Foley

What if you are watching a movie and it is quiet but for the dialogues from the characters. It will seem odd right. What makes you immersed in a movie? It is the sound effects that are added to the movie to mimic a realistic situation you would encounter in life. In this week’s Friday Funda I would discuss a sound technique used in movies called as Foley.

Foley in short is the reproduction of everyday sound effects to be added to the movies. Let us consider a cop walking up down a corridor with floored with vitrified tiles. The sound of the footsteps is recreated by Foley artists. They have various types of shoes and floors with them to recreate the most appropriate sound effect.
Foley art is normally broken down into 3 categories

Feet – This involves the sound of the footsteps. Based on the shoe and landscape the character is walking an appropriate sound is reproduced.

Cloth – This involves reproducing the sound of clothes. These are more subtle sound but add a lot of realism to the scene. For instance when a character is walking the rubbing of cloth on the thighs creates a sound which is reproduced.

Props – These are sound from other items that are needed for a scene. These include sounds like doors closing, door bell ringing, car horn, train siren and so on. However these are usually picked up from the repository of sounds by the sound editors.

Adding Foley sound to the movie after it is filmed gives the flexibility of adjusting it suitably to mix well with the scene. Sometimes a reverb or echo is added to the Foley sound based on the surroundings.

Next time you watch a movie pay close watch to the various Foley sounds added to the movie.