Foley Sound Research

A Foley Artist works alongside the visual film, ad or video game, adding sound effects to make the film come to life. A Foley artist will use a range of props and accessories to create a 'layering ' of sounds which will then be used to compliment the dialogue.

Foley Artists are necessary to the film making industry as the priority on a film shoot is dialogue. It is then necessary to create the illusion of incidental sound and to add drama to the audio. Foley artists describe their work as 'a marriage of picture and sound' and a craft which puts detail into a film using their 'performance'. There are some items which feature within a film, for example, horses which cannot be brought into a studio so the Foley Artist will have to use her or his imagination to re-create the sound the horse would make. (see illustration below*)

The Foley artist creates the sound using a layering technique. For instance all footsteps relating to the characters are laid down, followed by background footsteps. This is followed by anything that is moving on the screen which in turn gets a sound. This is called the 'Prop Pass'.
In order to be a Foley Artist is is necessary to posses a creative mind and highly developed sense of timing.

The advantage of using real objects as opposed to digital sound is that the audience would recognise the authenticity of a sound they can relate to, which makes experiencing the sound more real for the viewer, for instance Ben Burtt, who created sound for the Star Wars films tells the story of stumbling across the perfect sound effect for a laser gun. While out with his family he accidentally touched the wire on a radio mast. This produced the perfect noise .
Also on the Star Wars film the 'Imperial Walker' sound effect was created by cutting large panels of sheet metal.
* For the 'Game of Thrones' a mic was buried within a basin of earth and another used above the earth while actual horses hooves , hand-held by the artist were used to beat the surface.