Behind every great film is a sound artist, or as they’re known professionally, Foley artists. You might not have heard of them before, but you’ve definitely listened to their work - whether you were aware of it or not.
Foley artists are responsible for creating the familiar, unassuming sounds that you hear in movies. None of these sounds are recorded during the filming of a movie, and so it’s the job of a Foley artist to re-introduce these sounds back into each scene and inject that sense of realism and drama that is vital to any great film. For example, the sound of two characters brushing past each other is recreated by rubbing two pieces of cloth together right next to a microphone, and coconut shells cut in half and stuffed with padding can mimic the sound of horses galloping.
Robin Harlan and Sarah Monat are two of Sony’s dedicated Foley artists based at Sony Pictures studios in Culver City, California, and collectively they have lent their talents to hundreds of films. “A great metaphor for Foley is that it’s like a sound mosaic,” Robin tells us. “The sound effect editors and the designers put all of the big tiles in, and then Foley comes in and acts as the grout. You don’t want it to stick out, but when it’s there it unifies the rest of the sound and can help bring it together for an amazing final mix.”
The work of Foley artists often plays a major part in dictating how the audience should feel during a film. They can point people towards laughter by adding in wacky, over-the-top sounds, or they can add suspense and drama with spooky creaks and sudden crashes. A clip of someone sneaking through a dark forest with no sound might be a little bit scary, but add in the rustling of leaves and the short, sharp snap of a twig and the scene suddenly becomes so much more dramatic, each sound keeping you gripped to the screen.
Sarah says: “I think Foley most definitely adds an emotional element, as it’s the performance part of the sound. If someone is angry or drunk or happy, they walk differently...because you’re recreating the performance, you can bring that organic human element to it, as opposed to cutting random footsteps or props from a sound library. We are kind of like the actors of sound.”
With so many films relying on Foley artists to fill in those sonic blanks, Robin and Sarah’s work schedules are non-stop. On a typical day, they’ll wake up at 5am so that they can arrive early at the Sony studio lot in Culver City, and work begins promptly at 7am. “We take a look at the workload by watching the film we are working on and then reviewing the cue sheets that have been prepared for us,” Robin says. “These are important because they act as a road map of sound for the rest of the day.”
Then comes the fun part: adding the sounds back into the film. “We generally will begin by replacing all the sound of the character’s footsteps. Then we’ll move on to the soft effects that are generally considered to be the props that are touched by characters. We have a nine-hour day, and then we go home for sleep so we can start all over and do it again the next day!” A typical film will take between 10 and 12 days to finish, Robin tells us, but she has been previously had to spend up to six weeks working on just one film.
The detail that Foley artists put into their work is extraordinary. For instance, recording something as simple as a footstep can take many hours. First they need to decide what material to use under-foot - whether it’s sand, gravel, concrete, grass or something altogether different - and then they even decide what kind of footwear will give the most accurate sound representation.
“I like to perform the emotions of the characters through the choice of shoes for their footsteps,” Robin says. “There are so many different sounds, and different pairs of shoes make different sounds for each individual character. Making the choice of which shoes for which one is really fun, and if you have done it well the sound blends into production and just becomes part of the story.”
For something like James Cameron’s masterpiece Titanic, Robin and Sarah had to be especially imaginative in order to get the right sounds. Sarah says: “As most of it was shot on set, we had to recreate all the sounds of people moving through water, so we had a huge pool erected on the Foley stage. Also, we had to make the distinction between the wealthy, upper-class passengers and those in steerage.”
With so many intricate and varied sounds required from a Foley artist, do they ever have the time to experiment and come up with new sounds? “We do have free range to use whatever we want if it gets the desired sound. Of course, when you’ve been doing it for a long time, you start to know what works for certain things and you build up a huge amount of props that you can just grab and know will work. But there are times when something comes up, and you have to get creative and experiment with certain things - sometimes layer the sounds to get the desired effect.”
Though you certainly won’t see them on-screen, Foley artists are integral to bringing a movie to life. With just a few expertly crafted sounds they can leave you howling with laughter or glued to the edge of your seat, proving that sound is so much more powerful than you might first think.
