Sound Design at Edinburgh Napier University

Category: Foley

  • How Do You Design the Sound of Reality? Sefi Carmel on Documentary Sound, Perception, and the Ethics of Construction

    Sefi Carmel

    How do you design the sound of reality?

    A whale dives beneath the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. Filmed from a distant boat, its tail disappears into the water and a splash is heard. The moment appears entirely natural, yet the camera crew may have been hundreds of metres away, surrounded by engine noise and incapable of recording anything resembling the sound presented in the finished film. Perhaps the splash came from a sound-effects library. Perhaps somebody dropped an object into water. Perhaps a Foley artist moved a scuba flipper through a bathtub. Does adding that sound make the documentary less truthful, or does it help audiences experience an event that genuinely occurred but could not be captured adequately during filming?

    During his online guest lecture for Edinburgh Napier University, London-based sound designer, composer and dubbing mixer Sefi Carmel explored the creative and ethical questions surrounding soundtrack creation for documentaries. Drawing upon experience of mixing more than one hundred documentaries, he challenged the assumption that factual filmmaking requires a fundamentally different sonic vocabulary from drama. Dialogue, music, atmospheres, spot effects, Foley and abstract sound design can all contribute towards documentary storytelling. The crucial issue is not whether a sound was recorded at the moment shown on screen, but what its addition asks the audience to believe.

    Throughout the lecture, Carmel returned to a broad understanding of the soundtrack. Everything emerging from the speakers belongs to a single composition created in relationship with the image. Dialogue, music and effects may be separated technically, but audiences experience their combined movement through time and space. Like music, a soundtrack arranges rhythm, dynamics and timbre to communicate emotions and ideas. Documentary sound therefore involves much more than cleaning interviews and placing music underneath them. It is the construction of an audiovisual experience whose materials may come from reality while their organisation remains an act of filmmaking.

    Carmel began by questioning a belief he had held as a young sound designer. News reporting and documentary filmmaking had once appeared to occupy similar positions on a spectrum between reality and fiction. At one extreme, news aspires towards an account of events with minimal manipulation. At the other, drama openly asks audiences to accept scripted performances, constructed edits, designed sound effects and music intended to influence emotion. Documentary can initially appear closer to the first model, yet Carmel’s experience of the form led him towards a different conclusion. A feature-length documentary still has to hold an audience for sixty, ninety or more minutes. It communicates ideas, develops relationships, establishes places, controls pace and creates emotional movement. Those demands make it filmmaking rather than an extended news report.

    Understanding documentary in those terms considerably widens its creative possibilities. Music can shape emotional interpretation, sound effects can strengthen actions and atmospheres can establish locations that production recordings fail to communicate. Archive footage can be reconstructed into a convincing audiovisual world, Foley can restore physical detail and abstract sound design can emphasise an important transition or idea. Documentary makers have access to almost the complete filmmaking toolbox. With that freedom comes an ethical problem. If documentary claims a relationship with reality, how far can its soundtrack depart from literal recording before enhancement becomes deception?

    The whale provides a useful test. The animal really entered the water and its tail really created a splash, even though the filmmakers could not capture that sound from their position. Adding a plausible splash does not invent the event. It reconstructs an acoustic consequence already implied by the image, allowing audiences to experience the animal’s movement and scale more immediately without asking them to believe that something happened when it did not. Matters become more difficult when sound influences interpretation rather than restoring an unheard event. Carmel drew his clearest ethical line around speech. Reconstructing the likely sound of an action differs substantially from editing somebody’s words in a manner that changes their meaning or context. The latter can alter the evidence from which audiences understand an event. For Carmel, creative sound design remains legitimate when it serves the film without becoming a gross lie.

    A much less serious encounter with perceptual truth came during his work on a documentary about the Winter Olympics. Faced with a distant shot of a skier slaloming down a snowy slope, the director wanted the movement to have greater sonic presence. Library searches failed to produce a suitable recording, so Carmel created one himself. The director liked the result and repeatedly asked what had produced it. Carmel initially refused to answer, but eventually revealed the source: a knife scraping across toast. The sound had worked perfectly while the director perceived it as skiing. Once its origin became known, however, the illusion collapsed. The director could hear only toast and eventually asked for it to be removed. Nothing in the waveform had changed. Image, expectation and context had previously allowed one event to become another, while knowledge of the source created a new and apparently irreversible interpretation.

    Listeners do not identify sounds solely through their acoustic properties. Visual information, expectation, context and prior knowledge shape perception. A recording does not acquire credibility merely through sharing a physical origin with the object shown on screen, and a constructed sound does not automatically become deceptive through coming from somewhere else. Credibility emerges from the relationship between sound, image and meaning. Documentary sound design occupies a space between physical truth and perceptual credibility, requiring the designer to consider where a sound came from alongside what audiences understand it to represent.

    Reality presents another difficulty long before questions of creative enhancement arise. Documentary crews work in environments that cannot be controlled in the manner of a drama production. Interviews happen near roads, beneath aircraft routes, inside noisy buildings and beside machinery. Important moments may occur only once, leaving post-production dependent upon whatever the location recordist managed to capture. Documentary also has limited access to ADR. Replacing a contributor’s voice with a later studio performance can compromise spontaneity, authenticity and practicality. An imperfect recording of an essential contribution therefore has to be made intelligible and aesthetically acceptable even when the original conditions were hostile.

