was to do them for each character for the whole scene before moving on. This was effective even when the tone of the clothing movements needed to change. For instance the pace of the clothing movements and the heaviness were different in the tunnel section of the scene compared to the light movements of Coraline's clothes as she breathes heavily when she is back in the real world.
7. Work out how you are going to recreate the sounds and remember that everything sounds different in headphones once it has run through the DAW. So make sure you are able to hear the sound you are making while you practice.
8. Now its time for your layer. If any of your sounds are lacking depth or realistic characteristics you can now work out ways to use you pre existing sounds and add a another layer.
9. work out why your sound isn't as effective as you'd like it to be. Does it not have enough bass? is it too tinny sounding? is it lacking a reverb element or ring to it? Find another object that you can create this missing element with.
10. play back the first layer sound in your head phones in the foley room as you created the other sound over the top.
11. Mix the sounds together with levels and by using EQ and effects such as reverb if needed to created your desired effect (Vimeo, 2015).
This video demonstrates the arts of layering sounds for a deeper effect. When is comes to foley. I especially like how he demonstrates different surface hits. This was very important in out sound replacement as there is three different environments that have completely different tones. The first body hit was in the spider web when Coraline struggles with her back pack. This was hard to recreate an impact. We used the visual to guide how we would make this sound. She appears to not hit the metal to hard. So to create this sound we used the same sound for the foot steps. We grabbed a section that has more of an impact and placed to where her body hits the we. We gained it up juts a little bit and EQ'd it to sound more punchy.
This video also demonstrates how to layer sounds to achieve a more realistic effect. It is commonly used when creating body hits on different surfaces. We used this technique in our sound replacement when Coraline kicks the other mother. We kicked a bin for the first layers, then whacked a stiff piece of cloth for the next. We added another layer of the door clanking also where we used keys smacking against the palm of my hand to have the effect of a door impacting the body as well.
This is what it sounds like:
I think that layering this type of sound if effective. So we recorded this sound with the shot gun mic for all three takes. The shot gun mic must be pointing directly at the sound source. This there was a few takes we did where the impact was slightly off axis to the mic and then ended up sound very muffled. This is only one layer when we hit the bin but you can hear just how important it is to make sure the tip of the microphone is pointing directly at the sound source.
like this:
The final environment we had to record a body hit for was a wooden floor board where Coraline falls through the door way back into the real world. It was really a matter of think what does the floor of an old Queenslander sound like when you sit down too hard. Creating the sound of old wood is hard because of the certain resonance that it has. We decided that we would go with the heavy cloth to create this sound. There was a plank of wood in the foley studio also, So, I placed that on the ground then thudded the cloth against it twice. As there is two parts to the fall. First her feet then hands and body. We will need to EQ this a fair bit when it comes to the mixing stage as the sound doesn't feel resonant enough. I plan on adding a reverb underneath the track ever so slightly and then EQ the reverb so that its very bassy. But I shall tell you about that in the next post about mixing.
So that's how we made all the body hit replacement sounds with the shot gun mic and by using layering to achieve the best result. We also layered the sound of Coralines footsteps as she climbed the spider web. The impact was making on sound and the web making a different one. So we used the cymbal as I mentioned before to create the foundation of the foot steps then layered it with my foot steps on the concrete to give it some depth. This was also a technique we used to differ between Coraline and the other mothers foot steps. They are obviously wearing different foot wear so we decided to try two different techniques for the foot steps. The second technique we tried was to use two objects that would create impact and tone in the one hit. After trying a number of things such as a metal pipe against a bin, finger cymbals against a cloth and some weird mech fabric again the concrete. I decided to try something random and picked up a brick. I hit the brick on the side of it with a metal pole. This had the depth and resonance that we needed in the sound. We will need to edit this however to make the sound more full and seperate the low and mid frequencies a little bit.
This is an a brief over view of some of the sounds and a production technique we used in order to create the most effective sound for our clip. I will post the mixed version in the next week or two stay tuned!
REFERNCES:
Foley Artists: How Movie Sound Effects Are Made. (2016). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_tqB4IZvMk
Herbs, R. (2016). Sound Design Building layering footsteps on a tight budget- How to. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl9T1B5jOlA
How Sounds Effects Are Made For Movies | Movies Insider. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elcOxmCBr3U
Mixing Foley. Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/125949435
Microphone Recording Techniques | Intro to Booming. (2017). Retrieved from https://blog.audio-technica.com/basic-audio-techniques-video-intro-booming/
Seth Jackson, Soul Sound Design, (2019)
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