The Complete Online Filmmaking Reference - Film Distribution ...

dropped or otherwise manipulated to create a noise. Also changing the speed of a recording. You'll soon have that
special alien blaster sound.
Jack Foley and sound effects
Foleying is the "looping" of sound effects by foley artists who create the sounds while watching the picture.
The process is named after its developer, a legendary sound man named Jack Foley of Universal. Because virtually
all footsteps are replaced, a foley stage usually includes several pits with different surfaces, such as grass,
concrete and gravel, on which the foley artist will walk in time to the one or more characters he or she is
watching.
Clothing rustle and the movement of props are likely to be recorded here as well. Even kisses are foleyed. A
steamy sex scene was probably created by a foley artist making dispassionate love to his or her own wrist. Foley
is more flexible than a sound effects library because any sound that needs precise timing, such as matching an
actor's footsteps, is hard to match to a recording.
Foleying needn't be a duplication of the original sound. The sound crew can characterize actors by the quality of
the sounds they attribute to them--say, what type of shoes they wear.
You can add "Foley walking" to your film. Watch a playback of your movie with the sound turned off. With a
microphone near the floor, walk in cadence with your actors. Keep experimenting until you have it just right.
Professional Foley artists have a "foley pit" available to them containing small samples of every type of flooring
and ground imaginable along with hundreds of props of every sort imaginable. A classic is using two coconut
halves to create the sound of a horse's hoofs running. Professional foley artists can be hired but the determined
indie filmmaker should be able to do the job with a little imagination and determination.
Ambience as a sound effect
Every room and location has a sound. No place is truly silent. Whether it's the sound a the A/C or a distant
dog barking, we live with sounds all the time. During or after production your sound recordist should always
record a few mintes of the sound of each filming location to have the background "ambience" available for the
sound mixer.
A constant ambience sound does a lot to cover and smooth out the cuts edited together from different takes of a
scene.
The mixer may also choose to use ambience from a sound library if that better expresses the drama of a scene.
Sound effects sources
Free sound effects
Understand that free sound effects may or may not be actually owned by the web site offering them. It's
doubtful anyone would ever know the difference if that sound of a car going by in the distance isn't really yours,
but use these at your own risk.
Sound Effects is a site that list many other sites where you may be able to find free sound effects.
Absolute Sound Effects Archive has a large collection of free sound effects. The quality varies.
Tintagel's Free Sound Archive has a slightly smaller collection of free sounds for download.
Pachd has a small set of free sound effects.
Sound Hunter has a few free sounds they captured themselves.
Simply The Best has a number of WAV free sound effects you can download.
Amazing Sounds has more than 1,000 various sound files including free sound effects for download.
Acoustica has a small collection of WAV sound effects files.
FlashKit has a large collection of royalty free sound effects files to download and use.
Ljudo has a search engine to find many free sound effects files.
Sound effects for sale
Sound effects for sale are usually higher quality than the free ones and you will get a receipt proving you have
the rights to use the sounds.
Sound Ideas is probably the largest publisher of sound effects libraries. The effects are all digitally mastered