    Some problems are comparatively manageable. Low-frequency rumble can be reduced, while constant noises such as air conditioning, electrical hum or an aircraft cabin may respond well to noise reduction. Variable interference presents a much harder problem. An accelerating motorcycle can move through the same frequency regions as speech while continually changing its spectral character, making removal difficult without damaging the voice. Aggressive processing introduces further compromises. Equalisation can isolate the most intelligible part of a voice while leaving it thin and unnatural. Noise reduction can remove interference at the cost of audible artefacts. A line may become technically clearer but aesthetically less convincing. Restoration is not a contest to remove the greatest possible quantity of unwanted sound. Every intervention changes the material audiences hear.

    Carmel connected this problem to the idea of aesthetic disturbance. Drawing upon Ludwig Wittgenstein, he described aesthetics partly through the recognition of something being wrong: a picture hanging at an angle, for example, produces a disturbance that disappears when the relationship is corrected. Documentary sound can create similar disturbances. A close image accompanied by an unexpectedly distant, reverberant voice may produce audiovisual dissonance. Distortion attracts attention, while harshness, brittleness or excessive boxiness can make listening uncomfortable even when every word remains understandable. Intelligibility is necessary but insufficient. Dialogue also needs to feel congruent with the image and surrounding soundtrack, and a technically rescued voice can still undermine a scene if its perspective, spectrum or acoustic character appears disconnected from what viewers see.

    Modern restoration tools have expanded what can be recovered. Carmel discussed noise reduction, de-clicking, de-crackling, de-clipping, dereverberation and spectral repair as processes capable of rescuing recordings that might once have been considered unusable. Constant noise can sometimes be reduced substantially, while sophisticated interpolation may reconstruct clipped or distorted speech with surprising effectiveness. Greater capability does not remove the need for judgement. Restoration can erase information that belongs to the story. Crackle on an old recording may be technically undesirable while simultaneously communicating historical distance. The noise of an old shellac disc or archive recording can help audiences understand that they are hearing material from another period. Removing every imperfection may weaken the narrative. Technical possibility matters less than understanding what the existing sound already communicates.

    This tension between repair and preservation led to one of Carmel’s central principles: ideally, every layer of the soundtrack should be capable of telling the story. Dialogue carries narrative through words. An atmosphere can communicate location, weather, time of day and activity without spoken explanation. Music can reveal emotional direction. A forest atmosphere containing birds, wind and running water immediately places listeners within a particular kind of environment. Each layer contributes different information, and the complete soundtrack emerges from their interaction rather than from one dominant element surrounded by decoration.

    Documentary production rarely provides ideal materials, so those layers often have to support one another. Aggressively cleaned dialogue recorded on a windy location may no longer contain enough environmental information to make its setting believable. Carefully constructed atmospheres can return that context. Sound effects can reinforce actions the original recording failed to capture, while music can support emotional movement that damaged or fragmented production sound cannot carry alone. None of these layers needs to become conspicuous. A weak recording may become convincing once placed inside an appropriately designed environment, since audiences hear relationships between elements rather than evaluating every track in isolation.

    Voiceover introduces another distinctive element within those relationships. Casting is often a directorial decision, though Carmel argued that sound professionals can contribute valuable thinking when invited into the process. The appropriate voice depends upon the subject, intended audience and emotional character of the film. A documentary about the rise of a young pop group requires a different vocal identity from one exploring humpback whales in the North Atlantic. Performance matters as much as casting. Tone, energy, pacing and character shape the audience’s relationship with the film, while the chosen voice influences the space available for music, effects and atmosphere. Voiceover is part of the soundtrack’s composition, not information simply placed above it.

    Music performs an equally integrated role. Carmel distinguished between music existing within the world shown on screen and music functioning as score. Source music might come from a visible performer, radio, jukebox or other plausible location within the scene, while score operates outside that visible world and shapes emotion from another level. Documentary makers can also blur the distinction deliberately. An old rock-and-roll song treated with band-limiting and room reverberation might appear to come from a jukebox in a diner, allowing music to reinforce the setting, contribute historical or cultural information and perhaps help mask weaknesses in the location sound.

    Selecting or composing music requires an understanding of everything else occupying the scene. Dialogue-heavy sequences need music capable of supporting speech without continually competing for attention. Dense lead instruments or vocals can occupy perceptual and spectral territory similar to the human voice, forcing the music much lower in the mix. More restrained arrangements can create emotional colour while leaving space for narration and interviews. Other sequences allow music to carry more of the narrative. An expansive aerial view with little dialogue may support a large thematic statement that would overwhelm an intimate interview. Musical effectiveness in isolation matters less than the role a piece needs to perform at a particular moment and the relationships it forms with the rest of the soundtrack.

    Location dialogue complicates those relationships further. A controlled voiceover recording tends to maintain comparatively stable level and performance, while spontaneous speech can vary considerably. Contributors may begin sentences with energy and trail away as thoughts conclude. Music automation must respond to those changing patterns. A static reduction may leave quieter words obscured or make stronger phrases feel unnecessarily exposed. Mixing becomes a continual negotiation between intelligibility and musical continuity, with the soundtrack moving around the natural behaviour of voices that were never performed for the convenience of the mixer.

    Atmospheres perform several roles simultaneously. Most obviously, they tell audiences where they are. Traffic, birds, wind, room tone, distant machinery or human activity can define an environment before viewers consciously analyse the image. They also smooth editorial transitions. Documentary scenes are frequently assembled from material recorded at different moments, positions or even days, and a continuous environmental bed can help separate pieces of location sound feel as though they belong to a coherent space. Carmel identified another, less obvious function: atmospheres can contribute spectral balance. If a scene feels sonically empty within a particular frequency region, an appropriate environmental layer can help create a more aesthetically satisfying whole. The choice still needs to make narrative sense, but storytelling and sonic composition overlap here. Atmosphere can provide information, continuity and texture at the same time.

