What I set out to do:

Originally, I wanted to carry out several different methods of audio capture to achieve the sounds which would fill in the silence on the film, ‘Safety Last’. These methods ranged from going outside college and recording passing traffic to recording an actor scraping their shoes against the outside of the Hillsborough college building to achieve the sound of the man climbing the building. I really wanted to get as close to reality as I could with the sound effects and believed that these methods would contribute to that.

Another early ambition regarding the product was me wanting to create my own music to add into the clip to replace the music which originally featured. Given the fact that I have software at home which could achieve this I believed it would extend my creative approach to the project and perhaps even better the performance of the Foley work which was to be over-layed. Of course, I  intended to maintain the same rhythmic values that the original soundtrack had; the ways of which certain notes adapted to fit the situations in the film. I was aware that this would be a challenge but was prepared to contribute time and effort towards the details to ensure that the final product was unique.

In terms of early equipment arrangements, I intended to keep my recording sessions simple; a Morantz kit, a Shotgun Microphone and Headphones to review audio, live. I did not feel obliged to use two microphones to record small amounts of audio. I simply wanted to focus most of the detail on the actual creation of the sounds rather than the capturing. I was prepared to formulate ideas on-the-spot for the creation of certain sounds such as finding any materials nearby, out of use, and seeing whether or not they had audible potential or any resemblance to any featured sounds in ‘Safety Last’.

Considering the materials I was planning to use for making the sound effects there were fewer clear ideas but, for those that I had, they were specific. For example, during the film the man climbing the building falls taking a curtain-like roof down with him injuring a nearby police officer. In the early stages of production I had the idea of using a folded-up green screen for the sound of the curtain blowing in the mind as it falls towards the officer. However, as well as this, there was the pole which impacted with the officer’s head which had to be accounted for. When looking for ideas there were never any specific materials I could think of which would achieve as accurate a sound to what would be expected. When being confronted by challenges such as this I simply relied on my improvisational skills and believed that, when the recording sessions arrived, I would have a greater idea of what I could utilize for creating the perfect sound.

What was achieved:

In terms of the different methods of audio capture I wished to carry out, I found that I could still achieve the standard of sound I previously believed I would only achieve through slightly more challenging methods. For example, I did not have to venture outside to achieve the traffic ambiance as I found that gently dragging the electric fan across the floor of the TV Studio gave a very similar audible performance. And, with some editing, would sell the effect of being passing by traffic. Of course, given the time period, the vehicles which I would have recorded outside of college would have been something of an anachronism being that there are greater numbers of them passing by in comparison to the vehicles on ‘Safety Last’. In fact, every sound I set-out to record outside of college resulted in being recorded inside of college both in the TV Studio and in the Audio Suite. As I briefly mentioned earlier, it was more about the performance and creation of the sounds rather than how they were recorded.

The process of researching different Foley works proved to be very successful as I found useful material along with a video I had been shown in previous years which features a man working on the Foley for such films as Ridley Scott’s ‘Robin Hood’ re-imagining. The videos were useful in many ways as they did not simply tell the audience to follow their methods step-by-step but rather more encouraged them to improvise their own methods of generating and creating sounds.

With the idea of creating my own soundtrack to go over the film I finally decided to add back in the old music track along with the Foley work I had done. Because myself and Luke were working on the same film we decided to work together in creating the sound and then use the same recordings in post-production. This did not, in any way, lessen our unique creativity as we both came out with different products. Going back to creating my own soundtrack, it would have been simple to create it in the software I have at home which is FL Studio 12. However, I had already created the entire two minutes of Foley and lined it up in Premiere with the original short film.  Despite having time to create my own track I decided to add in the original music to see whether it would work better.

Given that this was the original soundtrack, I believed it would work well when considering that the Foley fills in the gaps and adds an extra dimension to the film. In the end, watching the product back with and then without Foley I believed it would be unnecessary to create a new musical number when adding Foley would already show that I have injected my own creativity into the otherwise silent film. There was still a substantial amount detail which was put into the Foley work and if the occasion comes that I wish to create my own soundtrack I will as it is not too time-consuming and would further my creative display.

In the end, the equipment arrangements were quite different to my initial simplistic ambition; During the first recording session there was frustration as the Microphone set-up was unclear to us. We had originally believed that one microphone had been set-up for us to record audio with. It was not until half way through recording that we realized there were two microphones set-up; one for the left and one for the right. This meant that in post-production I had to duplicate the audio track and make sure that audio was available on both the left and right hand-side.

