Foley

In the sound workshop, we looked at creating sounds with foley. We tried out different ways of making sounds with a range of objects, then recording them. In the session I smashed oranges, blew through paper, rattled sheets of metal and so on to create sounds such as a punch, a helicopter and a harsh wind.

 

After the session I decided to look at this documentary of Ben Burtt's sound design on Wall-E (2008). In the documentary Ben Burtt talks about how in the early days of his sound design career he would record literal sounds by going out with a recording device and record the sound of an aeroplane if he needed the sound of an aeroplane. He goes on to explain about a visit to Disney's archives where he saw all of the devices that the Disney's sound designers would use to create sounds similar to those on screen back in the 30's-50's as the sound recording equipment was too large to be able to take out on location, therefore they would have to re-create certain sounds and ultimately have more control over these sounds.

As the film's director, Andrew Stanton, says sound design is much more difficult in an animation film as you have nothing to work with at all, no atmospheric sounds, no voices, no footsteps. This is also true for my assignment as I am having to build the sound from nothing. This video 'opened my eyes' to the possibilities and control that I can have when creating sounds for my project.

I plan to experiment with creating sounds in my assignment, although, I imagine I will be able to recreate a lot of the sounds in my scene 'literally'.