    Spot effects operate on a more local scale. A car door closes, a telephone is placed down or a gun fires. Brief synchronised events can reinforce visible actions and restore details absent from production recordings. Archive footage provides particularly rich opportunities for this kind of reconstruction, especially when historical images arrive without usable synchronous sound. Old footage may be silent or accompanied by narration and music unsuitable for the contemporary documentary. A battlefield sequence showing tanks, artillery and soldiers therefore presents the sound designer with an empty world that needs to be rebuilt.

    For Carmel, archive reconstruction can be approached with the same dramatic ambition used in fiction. Tanks can advance through the frame, gunfire can occupy different distances and artillery can establish scale, while wind across an exposed landscape gives the environment continuity. The designer might process the soundtrack to suggest historical recording technology or create a vivid modern sound world that places the audience imaginatively inside the event. A deliberately aged soundtrack reminds viewers that they are encountering archive material, while a contemporary reconstruction can reduce historical distance and make an event feel immediate. Neither choice is neutral. Both interpret history, leaving the designer to consider the relationship the documentary seeks to create between the audience and the past.

    Foley can contribute in much the same way, although documentary schedules and budgets rarely permit complete coverage. Selective use can still transform significant moments. A historical reconstruction showing chainmail being worn, armour handled or a sword drawn may deserve detailed physical sound even when none was captured during filming. If the moment carries narrative importance, there is no reason to reject Foley merely through an assumption that documentary sound must remain limited to location recordings. Abstract sound design extends the same principle further. Drones, impacts and heavily processed transitions can strengthen important ideas or structural moments, creating unease, giving a cut greater dramatic force or helping an audience experience a transition emotionally as well as intellectually.

    For Carmel, the legitimacy of these devices depends upon purpose. Dramatic sound should strengthen the film rather than substitute manipulation for argument. Documentary editing, cinematography and music already influence how audiences understand material, and sound design participates in the same process. Ethical responsibility lies in recognising what each construction communicates rather than pretending that construction does not occur. Documentaries are built from real people, events, evidence and places, yet films do not emerge automatically from those materials. Someone selects shots, orders sequences, chooses where music begins, decides when silence matters and determines which details audiences hear. Soundtrack creation is part of that authorship.

    Creative decisions are only part of the work. The documentary must also survive the circumstances in which it will be heard. Carmel emphasised that mixing begins with the destination. A theatrical documentary, television broadcast, online film and festival screening present different playback conditions and technical expectations. Format, dynamics, equalisation and level decisions need to reflect those contexts. A large theatrical environment can support substantial low-frequency extension and wider dynamics, while television playback may occur through much smaller speakers and in less controlled surroundings. Processing that creates clarity in one context can become harsh or excessive in another.

    Platform awareness connects technical delivery directly with audience experience. Spectral energy inaudible on small television speakers can still consume headroom. Extreme dynamics may work beautifully in a cinema while causing viewers at home to continually adjust volume. Loudness standards formalise part of that relationship, particularly for broadcast delivery, but Carmel’s broader point concerned the distribution of intensity across the film. Loudness can be understood as a budget. If every moment is treated as maximally intense, little room remains for genuine peaks. Dynamic planning becomes another form of storytelling, allowing contrast to carry dramatic meaning rather than treating level merely as a compliance problem.

    Compression and limiting require similar contextual judgement. A theatrical mix may use comparatively subtle master processing, preserving headroom and contrast, while television and online material may tolerate or require greater control. One version is not inherently superior to another. Each mix needs to function within the medium for which it is intended, preserving the film’s intentions under different listening conditions.

    Deliverables extend that responsibility beyond the primary audience. Documentary films may travel between territories and require new narration or dubbed dialogue. Music and effects tracks need to support localisation rather than reproduce automation created around the timing of the original language. Carmel explained the value of providing undipped music for this purpose. In an English version, music may be reduced beneath a particular phrase and raised again when the speaker stops. A translated version may take longer or shorter to communicate the same idea. If the music stem already contains automation tied to the English timing, the foreign-language mixer inherits a structure that no longer fits. Providing material without those dialogue-specific reductions allows the new mix to respond properly to the translated performance.

    A soundtrack therefore exists as more than a finished mix. It may need to survive new languages, platforms and contexts, and good delivery anticipates the work of people who will encounter the material later. Carmel ended with an even simpler responsibility: check the work. Quality control may appear less intellectually exciting than documentary ethics or perceptual sound design, yet it protects every creative decision made before delivery. A mixer can spend days constructing a sophisticated soundtrack and still send an unusable file through a routing mistake or export error. Recording or exporting something does not prove that the expected material exists in the resulting file. Listen to it. Watch it. Check it.

    That practical instruction sits neatly alongside the lecture’s larger argument. Documentary soundtrack creation moves constantly between interpretation and responsibility. Designers can construct sounds that were never recorded, rebuild silent archives, use Foley, shape emotion through music and introduce dramatic sonic devices. Those freedoms demand judgement. Does a sound restore an experience, clarify it, interpret it or falsify it? What does it ask the audience to believe? Does it support the film’s argument without altering the meaning of its evidence?

    Carmel’s lecture presented documentary sound as an art of constructing experience from incomplete reality. Location recordings arrive damaged. Cameras capture actions from distances at which their sounds cannot be heard. Archive images survive after their original acoustic worlds have disappeared. Interviews need to coexist with music, while fragmented scenes require atmospheres capable of making them feel continuous. The documentary soundtrack is built through responses to these absences. Sometimes the response is technological: remove a constant noise, repair distortion or restore intelligibility. Sometimes it is editorial: create a continuous atmosphere around fragmented material. Sometimes it is performative: add Foley to a significant physical action. Sometimes it is musical, shaping the emotional direction of a sequence. At other moments, the solution may be a completely unrelated object whose acoustic behaviour happens to make an image believable.

