Foley Artists

The name 'Foley' comes from Jack Donovan Foley, who started experimenting with his own sounds in 1927. A Foley artist is someone who creates the sounds in movies for a living. These are not just any sounds, but are the sounds that cannot be heard in the initial filming of the movie. Thus, they are creating non diegetic sounds to emphasie the diegetic sounds that were not very audible. Ways in which Foley artists recreate diegetic sounds are:

1. Dropping a phone book on the floor

2.Beating an apple with a stick

3.Footsteps on different textures

4.Banging cocoanuts

5.Using water

I found it challenging making my own Foley sounds because for some pieces it was difficult to find an object that will portray the sound I wanted. This was partly due to the limited resources I had around me at the time. However, I found it really interesting learning about Foley sounds as I did not realise that this is what people did for movies. One example we did was Andrew walking down the stairs, we recorded this and then counted the steps in which he took and then banged a shoe against the wall with the same beat to create the sound of him walking down the stairs.

I could implement Foley sounds into my thriller opening to emphasise the suspense in the movie opening, and to highlight all the little sounds to put the viewer on edge, e.g emphasising a creaking door, or footsteps in the background.