General question about audio in films...

[Rylan Zolinski]

I'm no expert in audio but I have always wondered... is audio (besides dialogue) usually captured naturally or made by a foley artist? Like for say foot steps, the wind blowing, a boxer punching another boxer, a crowd cheering, a car whizzing by and smacking a puddle...

 

[-Sandro-]

I'd like to know too

 

[Alex H.]

The most important goal of production sound is to capture clean dialog. Everything else is added in post.

Some of it is Foley (it's capitalized, by the way). Some of it is SFX (this is different from Foley in that SFX are recorded independently of picture, and sometimes come from pre-recorded SFX libraries). Punches, hits, footsteps, paper, fabric, water... these are all under the domain of Foley or SFX.

Things like crowds cheering, restaurant walla, bords chirping in the background, wind blowing through trees... these are all ambient sound beds. Some sound beds may be recorded on (or near) the production location, and others may come from pre-recorded libraries. Some wind effects, however, may be Foley or SFX.

There are seldom occasions where production sound may have captured something that the sound designer likes and wants to use, but those instances are more the exception than the rule.

 

[Richard Crowley]

The most important goal of production sound is to capture clean dialog.

And even that doesn't always happen to the satisfaction of the sound designer, editor or producer. Hence dialog replacement (aka "looping" or "ADR"). There are probably major motion pictures that contain ZERO recorded production sound, even dialog.

 

[Noiz2]

And even that doesn't always happen to the satisfaction of the sound designer, editor or producer. Hence dialog replacement (aka "looping" or "ADR"). There are probably major motion pictures that contain ZERO recorded production sound, even dialog.

Films like the original Star Wars would be strong candidates in the US market. Hong Kong action films are traditionally not shot with sound at all so those are 100% post.

To the OP.

As Alex said anything other than dialog in a big film is almost certainly added in post.

Foley gets confused with SFX work. Foley is performed live to picture on a Foley stage and recorded. Depending on the show and budget just about anything can be done in Foley BUT as a rule time and money limit Foley work to FOOTSTEPS, CLOTH, and THINGS the actors handle. The last may be extensively covered in FX, or not.

It's a lot faster to do a lot of that kind of thing in Foley but it's also expensive. So generally anything that can be covered by FX is and what they can't do is assigned to Foley.

FX are recorded all over the place (including on Foley stages). Ambiences would all be FX. Any Foley from another show that is used by the FX editors is now an FX not Foley. Only stuff recorded to THE picture your working on is Foley.

Al of the sounds are cataloged and stored in the "library". So the more shows an editor or a facility does the bigger the library and the more you can "pull" instead of go out and record. A "good" film will always record new stuff if only the signature things for that show (the heros car, or gun, or ...).

On a "normal" film (one with a regular post and a sound crew) one of the dialog editors jobs is to separate the dialog from anything not dialog. So aside from the fact that production really should be focusing on getting clean dialog, the dialog editor will hate you if they have to spend a lot of time cutting out what should not have been recorded in the first place. We are on a hard deadline usually and a pretty fixed budget so he/she is already working very long hours and cutting a tone of "junk" out of the dialog track was not figured into the time line.

On super low budget (no budget, mini-Indis, etc) you are not going through a full post. I will be using whatever I can from the production tracks so I won't "hate" you but I won't be all that happy either. If dialog has a bunch of other stuff on it then if it works OK I'm fine but nine times out of ten that production FX doesn't sound good or correct. So now I'm having to spend time I don't really have trying to cut it out.

Of course the smaller your film and the less experienced the editor the smaller the library they probably have access to and the less likely they are to go out and record. So those folks might be glad for the junk. But your film will be better if you force them to go out and get the sound that work rather than giving them the out of having some production that kind of gets by.

Kind of over answered but this is a question that comes up fairly often.

 

[Rylan Zolinski]

Films like the original Star Wars would be strong candidates in the US market. Hong Kong action films are traditionally not shot with sound at all so those are 100% post.

To the OP.

As Alex said anything other than dialog in a big film is almost certainly added in post.