    A knife scraping toast can become a skier moving across snow, at least until somebody learns the secret. Reality does not arrive in post-production as a complete audiovisual object waiting to be preserved. It arrives as recordings, images, testimony, fragments and absences. Filmmakers decide how those materials should be organised into an experience that audiences can follow and understand. Sound designers participate in that process by reconstructing relationships between actions and consequences, voices and spaces, images and expectations.

    Construction and dishonesty are not the same thing. A documentary soundtrack can be richly designed while remaining faithful to the people and events it represents. Literal accuracy may sometimes be essential. At other moments, perceptual credibility communicates an experience more effectively than an unusable or absent location recording ever could. A splash can give weight to a whale entering the ocean. An atmosphere can return a damaged interview to its environment. Designed sound can give silent archive footage physical immediacy. Music can reveal emotional relationships without changing the evidence shown on screen.

    Documentary sound occupies the space between what happened, what could be recorded and what audiences need in order to understand and feel the film. Carmel’s lecture showed that this space is not a technical inconvenience to be hidden. Much of the creative work begins there. The documentary sound designer cannot preserve every sound of reality, since many were never captured in the first place. The responsibility is to decide what should be repaired, what can be reconstructed, what needs to remain imperfect and what must never be changed.

  • How Do You Perform a World Through Sound? Jason Swanscott on Foley, Improvisation, and Making Movement Believable

    Jason Swanscott

    How do you perform a world through sound?

    A character crosses a room, adjusts a coat, places a glass on a table and sits down. Nothing about the sequence appears extraordinary, yet its soundtrack may contain dozens of carefully performed details. Every footstep must carry the correct weight. Fabric must move with the body rather than merely rustle somewhere in the background. The glass must sound appropriate for its size and surface, while the chair should respond convincingly to the character’s movement. None of these sounds is likely to attract conscious attention, yet without them the scene can feel strangely empty. During his online guest lecture for Edinburgh Napier University, veteran Foley artist Jason Swanscott explored the extraordinary craft behind these apparently ordinary sounds. Drawing upon almost three decades of work across film, television and games, he revealed Foley as something far richer than synchronising footsteps and props to pictures. It is a form of performance in which movement, character, materials, objects and physical spaces are interpreted through sound. Throughout the session, one idea repeatedly emerged. Foley does not simply reproduce what can be seen on screen. It performs the physical behaviour of an entire world.

    Swanscott began by establishing the three principal elements of Foley: movement, footsteps and spot effects. This distinction provides a useful practical framework, though each category immediately reveals the interpretive nature of the work. Movement concerns the subtle sounds produced as characters shift their bodies and clothing. Footsteps recreate their interaction with the ground. Spot effects encompass the countless objects they touch, lift, open, close, carry and manipulate. Together, these tracks restore a physical presence that may be missing from production recordings or require greater definition within the finished soundtrack. Their purpose is not to make the soundtrack busier. They make bodies, materials and objects feel as though they occupy the world shown on screen.

    Movement often begins with fabric, but choosing a material is only the first decision. A suit jacket does not behave like a tweed coat, while cotton, silk and heavier period fabrics each possess different textures and patterns of movement. Swanscott watches how the character moves and performs those movements through the selected material. A slight adjustment in a chair requires a different gesture from somebody running, fighting or struggling into a coat. Sound follows action rather than existing as a continuous layer of generic clothing noise. The artist watches the body, interprets its movement and recreates its acoustic consequences.

    Footsteps make the relationship between sound and performance even clearer. Correct shoes and surfaces matter enormously. Foley stages therefore contain collections of footwear and recording surfaces capable of representing different periods, occupations, characters and environments. Leather-soled shoes suggest a different person from combat boots or high heels, while wood, gravel, tile and cobblestone each change the relationship between the performer and the ground. Owning the appropriate shoe and standing on the appropriate surface, however, does not guarantee a convincing footstep. The Foley artist must perform the character. Weight, pace, hesitation, confidence, exhaustion and emotional state all influence the rhythm and physical force of movement. A footstep can communicate who the character is and how they are moving through the scene.

    Spot effects extend this performance across the material world. A hand lifts a glass, a door opens, a weapon is drawn or an object falls onto a surface. Some actions can be recreated using objects similar to those shown in the image. Others require considerable invention. A sword may acquire additional metallic resonance to give its movement greater presence. A body impact may emerge from materials whose physical origins bear little resemblance to the action on screen. Swanscott’s task is to produce the sound that makes the visible action believable, regardless of whether the studio prop resembles its apparent source.

    One of the most interesting themes running through the lecture concerned the difference between physical truth and perceptual truth. Real events do not always produce the sounds audiences expect from them. A literal recording may appear weak, ambiguous or dramatically inappropriate once placed against an image. Foley therefore occupies a curious territory between reality and expectation. The artist frequently uses an object that is physically wrong to create a sound that feels perceptually right.

    Familiar examples are entertaining precisely through the unlikely relationship between source and result. Celery and cabbage can provide organic fractures and breaks. Bananas and watermelons can contribute the resistance and wetness required for sounds involving cutting flesh. Water, washing-up liquid and wallpaper paste can create viscous materials for blood and other bodily effects. Wet newspaper and other organic materials may provide textures required for medical and forensic scenes. Real offal can also be used, yet Swanscott’s examples demonstrate that literal materials hold no automatic claim to greater credibility. Screen reality is constructed through judgement rather than fidelity to the original source.