Due to the moment of confusion, numerous other small problems became contributors to the stress of the recording session; We often found ourselves asking what sounds we were planning to record and, given the fewer materials we had decided to pick-up along the way, we found that there was very little to work with for creating the sounds. Looking at he room, as a whole, it was rather compact and therefore we felt that we were extremely limited with what we could do to achieve the sounds listed. It was not until the session after when we had the TV studio to ourselves and I was able to formulate better ideas along with the more detailed table I had printed out prior to the recordings.

Using my own imagination and sharing ideas with Luke who was working on the same project, I was able to use what materials were around me to create the Foley for ‘Safety Last’. One of the many advantages was that the previous session was not a complete set back as I was able to use some of the sounds we had captured in that recording session for the final product. Though subtle each of those sounds contributes to the three dimensional sound-scape we each created for the film.

And finally, the materials; Having originally set-out to to be creative with my improvisational skills I believe that, in the end, this was one of my early ambitions which stood strong throughout production. For the most part, I was very vague when listing what materials and methods I would use to achieve certain sound effects. This left doors open for me to bring in improvisation and look to the materials which were around me in the TV studio. I had found a blue, zip bag which was empty; In the end this contributed to the sound of the officer hitting the ground after being hit by the pole and the curtain roof. Another improvised material/method was the actual curtain fall which, in the end, was someone dropping my coat onto the floor of the TV studio and then harshly closing the legs of a small table which was stood in the corner of the studio prior to recording. This contributed to both the curtain material blowing in the wind and the pole it was wrapped around hitting the officer. Originally, I set-out to use a folded up green screen however, when in production, this was unnecessary given the resources.

How successful was the final product:

As a whole, I believe that the final product was rather successful; Having limited myself to recording in the TV studio rather than going outside of college I believe that all of the Foley worked. The only problem was with the traffic; though discovering an unorthodox method for recreating the sound of cars passing by a member of staff reviewed the final product. Initially, they saw no problems however, having reviewed another student’s work then referring back to my own they mentioned how the traffic ambiance was slightly inaudible in comparison to some of the other sounds. This was only a minor problem and I am still extremely proud of what the results were.

The method of lining up the audio with the visuals was extremely successful and only required me to edit out a little bit of the video to ensure that more significant moments of the Foley were in-sync with the performance of the characters in the film. As for any distortion of audio or overlapping I experience none of this; All audio was successfully lined-up and only the sounds which were supposed to overlap had done so. I had overlapped the crowd recordings to keep them constant and in a loop-like fashion. I also duplicated them and set them to slightly different timings so that, when played back, it gave the effect that there was a crowd rather than two people running around the TV studio making noise.

 

Feedback From others:

Sonnie-You used a good variety of sounds with great timings as well as using different effects to add to the authenticity and realism to the individual sounds.Overall great soundscape.For future reference I would like different sounds from the audience such as shouting,screaming etc.This is because it just sounds like there are only two people there.

Luke– You have achieved the task of creating the soundscape for your chosen silent film. I feel that all of the sounds work well together. However, one of the sounds that I felt was not appropriate, is the sound of the cars in the city. I feel the sound was not as impactful as it should have been. Overall, a good piece of work.

Eve- You have created sound effects that sound like they are part of the ‘original’ soundscape. The applause effect also has the correct amount of echo/reverb. You could have added some birds or car sounds in the background to further imply that it is outside. Very good piece.

 

Conclusion:

 As a whole, the Foley project was extremely successful; I was able to capture all the necessary sounds for the silent piece and line them up correctly with the visuals. Of course, no project flows without one or two inconveniences and I did find that, at times, I could have furthered the effects on the audio and widened the atmosphere to a greater extent. For the most part, these corrections were in relation to the smaller details as opposed to that of the more noticeable sounds.

The feedback I received was extremely helpful as it brought-forth the improvements that could have been made to the finished project whilst reassuring me that I had achieved what I wanted to achieve in terms of the individual sound effects. I am now more aware of what to look out for when approaching such a project; The smaller details.

As mentioned before, during the first recording session there was very little audio captured as there was confusion with regards to how the microphones were set up. I believe that this was the only occasion where I was convinced the project would, as a whole, become a challenge. This could have, easily, been overcome as I had recognized the issue and it would have simply been a matter of tracking back through the list I had devised and re-recording the audio. I would have done this between the microphones rather than not realizing that there was a Left and Right set-up for them.

Despite the early recording issues the process of capturing and editing audio proved to be less of a challenge and though there were some minor improvements to make I am satisfied with the final product and continue to admire the work of Foley artists.