The Foley specialist and sound designer tells us about his career, business, techniques and attitudes.
In an interesting interview with LineUp, Foley specialist and sound designer Alex Joseph tells us about his gear choices, home studio, and his view of the digital alternatives threatening his craft. Here is an excerpt from the article:
What do you travel with; what do you turn up at a session with?
Before each job I analyse the sort of sounds required, and what I will need to do to make them. I am lucky as I have a good relationship with Walter Samuel at Sound Network, which distributes DPA microphones, so I often find I’m on the phone to him as DPA has a huge range of mics. I have a number of DPA miniatures and several other mics, so I bring what I feel will be a useful addition to the session. On top of that, although Foley studios generally have plenty of props, I also bring some extras along to get the textures I am after. I will go out on a break to gather fresh props if required as some things are worth buying on the day of recording, especially if we happen to be using organic material. If you’re trying to recreate the sounds of foliage, there’s nothing better than the appropriate bit of foliage that’s still fresh and different plants and trees have very different sounds. I like recording foliage to add a kind of 3D sonic detail on top of the background recordings. If I am on location recording natural ambiences and sfx, the foliage recordings often come across as very white noisy, whereas if done in a controlled environment it doesn’t, so when you layer the studio recordings on the real they compliment each other. I remember doing the maze scene for Randy Thom on Harry Potter 4 and myself and Nigel Heath at Hackenbacker studios went to great lengths to get the sound of a privet maze and all its nuances, and also to make it sound alive and dangerous.
I also take my creative brain to sessions so I can add a direction and style to the work we are doing to get the right feel for the sounds. In films there are often interesting shots and vfx that need to be catered for, and having useful mics in tow is invaluable. I remember working on 1408 a few years back, and there were a lot of shots of a lock inside a door, with the lock mechanism turning. The DPA miniatures were great for this because you can put them in small spaces but get a big sound. We recorded internal lock sounds and large mechanical sounds to create an illusion of the mechanism. I also have been known to drill holes in green coconuts and place miniature mics inside before destroying the coconut -- great for gore sounds.
I also travel to sessions with a breakdown of what sounds I want to do in a mapped out way on Pro Tools normally. The charts represent what I want to do and once recorded the sounds get placed in a template I have made to suit the project. Each job varies from the next in terms of budget and schedule, so I also have to tailor each job accordingly to that but I love it on big budget jobs as I am allowed to experiment more. On Quantum of Solace I hired in a scaffold, got rope and pulleys for an action scene in the film, bought roof tiles and mocked up a roof in a studio at Shepperton to get all the roof chase footsteps and fx/design. This sort of thing would have been hard to achieve in the way I might do classic Foley.
The rest of the interview
Read the whole article on LineUp's website where Joseph also talks about spectacular effects and goes into specifics on recording Foley and fx for blockbusters such as Mamma Mia, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Quantum of Solace, and Hannibal Rising. We learn that exotic fruit and vegetables are great for gore sounds, and that it takes four showers to rid oneself of Agar 'chocolate' after a day in the studio!