    This becomes especially apparent in genres where audiences possess strong expectations about events that few people have experienced directly. A cinematic punch must communicate weight and violence immediately. Different materials and performances can be combined to create that impression of force. Leather, boxing gloves, weighted impacts and other layers contribute qualities that the image appears to demand. Listeners perceive a body being struck even though the sound may have been constructed from objects with entirely different identities. Foley succeeds when attention remains on the event rather than the materials used to create it.

    Different productions also demand distinct styles of performance. A period drama such as Emma requires attention to the weight and behaviour of long dresses, delicate gloves, heeled footwear, polished floors and carefully handled objects. Its physical world is controlled and refined, so the Foley performance must support that quality. An action film such as Kick-Ass demands something entirely different. Fights require aggressive bodily performance, impacts, falls, furniture movement and layers of activity that communicate speed and force. Horror presents another challenge, where small sounds can become disproportionately important. A creaking surface, distant movement or restrained scrape may contribute more tension than an obviously dramatic effect. Foley changes with the storytelling language of the production.

    Across these genres, Swanscott must interpret images remarkably quickly. Foley artists frequently begin work without having watched the production in advance. They may receive limited notes and occasional guidance about particular details such as footwear or costume, while much of the decision-making happens as the material appears before them. A contemporary drama, period production, action sequence or fantasy world immediately suggests different requirements, yet the artist must continually decide what deserves performance, which materials might work and how much detail the scene can support.

    Such a working method reveals a form of expertise that is difficult to reduce to written instructions. Swanscott’s practice depends upon an accumulated relationship between sight, movement and sound. Watching a character walk prompts immediate decisions about shoe, surface, rhythm and weight. While performing those footsteps, he may already be noticing the objects that will require attention during the later spot-effects pass. Several forms of attention overlap. He is performing the current sound, watching synchronisation, interpreting character and preparing mentally for sounds that have yet to be recorded.

    Pressure makes this embodied expertise particularly visible. Swanscott contrasted the schedules available to different productions. A forty-five-minute ITV drama episode might receive only two days of Foley work, while a longer BBC production such as Silent Witness may allow around five. Feature films can provide considerably longer schedules, with major productions sometimes allowing several weeks. More time allows experimentation, comparison and repeated refinement. Fast television requires strong decisions almost immediately.

    On a two-day television schedule, movement and footsteps may occupy the first day, with spot effects following on the second. Every character still needs to move through the programme. Shoes still need to match, surfaces still need to change and objects still need to acquire physical presence. The schedule compresses the time available without removing the detail. Speed in this context means more than moving quickly. It depends upon recognising patterns, anticipating requirements and drawing upon a sufficiently developed physical and sonic vocabulary that experimentation can happen almost instantaneously.

    Years of this practice turn Foley stages into unusual archives of material culture. Shoes, fabrics, doors, glasses, tools, weapons, furniture and fragments of apparently unremarkable objects accumulate over time. Their value bears little relationship to monetary worth or original purpose. An object becomes valuable when the artist recognises useful sonic behaviour within it. Swanscott recalled finding a discarded sink outside a studio and bringing it inside. Its metallic resonance later proved ideal for a sound effect. A small paving slab could suggest the movement of a vast stone door. Neither object is limited by its physical scale or intended function once the artist begins to imagine what its sound might become.

    Foley therefore requires a peculiar form of auditory imagination. Swanscott has developed knowledge of how materials behave, then uses that knowledge to recognise relationships between sounds and images that may initially appear unrelated. He hears what an object can become when performed differently, recorded from another perspective or combined with another layer.

    One of the clearest examples came from The Legend of Tarzan. Swanscott recreated the heavy, padded movement of gorillas using boxing gloves. The relationship becomes logical when considered through physical qualities rather than visual resemblance: both can produce broad, soft impacts carrying considerable apparent weight. Discovering that relationship requires an artist to think in terms of behaviour. The boxing glove becomes useful through what it can perform.

    Other problems require materials that can be made to behave in particular ways. A snake moving across a surface can be suggested through materials such as cornflour-filled pillowcases, where the shifting internal texture creates the required movement. Magical or supernatural objects may combine recognisable physical impacts with resonant elements that suggest something beyond ordinary reality. In The Witcher, Swanscott described combining physical sounds with the resonance of a singing wine glass to give an enchanted object both material weight and a supernatural quality. Listeners need to believe that the object occupies physical space while also sensing that it belongs to a world governed by unfamiliar forces. Foley can communicate both qualities at once.

    Science fiction extends this challenge further. Productions such as Intergalactic require sounds for technologies without direct real-world equivalents. Spaceship doors, airlocks, damaged suits and magnetic footwear still need to communicate material, force and function. Heavy work boots combined with a rubbery surface can suggest magnetic contact, while compressed air and vocal techniques can contribute to the impression of air escaping from a damaged suit. Even within imaginary worlds, invention remains grounded in physical performance.

    Visually synthetic productions make this physical grounding especially valuable. Computer-generated creatures, magical objects and futuristic environments remove any possibility of simply recording what happened during filming. Audiences nevertheless expect those worlds to possess internal physical coherence. A creature needs weight. A machine needs resistance. Clothing must move with bodies, and objects must appear to interact with surfaces. Familiar materials give impossible worlds a physical logic that listeners recognise instinctively.

    Sometimes the object alone cannot create that credibility. Acoustic space can become part of the performance. Swanscott discussed work on Captain Phillips, where scenes inside the enclosed lifeboat required a claustrophobic acoustic quality. Performing the Foley conventionally within an open recording space would not reproduce the confined reflections demanded by the scene. The team instead worked inside an overturned water tank, using the enclosure itself to create the required resonance.

    That example broadens the definition of the Foley instrument. The performer and prop exist within an acoustic relationship shaped by surfaces, boundaries, reflections and microphone perspective. For the lifeboat, claustrophobia emerged through the physical conditions of recording. The space itself became part of the performance.