Foley gets confused with SFX work. Foley is performed live to picture on a Foley stage and recorded. Depending on the show and budget just about anything can be done in Foley BUT as a rule time and money limit Foley work to FOOTSTEPS, CLOTH, and THINGS the actors handle. The last may be extensively covered in FX, or not.

It's a lot faster to do a lot of that kind of thing in Foley but it's also expensive. So generally anything that can be covered by FX is and what they can't do is assigned to Foley.

FX are recorded all over the place (including on Foley stages). Ambiences would all be FX. Any Foley from another show that is used by the FX editors is now an FX not Foley. Only stuff recorded to THE picture your working on is Foley.

Al of the sounds are cataloged and stored in the "library". So the more shows an editor or a facility does the bigger the library and the more you can "pull" instead of go out and record. A "good" film will always record new stuff if only the signature things for that show (the heros car, or gun, or ...).

On a "normal" film (one with a regular post and a sound crew) one of the dialog editors jobs is to separate the dialog from anything not dialog. So aside from the fact that production really should be focusing on getting clean dialog, the dialog editor will hate you if they have to spend a lot of time cutting out what should not have been recorded in the first place. We are on a hard deadline usually and a pretty fixed budget so he/she is already working very long hours and cutting a tone of "junk" out of the dialog track was not figured into the time line.

On super low budget (no budget, mini-Indis, etc) you are not going through a full post. I will be using whatever I can from the production tracks so I won't "hate" you but I won't be all that happy either. If dialog has a bunch of other stuff on it then if it works OK I'm fine but nine times out of ten that production FX doesn't sound good or correct. So now I'm having to spend time I don't really have trying to cut it out.

Of course the smaller your film and the less experienced the editor the smaller the library they probably have access to and the less likely they are to go out and record. So those folks might be glad for the junk. But your film will be better if you force them to go out and get the sound that work rather than giving them the out of having some production that kind of gets by.

Kind of over answered but this is a question that comes up fairly often.

I am just trying to make sense of this. A lot of movies recycle the same SFX?

 

[ryanjf]

I am just trying to make sense of this. A lot of movies recycle the same SFX?

Yep... It's not even just movies, TV shows do it too. I hear a lot of the Sound Ideas and Hollywood Edge SFX all over the place. There was a show on Discovery that my buddy was working on and he brought the same SFX from the previous episode into the new one and started from there. The turnaround time for him was less than 16 hours to cut a little over 50 minutes of material..

 

[Alex H.]

I am just trying to make sense of this. A lot of movies recycle the same SFX?

There are public libraries and private libraries. Many of the public libraries are widely available (BBC, Warner Brothers, Sony Pictures, Hollywood Edge) but are expensive. Most every sound designer has his/her own private collection as well, and sounds from those collections will end up in more than one project. Private libraries are collections of sounds that they have gathered and recorded on their own over the years, and many sound designers have libraries they've purchased in addition to their personal material. There's also a lot of sound trading, so designers will swap sounds from their personal collections between each other.

BUT... this isn't just a matter of the exact, same sound showing up in several films. FX editing is an intense art form that includes layering and manipulating. So, yes... the same lion roar may be in four films, but it won't sound the same. It may be slowed down and pitch-shifted a couple of octaves below to create a very menacing, very bass-heavy rumble for a very large monster; and it will be layered with several other sounds (metallic sounds, perhaps drones from musical instruments... it's all up to the designer) that have also been manipulated to sound uncomfortably eerie for the audience.

Other, simpler sounds may show up occasionally without much pitch-and-time manipulation. Average, everyday things like paper and fabric, if they aren't added by Foley, may be used over and over. The audience won't notice, though. These sounds are surrounded by so many other things and they are so plain that the viewer likely won't say to him/herself, "Wow! I heard that piece of paper in two other films!" Plus, most libraries have at least a dozen (usually more) versions of any given sound.

