I Love My New High Heels - Adventures In Audio Post

I was out shopping for Foley items today, and found a really nice pair of high heels. No, I can't wear them on my feet, I put them on my hands to "walk" the footsteps. These heels are cool because I can change the tone by how far I put my hands into them. Perhaps this seems silly. But it will save me from buying several pairs for a character in one of my current projects - none of the others in my collection sounded quite right.

I found several other things, like a huge mug, some glassware and a really squeaky old coffee pot.

Here's the status on my current 42 minute project; it's a pilot episode for a series. Two cops are a vampire and a werewolf and they're teamed up with a witch, who is also a cop. They're taking on a Satanic cult. The Church is also involved.

I've put 70+ hours into the dialog edit. It should have taken a lot less; but there was a major FUBAR along the way before I became involved. BTW, the production sound is excellent; a boomed mic and up to three lavs. Tonight I completed my Foley and sound effects cue sheets. There's 13 pages of Foley, two pages of basic hard sound effects (doors, etc.), two pages of vehicle effects (where the hell am I going to get a diesel truck to record?), five pages of weapons effects, one page of supernatural effects, one page of "gore" effects (more vegetable abuse!) and one page of technology effects.

I spent two hours tonight creating video game sounds similar to Angry Birds; I needed about 15 seconds of game play. I can't use the real thing, so I pulled sounds from my personal library and wrote a quick sound alike Level Completed music cue. I'll EQ it down and then process it through Altiverb so it sounds like it's being played on a cell phone.

I'm looking forward to the Gun Battle scene. Seven mercenaries take on the three cops. Assault rifles, pistols, a shotgun and two "imaginary" weapons - one shoots wood into the vampire, the other shoots huge metal darts.

This project is going to be a lot of fun.
 
Two cops are a vampire and a werewolf and they're teamed up with a witch, who is also a cop. They're taking on a Satanic cult. The Church is also involved.

lol that sounds like a hilariously awesome film to be working on. :lol:

found a really nice pair of high heels. No, I can't wear them on my feet

Sure. Sure you don't. ;)

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Hey, you have any tips for on-set prepping for better post sound as far as foley? On that piratey thing I just did, I took the actor aside for like 5 minutes and recorded him using each of his costume props for several seconds apiece. (Compass opening & closing; sword drawn & sheathed; walking on dirt; walking on sand; etc) Is that kind of thing useful for you, or are you going to be just creating your own foley anyway?
 
Sounds like fun Alcove, I know some of the top Foley guys actually have oversized high heels made to fit and of course there are quite a few world class female Foley artists. I too often use my hands inside shoes for Foley though, I get feel I get a little more control even though I loose the weight but then I'm not a top Foley artist.

Hey, you have any tips for on-set prepping for better post sound as far as foley? On that piratey thing I just did, I took the actor aside for like 5 minutes and recorded him using each of his costume props for several seconds apiece. (Compass opening & closing; sword drawn & sheathed; walking on dirt; walking on sand; etc) Is that kind of thing useful for you, or are you going to be just creating your own foley anyway?

If you have the time, it is very useful, although often not usable. It provides a useful audio reference and sometimes it is usable and therefore a huge time saver. There are usually one of 3 reasons why it may not be usable:

1. Too much background noise.
2. Poor labelling, file management (scene numbers in the metadata for example) and sound logs. Which means it takes more time to find the Foley files than to just record it again. This is especially true with longer duration films, where there are far more production audio files to deal with.
3. The recording of the real thing doesn't have the sonic character required for the sound design and we will record something entirely different in post and fake the character.

Don't let the fact that some/much of the Foley you record on set won't be usable deter you from doing it. Treat it like footage, you know much of it will end up on the cutting room floor but not capturing it in the first place is worse because you don't know what you need or what is usable until you get to post production. Remember, even if it can't be used in the finished product it is still useful and can also save your picture editor time locating and cutting in temp Foley/SFX.

G
 
lol that sounds like a hilariously awesome film to be working on.

It's not a comedy. Think more along the lines of "Lethal Weapon" meets "The Omen" meets "Tru Blood." The two cops bicker (they've been stuck together for over 500 years for as yet unknown reasons), and the vampire considers the witch a PITA ("I don't work with witches!"). Everything else is rather dark.

Truck stop.

Too much extraneous background noise; it's supposed to intrude during absolute quiet. The other issue is that I need very specific cues.

I know some of the top Foley guys actually have oversized high heels made to fit ...

Yeah, but it's pricey, even at those "specialty" shops in NYC and San Francisco that specialize in men's size 11 wide high heels.

I too often use my hands inside shoes for Foley though, I get feel I get a little more control even though I loose the weight but then I'm not a top Foley artist.

I usually lean in with my shoulders to get the weight or wear wrist weights.
 
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