    Large scenes demand another kind of construction. A soldier running through a battlefield is represented by far more than footsteps on dirt. Clothing moves, equipment shifts, buckles rattle and weapons interact with the body. Each component may be relatively simple in isolation, yet together they create the physical complexity of a person carrying weight through an environment. Foley gives the body layers. Listeners may never consciously identify each buckle or movement, but their combined behaviour makes the character feel physically present.

    Close collaboration with sound editors allows this layered physicality to remain flexible. The artist performs movement, footsteps and spot effects, while editors organise, refine and prepare those recordings for the wider soundtrack. Individual elements can be adjusted independently, allowing movement, footsteps and object interactions to find appropriate relationships within the final mix. Additional sound effects or processing may supplement the performance, while the Foley recording provides an organic foundation tied directly to the rhythm of the image.

    That connection to performance becomes especially important when production dialogue has been replaced. ADR can separate dialogue from the incidental sounds originally captured on set. Footsteps, clothing and object interaction may then need to be reconstructed around the replacement dialogue so that the scene regains its physical continuity. Foley restores relationships between bodies and environments that post-production processes may have separated.

    Swanscott’s examples also challenged any assumption that every visible action requires equal sonic emphasis. Foley serves storytelling, and different scenes demand different levels of detail and exaggeration. Restrained handling of porcelain in a period drama communicates something very different from the aggressive materiality of an action sequence. Horror may depend upon an isolated movement sound emerging from otherwise restrained surroundings. Fantasy may require a familiar impact combined with an unfamiliar resonance. Every scene asks the artist to decide how an event should sound and how strongly the audience should experience it.

    Improvisation is central to these decisions, though professional improvisation is far from random. Years spent learning the behaviour of materials, surfaces and objects allow relationships to be tested quickly when an unexpected problem appears. A discarded sink becomes useful through recognition of its resonant potential. Boxing gloves become gorilla feet through their combination of softness and apparent weight. What looks spontaneous from outside the studio rests upon a deeply developed vocabulary of physical sound.

    Swanscott’s own body is equally important. Fight sequences may require vigorous physical movement. Footsteps must be performed with the rhythm and weight of somebody whose body may differ considerably from that of the artist. A delicate character, exhausted soldier and threatening pursuer cannot all be represented through the same neutral walking pattern. The Foley artist inhabits movement without being visible. His body becomes an interpretive instrument.

    Precision and expressiveness therefore exist together. Synchronisation matters. A footstep landing visibly out of time can break the connection between sound and image. Accurate timing, however, cannot rescue a performance with the wrong weight, rhythm or intention. Like other forms of performance, Foley uses technical control to enable expression. The artist must arrive at the correct moment while making that moment belong to the character.

    Interactive media changes the structure within which these performances operate. Swanscott’s work extends into video games, where sounds cannot always be performed against a fixed sequence experienced identically by every player. Games such as Alien: Isolation require movement and environmental sounds that respond dynamically to player behaviour. Footsteps and interactions need variation, while sounds must remain convincing when triggered in different sequences and contexts. The direct relationship between performer and fixed picture becomes a system of potential relationships between recorded material and player action.

    Embodied performance remains central even within that nonlinear structure. Weight, texture and physical credibility still matter. Repetition must be controlled so that repeated actions do not expose the limited number of recordings behind them. Direction and distance gain importance as sounds operate within spatial environments. The player may determine when a footstep occurs, while the Foley artist still determines what that step communicates.

    Changes in production systems place pressure on this kind of embodied practice. Swanscott described compressed schedules alongside continuing expectations for highly detailed soundtracks. Productions that once allowed longer periods for Foley may now expect comparable quality in fewer days. Outsourcing and remote working can reduce the close feedback once shared between Foley stages and other post-production departments, while sound libraries provide increasingly convenient alternatives for some categories of material.

    A library effect and a Foley performance differ most fundamentally in their relationship to a particular moment. Foley is created for a specific body, action and dramatic context. Pace, force, rhythm and texture can change in direct response to the image. Libraries can contain exceptional recordings, but the relationship between a pre-existing sound and a new movement must be constructed afterwards. Foley creates that relationship through performance.

    Technology continues to change how this embodied knowledge is captured and used. Digital workflows have transformed recording and editing. New microphones can reveal forms of vibration and underwater sound that conventional recording methods may miss. Synthetic imagery creates opportunities for invention, while games require nonlinear systems rather than fixed sequences. Swanscott’s practice has adapted continually to these changes. At its centre remains a physical act: watching movement, understanding its dramatic purpose and finding a way to perform its sound.

    Preserving the profession therefore involves more than documenting a catalogue of techniques. A list can identify suitable shoes, useful surfaces and familiar prop substitutions, but it cannot easily communicate the embodied timing required to perform another person’s movement or the instinct that allows an artist to hear a discarded object and recognise its potential. Swanscott emphasised the importance of mentorship and training within a craft learned through watching, listening, trying, failing and gradually developing a relationship with materials.

    Perhaps this is the most revealing way to understand Foley. Spectacular examples naturally attract attention: vegetables become broken bones, boxing gloves become gorillas and an overturned water tank becomes a lifeboat. Yet the deeper skill lies in the decisions connecting those materials to the image. A watermelon has no inherent cinematic meaning. Its value emerges through how it is performed, where the microphone is placed, which qualities of its sound are useful and whether the resulting texture belongs within the world of the scene.

    Swanscott’s lecture consequently revealed a discipline of transformation. Fabric becomes bodily movement. Shoes become character. Small objects become enormous mechanisms. Familiar materials give physical credibility to creatures and technologies that have never existed. A recording space becomes part of a fictional environment, while a performer standing on a Foley stage inhabits the movement of somebody in another place, another period or an entirely imaginary world.