There are, however, some very recognizable sounds that show up in countless films. Some of these have become legendary, and their uses are more an homage to old-school Hollywood. Or, perhaps, it's an inside joke among sound designers. The one that you'll recognize easily is the Wilhelm scream. More recently, there are a female scream and a female gasp (both from Hollywood Edge) that I've been hearing in almost every movie trailer.

So, yes... sounds get recycled. But that's not a bad thing.

 

[Noiz2]

I am just trying to make sense of this. A lot of movies recycle the same SFX?

All the time. But as others have pointed out in most cases the sound that is recycled is just one small part of the "sound" the audience hears. Classic examples are punches in action films and pretty much any explosion. Those "sounds" are heavily layered up. A typical punch is four layers+. You have a high med and low "hit" and a whoosh. Depending on what is being "hit" you may also have an impact sound(s) of a not "hit" nature. So you may reuse the same med hit a bunch of times but it won't be the same because it's married to other sounds and the whole group interacts.

On a series show like TV or say StarWars, you have a bunch of signature sounds that you reuse. Luke's light saber always sounds like his light saber because the library of sounds that make it up are reused whenever his light saber is in use.

If the hero drives car X, you will build up a library for that car and use those sounds for that car whenever it's on the screen.

Low budget films by folks who don't have a lot of experience tend to use all commercial SFX so those sounds have been recycled thousands of times. More experienced folks will record new stuff as much as possible.

You record new if you can get the actual thing you need (ie that hero's car) and because you get to build your library. A good personal library is a big selling point when your trying to get a gig doing sound for a show.

If you already have a bunch of sound X in the library you use that if you can so you can spend the time/ budget you have for recording the stuff you don't have covered. Also sound folks tend to trade sounds with each other so it's a plus if you have a library that has some unique stuff in it.

And when you go out recording you always try to really cover whatever it is so you have more in the library for the next time you need sound X.

My library is a quarter of a million sounds or so most of which are not available commercially.

The biggest plus to having a large personal library is that you know it really well. The cataloging software will find the car we recorded for a police chase but I personally know that we tried to jump a ditch with it (unsuccessfully) and there is a great exhaust pipe clang on that take.

I probably have that noted also but there are a lot of details that are not in the library partially because of time and partially because they predate the software and all that is noted is in the name.
Point is often you are not looking for "A" sound but something that sounds like xyz. Descriptions don't really do it, you have to know what the sounds are in the library.

 

[vic777]

the wind blowing, a boxer punching another boxer, a crowd cheering, a car whizzing by and smacking a puddle...

Both ways, if you can capture a natural sound and it then sounds, "real", you use it, otherwise you make something "better" artificially. You do whatever you have to do to get the sound. For a car splashing thru a puddle, I'd record the real thing first, then see if I had to "make/find" a "better" puddle etc.

 

[Noiz2]

Both ways, if you can capture a natural sound and it then sounds, "real", you use it, otherwise you make something "better" artificially. You do whatever you have to do to get the sound. For a car splashing thru a puddle, I'd record the real thing first, then see if I had to "make/find" a "better" puddle etc.

I think the OP was asking if all those things were recorded in production. You are talking about FX recording.

The only quibble I would have with the above is the use of the word "artificially". That kind of assumes there is something not artificial in a film. Everything in a film is artificial Maybe a bit arguable in a doc, but not always...

The closest you could come to a "real" sound would be production FX. On a film with a budget (we really need a term for this but I'm using it to refer to a film where everyone is making a living at their job) there are close to zero PFX used in the finished film.

Now you used quotes so I assume you were essentially saying the same thing. This is more clarification for the OP and others who might misinterpret the use of "real".

 

[Rylan Zolinski]

I think the OP was asking if all those things were recorded in production. You are talking about FX recording.

The only quibble I would have with the above is the use of the word "artificially". That kind of assumes there is something not artificial in a film. Everything in a film is artificial Maybe a bit arguable in a doc, but not always...

The closest you could come to a "real" sound would be production FX. On a film with a budget (we really need a term for this but I'm using it to refer to a film where everyone is making a living at their job) there are close to zero PFX used in the finished film.

Now you used quotes so I assume you were essentially saying the same thing. This is more clarification for the OP and others who might misinterpret the use of "real".

