Creating sounds

Transcript: Creating sounds

Meet Tara Blume, a Foley artist based in Los Angeles. In A Day in My Life, she shares her journey and techniques in crafting the perfect sound effects that bring films, TV shows and even video games to life. So how did Tara get involved in Foley production?​

So I am a singer and I went to Berklee College of Music for my voice in Boston and didn’t know about Foley, obviously, when I was in college, and my junior year (US)drittes Studienjahr​junior year I had to take a visual mediaBildmedien​visual media course. And we had to replace sound for three-minute movie clips. It was, like, basically our entire semester. We did that for, like, a midtermMitte des Semesters​midterm project and a final project, different clips. And I learned about Foley, and I was, like, completely obsessed: be ~ with sth.von etw. nicht mehr loskommen​obsessed with it. And I was just like, whoa, this is so crazy. And I ended up doing Foley for a bunch (ifml.)Haufen​bunch of other people’s projects, but I wasn’t supposed to. I was, like, the Foley artist for, like, four other people ’cause they were just, like, we don’t know what this is or how to do this, and I was, like, excited to do it. And my major (US)Hauptfach​major was music production engineering. And so I got to the end of my degree and I just didn’t like my voice. It kind of fell to the to fall to the waysideauf der Strecke bleiben​wayside because the major was so hard. I think I was a better singer going in and I was just completely obsessed with Foley. So, I literallybuchstäblich; hier: tatsächlich​literally moved to Los Angeles and just started telling people I was an up-and-comingaufstrebend, vielversprechend​up-and-coming Foley artist.​

So, what does Foley actually involve? In the next part of the interview, Tara talks about the three main categories of Foley sounds.​

So, typically, we have three categories of sounds that we need to complete on any given project. It would be… actually, there’s way more than three categories, but generally there would be cloth, footsteps and propRequisite​props. And so just based on kind of whatever the artist or the mixer wants to do first is what we’ll to dive into sth.sich (kopfüber) in etw. stürzen​dive into first. Generally, cloth is done first. So I will sit there with, like, basically a pile of different textureGewebe​textures of fabricStoff​fabric textiles in my lap, and just kind of move them while listening to production in headphones, and I’ll watch the whole thing through and cloth the whole thing.​

While recording the rustlingRascheln​rustling of clothes or other cloth, Tara will watch the whole film. However, for footsteps and props, she sees only the relevant sections. Next, Tara talks about recording footsteps. She mentions the actor’s “gait”, which is the way someone walks. ​

​Footsteps are the hardest thing to learn. And I think the hardest thing about footsteps that is to learn is, like, knowing people’s gait and just their mannerismEigenart​mannerisms. Like I’m saying, you get comfortable with the character and how they move and they generally kind of do the same thing. Like, ’cause they’re acting, you know? So, it’s like the scene will start, and they’ll take, like, four steps and then they’ll to scuffschlurfen​scuff, scuff to a stop. And then for men, if they’re wearing sneakers, I don’t wear sneakers. I wear, like, soft-soled business shoes. Well, they just sound heavier. Because, like, me in a sneaker, or just because of my weight, I sound like a little kid.​

A Foley artist has to record footsteps for every actor including extraStatist(in)​extras in the background, so it takes the most time to do. Tara continues talking about her Foley work by describing the order in which sounds are recorded. She mentions working in Pro Tools, which is a computer program for recording and producing music, as well as doing audio post-productionNachbearbeitung​post-production for films.​

We break it down by category. Somebody will to cuehier: eine Markierung für einen synchronisierten Ton setzen​cue all of the chairs, specifically all of the wood chairs, and we’ll hit all those spots in the scene, or in the whole length of whatever it is, where there’s all wood chairs, so we don’t have to, like, get it out a million times. And then we’ll go to, like, metal chairs, and we’ll hit all of the metal chairs. We’ll go to all the car seats, and we’ll hit all the car seats. All the doors, hit all the doors and then anything that’s, like, I can sit in a chair and just kind of, like, grab it really quick, so like glasses or jewellery and pens and pencils and bags and keys; little things like that we kind of do them all together. There’s Foley cuers; they to comb through sth.etw. durchkämmen​comb through whatever it is, whatever the project is extensively, and they cue in Pro Tools. So Pro Tools is the medium that we work in, and somebody will go through the film and make little markers like blankleer, frei​blank record regions that will be, like, a wood chair starts at this time code to this time code, like precisely through the entire thing for every single thing that gets touched and the footsteps. Yeah, so basically, we use that session as, like, a roadmap and just move through it. Yeah, so then once our work is complete shooting it, there is a Foley editor. So everything I’ve performed will get edited precisely in time to picture. Generally, there’s only 24 frame in a secondBild pro Sekunde​frames in a second. And generally, I’m only about three to seven frames off. You just tap it a couple frames and it’s usually just right in in syncsynchron​sync.​

In 2018, Tara won an Emmy Award for her work on the TV series Atlanta. What other kind of projects has she worked on?​

I worked for a guy for the last seven years that we did mostly TV, but I’ve done literally everything. I’ve done reality television; I’ve done feature filmSpielfilm​feature films; I’ve done many, many TV series; I’ve done documentaries; I’ve done video games; I’ve done animation. I feel like I’ve done every category.​

To record, Tara goes to a Foley stage at a post-production company that produces the audio for a project. So, what are the most important items she brings to work to make the necessary sounds? ​​

Amazing pairs and sets of shoes that sound good. That are comfortable on your feet. And then some really nice, amazing pairs of cloth that you probably haven’t cleaned for ten years. A good pair of gloves, earplugsOhrstöpsel​earplugs. Yeah, all that kind of stuff is really important for you to have, ’cause the prop side, all the props are generally at stages. I do have a little, like, caboodle. You know what a caboodle is? So it’s like one of these rolling suitcases that almost, like, you basically could put makeup in. It’s got all kinds of stuff that you can’t normally find if you’re new to a stage. It’s kind of good to have this little kit with you where you can just grab things quickly, it just makes you faster, so you’re not having to, like, to scourdurchforsten​scour this big room that you’ve never been in, you don’t know where anything is in the drawer. So it’s like… in my kit I have go-to watches, go-to jewellery, go-to pens, go-to latex gloves that you can never find on a stage. Weird stuff, like, you know those little key card things? I have one of those in there; I have handcuffsHandschellen​handcuffs in there; I have a Bible in there; I have spursSporen​spurs in there; like just really randomwahllosrandom stuff that you can’t find easily.​​