    Finished Foley conceals this constant process of interpretation. Audiences see a character walk and hear footsteps. They see clothing move and hear fabric. They watch an object fall and accept its weight. The connection appears inevitable, even though every sound may have required decisions about material, performance, surface, timing, perspective and dramatic emphasis. As the performance becomes more convincing, the labour required to create that relationship becomes less visible.

    By the end of the lecture, Swanscott had transformed the Foley stage from a room full of shoes, fabrics, surfaces and strange objects into something closer to a physical imagination of the screen. Nothing in the room has only one identity. A boxing glove can become a gorilla. A paving slab can become monumental architecture. A discarded sink can acquire a new purpose through its resonance. The artist’s task is to watch movement, understand character and hear possibilities hidden inside ordinary materials. Foley gives bodies weight, objects substance and imaginary places a physical life. When the work succeeds, audiences do not hear somebody performing a world in a studio. They simply believe that the world was always there.

  • Why Record Everything? Ric Viers on Sound Effects Libraries, Creative Possibility, and Listening for Opportunity

    Ric Viers

    Why record everything?

    Many sound designers spend years learning how to remove unwanted sounds from recordings. They search for quieter locations, better microphones, cleaner signal paths, and more controlled recording environments. During his online guest lecture for Edinburgh Napier University, sound designer, recordist, publisher, and author Ric Viers approached the problem from a rather different direction. Again and again, he encouraged students to record more, not less. More locations. More variations. More experiments. More sounds that might initially appear useless.

    The advice runs against much conventional recording practice. Storage fills quickly. Editing becomes more demanding. Organisation becomes more complicated. Yet Viers argued that one of the greatest mistakes a sound designer can make is deciding too early what will or will not be useful. Throughout the lecture, he repeatedly returned to a simple idea: many of the most valuable sounds reveal their potential only later.

    The immediate context for the discussion was the creation of commercial sound effects libraries. Viers guided students through the process he uses when developing libraries for Blastwave FX, beginning with the choice of a topic, category, or theme. Some libraries focus on a specific class of sounds, such as footsteps. Others are organised around broader concepts, such as a zombie apocalypse, requiring everything from impacts and gunfire to environmental ambiences, destruction effects, creatures, weather, machinery, and countless other elements. Yet selecting a theme was only the beginning.

    Considerably more time, he suggested, is often spent researching than recording. Before microphones are unpacked, he studies films, television programmes, games, applications, and existing libraries to understand what has already been recorded, what is missing, and where opportunities may exist. Commercial sound libraries do not emerge from recording sessions alone. They emerge from identifying gaps. A successful library must offer something that people cannot already obtain elsewhere. Recording therefore begins with investigation. What sounds are difficult to find? Which sounds have become overused? Which categories remain poorly represented? Questions such as these help determine where effort should be directed.

    Planning extends far beyond selecting a subject. Viers described the creation of extensive scavenger lists containing every conceivable sound that might belong in a library. The exercise draws heavily upon what he called blue-sky thinking, an approach in which ideas are generated before they are evaluated. Impractical suggestions are welcomed. Expensive suggestions are welcomed. Unlikely suggestions are welcomed. The purpose is not to determine whether an idea is immediately achievable. The purpose is to widen the range of possibilities. Viers argued that ideas often develop through association. A suggestion that cannot be pursued directly may still help identify a different route towards the same goal.

    A recurring theme in the lecture was the cultivation of listening as a habit. Ideas for sounds are often collected long before any recording session begins. A strange resonance in a pipe. The texture of metal scraping against metal. An unusual mechanical vibration. A sound designer’s work, in his view, begins long before the recorder is switched on. Listening becomes a form of continuous observation. Ideas are captured in notebooks, mobile apps, or voice memos. Some notes describe specific sounds. Others record textures, qualities, or possibilities.

    One example illustrated this way of thinking particularly clearly. While dealing with a blocked drain, Viers became fascinated by the sound produced as liquid moved through the pipework. Most people would simply hear a drain. Viers heard something else. The sound possessed qualities that might later become useful in an entirely different context. He immediately made a note to revisit the sound in the future. What interested him was not the object itself. It was the texture. The eventual application remained unknown. The possibility was enough.

    This distinction between objects and textures appeared repeatedly throughout the lecture. Sound designers are often asked where particular sounds come from. Audiences frequently imagine a straightforward relationship between source and result. A door sound comes from a door. An engine sound comes from an engine. Viers described a different way of thinking. A useful recording is not necessarily valuable for what it is. It may be valuable for characteristics that become apparent only after editing, processing, layering, or transformation. Recording therefore involves collecting materials whose eventual use remains unknown rather than merely documenting objects.

    Many lectures on sound design focus heavily on equipment. Microphones, recorders, plug-ins, and software frequently dominate discussions. Viers spent surprisingly little time discussing technology in isolation. When he addressed recording practice, attention remained focused on listening. Before recording in any location, he advocated standing still and listening carefully to the environment. Air conditioning systems, insect activity, traffic patterns, aircraft, electrical noise, and countless other factors become relevant once attention shifts from simply hearing a location to actively analysing it.

    This process of scouting locations received considerable attention. Viers argued that many people move through environments without noticing their acoustic details. Recording requires a different form of awareness. Insects become important. Distant roads become important. Wind direction becomes important. Time of day becomes important. A location that appears perfect at one moment may become unusable an hour later. Successful field recording often depends less upon equipment than upon patience, observation, and preparation.