So anything from people walking, someone setting their hat down on a desk, turning a light switch on, taking off their shoes, etc. This is all recorded separately? How is it scored separately and how is it synced?

 

[Alex H.]

So anything from people walking, someone setting their hat down on a desk, turning a light switch on, taking off their shoes, etc. This is all recorded separately? How is it scored separately and how is it synced?

Sounds like that, which happen as a result of actors' movements, are typically done with Foley.

In a Foley studio, there's a recording system with video playback. They get a viewing copy of the film and, after organizing a spot list of everything that needs work, go through the film shot-by-shot. As each shot/scene is played back, a Foley artist (who has a closet full of gadgets and noisemakers) creates sounds to match the on-cam action. Walking is done on textured surfaces, usually with one of a broad selection of shoe styles.

Once all the Foley is complete, that session is exported and sent back to the mix stage to be incorporated into the final mix with the dialog, FX, and music.

There's a great video on Vimeo that looks at a Foley artist in action:

But for low-budget/no-budget projects, if you aren't working with an extensive post-production crew in the sound department, this can still be done with simple means. All you need are a good sound recorder, a decent recording environment, a good mic (condenser), and a playback system to watch the movie (and headphones, of course). Even if you record them one-by-one without time code sync... if you are creating the sounds by hand as you watch the video played back, it's Foley.

 

[Noiz2]

Nice film. I just noticed I know the director! He was an intern for a friend of mine.... Very small world.

Anyway Morox, yes all that is replaced. Either with Foley or FX. The light switch for instance would probably be FX, the book down Foley (though also maybe FX), Walking and taking shoes off would be Foley and the sit down would probably be a bit of both.

Things like doors and locks are often FX. A one shot sound that people often have a bunch of in the library tend to go to FX where on-going things like footsteps tend to go to Foley. But there is a lot of cross over. Usually because one or the other knows it's easier for them to do. Sometimes both will do parts and sometimes both will do the whole bit.

Bottom line is none of it comes from production.

 

[davefisk]

This is the way I learned when I was an intern at Danetracks (they are famous for doing post production sound on the Matrix).

-The main concern with production sound is getting as clean a dialogue track as possible.

-Post production audio is broken down into several sections for different editors or departments to handle

-Sound Effects are usually handled by one, maybe two, if not more (depending on the film or specific scene) editors

-Backgrounds are usually handled by one person

-Dialogue is usually handed by one or two people (depending on the film)

-Sound Design is usually another person

-There is usually a sound supervisor, who could be any one of the people listed above, or someone else.

-Foley is recorded, and then edited later.

It is important to note that all of these things are recorded (in the case of Foley), or cut to picture so things are in sync. The post audio team can range anywhere from 2 to 3 people to upwards of 10 people. In LOTR The Two Towers, the battle at Helms Deep had a bunch of people on it. One sound editors job was solely to cut the sounds of arrows flying through the air. Another person did weapon impacts...and so on...because the scene was so big. It is also important to remember that Foley is basically anything the human body touches. So, when someone picks up a book, sits in a chair, walks, scratches their face, breaks an arm, buttons a shirt...or anything involving the body interacting with the environment, that is usually covered by Foley. Typically, someone will do what's called "spot the Foley" before it's recorded. There are different methods of doing this. What this basically means is someone sets up a Foley session (I always did this in Pro Tools) that notates where foley should be and what it should be. For example, when I was working on Drawn Together, I would have a footstep track for each character, a few tracks for hands, a few tracks for body falls, and a few misc. tracks. So, for Captain Hero's footstep track, I would literally create a blank region for the amount of time that Captain Hero is walking in a scene. That way the foley artist and mixer can just jump from one cue to the next and move quickly, and they don't have to spend a lot of time figuring out what they need to record. It allows them more time figuring out how to record, which is much more creative, and can be time consuming, but it's a lot of fun.

