Good sound effects for fighting scenes?

R

ReelFilmGeek

Well-known member
So I have been looking for some good libraries for hand to hand combat SFX and have not had any luck finding any that sound good. So I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations of some sounds to look at?
 
Trying to do that with commercial libraries is a fool's errand. Even with unlimited time, you will likely end up with poor results.
Foley will allow you to get exactly what you want, and with the timing, force, materials, etc, necessary for realistic results.
 
Also on the same train of thought. The canned stuff available on the net.........enhhhh. A Foley artist, doing your sounds live.......priceless. Can't tell you how many times I recognize sound effects after seeing a ton of films. They all seem to get their effects from the same place, and it gets irritating actually. Shows a lack of creativeness or laziness, and a mentality that thinking people won't hear that. And if the end visual result/story isn't stellar, and draws the viewer in, they tend to focus on other things, like the sound. Which makes it even more prominent.

Sorry, but having new sounds puts you leaps ahead of your competition that is using the same old swishes and hits, like thousands of other films.
 
That would explain why I can't find any sfx that I like. Since im doing this as a hobby and can't really afford a foley artist, any tip for doing foley myself and how to make decent fighting sound effects without beating my own self up?
 
I have seen many discussions on the inter-web about Foley in general, and techniques and materials for specific kinds of sounds. As well as videos (on YouTube, etc.) showing Foley artists demonstrating or actually performing for many commercial films. And sound-design, also. There are some good videos on sound design for the Fellowship of the Ring movies, for example.

It is rather like the famous quote from Thomas Edison: "To invent, you need a good imagination and a big pile of junk." Foley artists more often than not are using things that bear no resemblance to what you are seeing on-screen. The materials and techniques are selected for what they SOUND like. Most of them would be laughable if you could see them. And likely none of them are very expensive. Doing good Foley is limited by your imagination, it is not particularly an expensive proposition.
 
ReelFilmGeek said:
That would explain why I can't find any sfx that I like. Since im doing this as a hobby and can't really afford a foley artist, any tip for doing foley myself and how to make decent fighting sound effects without beating my own self up?
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Let me be the first.... It's Foley not foley, always capitalized.

However in actual big action films the "hits" are rarely Foley.
Foley by definition has to be recorded in sync to picture. Most fight hits are recorded as FX though they may well be recorded on a Foley stage. So a couple of editors will go on to the stage (because it's a nice quiet space) and record a whole bunch of hits in one sitting.

The touching and non big impact movement probably is but the hits are all done in FX. If you go to the stickies there is a section on post and a thread I started on how to make your film sound like it had a budget. That thread has some info on how you do a fight scene.

You can use commercial libraries and you can find a lot of hits etc on sound dogs BUT to do a good job you need a lot of hits and good variety and that will cost you a stack of dough if your buying them one at a time.

It's a lot cheaper, easier and a lot of fun to do your own.

first you need to really "spot" (the film term for going through a sequence and picking the spots you need something and identifying what that something is) your fight. What kind of sounds to you need? Are we talking face punches or stomach hits, bones breaking etc.

How "realistic" should it be, a fight in a drama as opposed to Hong Kong Action.

With that info and a few basic rules (and a lot of time) your set to do a great fight.

First you need to record a bunch of the right kind of sounds. So use your spotting list and set up things to record.

Keep in mind that you will probably want three to four sounds for each hit. A high, med and a low and possibly a swish.

For lows using a baseball bat and hitting a pillow or cushion often works. You might just be able to punch it but probably not.

For mediums you want something with more solidness like a mattress or ?? More thuddy.

For the high your looking for the sharp part of the impact. A classic is a rolled up phone book (really thick) wrapped in duct tape. Whack that with a bat and you can get some really nice sharp hits.

Whooshes can be made with just about anything stick like. Swing it fast past a mic and you can get a nice "whoosh". A touch of whoosh just before a hit will add a lot of "impact" to the hit. On a "realistic" fight the whoosh needs to be really inaudible or it starts sounding "Hong Kong Action". On a big action fight the whoosh sometimes is very audible.

With the three layers and a whoosh you can do just about any kind of hit. Rhythm and timing are more important that true sync most of the time so slide them around till they sound good and then see if it looks good.

Name all the sounds you recorded and keep them in your "library" and next time you will have a good starting place.

Also if you need really nasty bone breaks etc vegetables are your first stop. Carrots, celery make good snaps. Pasta maybe if you need it sharper. Smashing melons etc are good for head crushing.
 
Nice, Noiz2! I would only add, hitting a piece of beef with you fist or a small mallet does a nice job for face punches. Plus, after the session, you have the makings for a great meal.
 
Noiz and Doc know their stuff. Having done a lot of Foley and fight sounds myself one thing I can tell you is that Foley sounds for a "realistic" fight scene still need to be somewhat over the top; they lose some of their excitement and impact (sorry for the pun). When mixed in with dialog, other sound FX and ambience/BGs - not to mention the score - the slightly over the top sounds come back to "normal."

One thing I have found is that the verbal expositions - grunts, groans, breathing and the like - add a lot to the "hurt and pain" factor. You also have to build up the damage as you go - you can't kill him with the first punch (unless it's Bruce Lee :D), they have to build up to the "knock-out" punch.
 
unclebob6958 said:
... Foley sounds for a "realistic" fight scene still need to be somewhat over the top; they lose some of their excitement and impact ...
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Similar to gunshot sounds. The report from actual gunshots in the Real World hardly ever sounds like the SFX we hear in film and television (and radio, even).

I can't help thinking that has made us somewhat less safe because we don't recognize real gunshots when we hear them in the Real World. How many times have you heard a TV news interview with an eye witness to a shooting who said "I thought it was fire-crackers."
 
Richard Crowley said:
Similar to gunshot sounds. The report from actual gunshots in the Real World hardly ever sounds like the SFX we hear in film and television (and radio, even).

I can't help thinking that has made us somewhat less safe because we don't recognize real gunshots when we hear them in the Real World. How many times have you heard a TV news interview with an eye witness to a shooting who said "I thought it was fire-crackers."
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Kinda like how people onscreen fire weapons indoors all nonchalant - even a handgun that sounds like nothing outside will definitely get your ears ringing inside.

And don't get me started on suppressors.....they don't sound like laser guns...
 
And cars don't blow up, you can't hear anything in space, nobody can hear a whisper at 100 feet, etc...

You see it's fiction, not journalism.

Reality is what the director and crew create and usually very little to do with the reality we live in. That is one big reason people watch movies, to get away from the reality they live in.

I do get the point, but any complaint that starts off objecting about the disconnect between what is portrayed on a screen and the real world kind of misses the whole point of filmmaking.

King Kong was only only 18 inches tall. And there are no dinosaurs living on tropical island theme parks (though that could change ;~) )
 
Richard Crowley said:
Similar to gunshot sounds.
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If you want a pistol use a rifle, if you want a rifle use a shotgun, if you want a shotgun use a howitzer, if you want a howitzer use a tank, if you want a tank use a nuclear explosion, if you want a nuclear explosion put a mic out the window of your car while driving 100mph down the highway.
 
Exactly .. reminds me of Stan Freburgs 2 Vegas clubs trying to outdo each other .. 'For one night only! The Hydrogen Bomb!'

Cheers.
 
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Raster, that routine is 50 or more years old. I didn't think anyone else was that old knew the routine where, in the city of Los Voraces, the battle wages between the El Sodom and the Rancho Gomorrah. That was when cars had 2 foot high fins, gasoline was 29 cents a gallon, and in some cases only the expensive car models had outside mirrors on the passenger side!

Good memories!

Thanks.
 
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