Now, everything I described is what you would see in a big budget feature. When I would work on low to no budget projects, I would have to pull sound effects from my library and actually cut the Foley sound effects in from there by hand, and that is not ideal, and I don't think that is technically Foley, but the term gets thrown around anyway as a descriptor of what is being cut, and track names in Pro Tools.


If you want, I can get into a detailed description on workflow, but that's kinda lengthy, and I didn't want to include that here since that kinda gets off topic, but it is important.

 

[drapeama]

There's a great video on Vimeo that looks at a Foley artist in action:

Great share, thanks a lot for this one!

 

[timbook2]

So if its all Foley and FX and just the dialogue is important, why do the sound guys bring along 8 and 10 channel mixers and record 8 and more mic channels at once when there are only 2 persons speaking?
And why does a good sound person stay on the scene afterwards and record "atmos" ( the silence or atmosphere of the location ) ???
Just to say that these "rules" or "facts" posted here are:
1. not always true
2. can be broken

 

[Richard Crowley]

So if its all Foley and FX and just the dialogue is important, why do the sound guys bring along 8 and 10 channel mixers and record 8 and more mic channels at once when there are only 2 persons speaking?

8 channels for two speaking parts? I'd like to see some kind of evidence of that. I could see recording a wireless lav on each and a couple of booms, but that is far from 8 channels.

And why does a good sound person stay on the scene afterwards and record "atmos" ( the silence or atmosphere of the location ) ???

Because when you are editing the dialog recorded on the set, clean "room tone" preserves the ambient BG vs. gaps of silence (etc.) Of course if you are adding significant other background sounds (as in a battle scene, for example) or music, etc, this is not so important.

 

[Alex H.]

So if its all Foley and FX and just the dialogue is important, why do the sound guys bring along 8 and 10 channel mixers and record 8 and more mic channels at once when there are only 2 persons speaking?
And why does a good sound person stay on the scene afterwards and record "atmos" ( the silence or atmosphere of the location ) ???

Well, let's see... there's a boom. That's one track of recording. There may be a second boom, which is a second track of recording. Both actors may be wearing lavs, so that's your record tracks 3 and 4. There may even be a couple of plant mics on the set, to help give backup coverage where the booms may not reach (but this isn't an absolute... depends on the sound person and depends on the production). Oh, and there's probably a 2-channel mix (even if it's mono) being recorded at the same time. The individual mics are iso'd so that the audio post editors and mixers can go back to the source.

The "atmos", which is really called "room tone", is a recording of the room's natural noise floor. This noise floor may be from lighting ballasts, distant traffic, HVAC, computers, etc. It's constantly there under the dialog. So when dialog is cut together from different takes, the room tone is used to smooth out the edits so that there isn't a drastic and noticeable silence between lines.

Just to say that these "rules" or "facts" posted here are:
1. not always true
2. can be broken

Well, any rule can be broken at some point. I wouldn't say that they're "not always true". This is the way it's done on professional sets with realistic budgets for both production sound and post-production sound.

For amateurs and hobbyists, anything goes (and it shows).

For small-budget productions, there are corners cut. There may not be any multi-tracking. Everything may be done off boom, or everything may be done on lavs. But clean dialog is still the first and foremost goal of production sound.

 

[Noiz2]

So if its all Foley and FX and just the dialogue is important, why do the sound guys bring along 8 and 10 channel mixers and record 8 and more mic channels at once when there are only 2 persons speaking?

I can see the mixer but I doubt that they are recording a lot of channels.

And why does a good sound person stay on the scene afterwards and record "atmos" ( the silence or atmosphere of the location ) ???

AS Alex mentioned that is ROOM TONE not atmosphere and they record it for the dialog editors because one of their tasks is to make a constant track. A dialog track that can be played with the RT track and sound like there were no edits.
Something that you can generally skip with a low budget film IF you do a full post.

Just to say that these "rules" or "facts" posted here are:
1. not always true
2. can be broken

No rules in sound post are always true. Well 2POP. And all rules can be broken.
But to break them in a positive way you need to know what they are.

Sound post has been done for a long time. Things are done the way they are for a reason. Generally because it makes it cheaper, easier, or avoids a big problem.