    This concern with awareness also explains his insistence on monitoring continuously through headphones. Microphones do not hear the world in quite the same way people do. Wearing headphones while moving through an environment reveals details that might otherwise remain unnoticed. Interesting sounds are often discovered rather than sought. What appears unremarkable at first may become compelling when heard through a microphone. Recording therefore becomes an ongoing process of discovery rather than simply the execution of a predetermined plan.

    A similar principle shaped his approach to recording itself. Whenever possible, he records multiple takes. Fast versions. Slow versions. Loud versions. Quiet versions. Different perspectives. Different performances. On one level, this provides insurance against technical problems. On another, it reflects a deeper belief about sound design. Sounds rarely remain confined to their original purpose. A recording made for one project may later become useful in another. A variation that seems unnecessary today may become exactly what a future project requires.

    Experience had also taught him how easily apparently successful recording sessions can fail. During one project involving emergency vehicles, extensive access was arranged at a fire station. Recordings were captured, equipment functioned correctly, and everything appeared successful. Only later did the team discover that powerful sirens had physically affected the recording medium itself. Material that seemed secure had effectively been lost. The story was not presented as a technological curiosity. It explained why professional recordists often develop habits that appear excessive to newcomers. Additional takes, backups, and redundancy emerge from experience rather than paranoia.

    A bee entered the Foley studio while Viers was working on an unrelated project. The original plan was simply to remove it and continue working. An intern suggested recording it instead. That decision eventually led to an entire library of insect sounds, combining recordings of flies, bees, crickets, and other insects with carefully performed Foley designed to represent insect movement. The significance of the story lies less in the insect itself than in the response. The opportunity was not planned. It appeared unexpectedly. Remaining open to such moments allowed a chance event to become the basis of a completely new collection.

    Questions of organisation formed another important part of the lecture. Recording more sounds creates a practical problem. How can those sounds be found again months or years later? Viers discussed the importance of cataloguing, naming conventions, metadata, and library management. Collecting large quantities of material is only useful if that material remains accessible. A sound hidden inside thousands of poorly organised files may effectively disappear. The ability to locate recordings quickly becomes part of the creative process itself.

    The same concern with organisation appeared in his discussion of large-scale sound design projects. One example involved the construction of a tornado sequence containing roughly 180 individual tracks. Projects of this scale quickly expose weaknesses in workflow. Tiny editing errors become difficult to locate. Artefacts become buried within hundreds of layers. Seemingly minor organisational decisions accumulate into major practical consequences. Preparation therefore serves creative goals. Time spent organising material makes experimentation easier later.

    Recording occupied only part of the process. Viers repeatedly returned to what happens afterwards. Sounds are collected, edited, organised, and transformed. Recordings function as materials that can be combined, layered, stretched, pitched, and manipulated into entirely new forms.

    One example involved the creation of a failing fluorescent light. Unable to find exactly the sound he wanted, Viers began experimenting with alternative sources. The eventual solution came from an unexpectedly small fragment of fruit being crushed. Through editing and transformation, the recording acquired the qualities required for the scene. The finished sound bore little resemblance to its source. Yet this was precisely the point. The identity of the source mattered less than the acoustic properties it contained.

    The same logic appeared in Viers’ discussion of so-called bad recordings. Students often expect professional sound design to involve strict distinctions between useful and useless material. Viers challenged that assumption directly. During the discussion, he argued that there is rarely such a thing as a completely bad sound. Recordings that fail in one context may become valuable in another. Noise, distortion, clipping, and other imperfections can sometimes serve as raw material for later experimentation.

    One example involved a recording that initially appeared unusable. Hidden within the material was the sound of a cat. Rather than discarding the recording, Viers began manipulating fragments of it through processing, layering, and transformation. Elements that seemed worthless in their original form became the basis of drones, textures, and entirely different production sounds. The value of the recording emerged through later use rather than immediate judgement.

    Discussion of careers and commercial practice returned to the same issue. Students often assume that success depends upon following established models. Viers argued almost the opposite. He encouraged students to develop their own interests, methods, and creative identities. Distinctive approaches create opportunities. If everyone records the same sounds in the same way, there is little reason for anyone to choose one library over another.

    Recording, editing, organisation, publishing, and marketing occupied much of the lecture.

    Running through all of them was the same underlying concern: how to recognise useful material before its eventual value becomes obvious. Throughout the discussion, Viers repeatedly challenged the assumption that the usefulness of a sound can be determined immediately. A recording that appears unremarkable today may become the foundation of a future project. A failed recording may later prove valuable once new tools become available. A sound collected for one purpose may eventually find a completely different use.

    Many people encounter the world as a collection of familiar objects and events. Viers encouraged students to listen differently. A drain becomes a source of textures. A mechanical vibration becomes source material for a creature or machine. A crushed piece of fruit becomes a fluorescent light. An unexpected insect in a Foley studio becomes the starting point for an entirely new library. A sound’s future use is often difficult to predict when it is first recorded.

    Sound effects libraries occupy an unusual position within creative practice. They are archives of past recordings, though they are also collections of future possibilities. Every recording preserves an opportunity whose eventual use remains unknown. Viers’ argument was not simply that sound designers should record more sounds. It was that they should remain open to possibilities that have not yet revealed themselves. A recorder captures a sound at a particular moment. What that sound eventually becomes often remains an open question.

  • Creating the Sound of Bodies in Impossible Spaces: Nicolas Becker on Sci-Fi Foley and Embodied Listening

    Nicolas Becker

    Science fiction sound often risks becoming trapped inside its own history. Audiences become familiar with particular cinematic vocabularies so thoroughly that certain sounds gradually begin standing in for entire ideas. Futuristic interfaces shimmer with recognisable electronic textures, spacecraft doors release carefully sculpted hydraulic movements, while machines hum with tones inherited from decades of earlier films. Many of these sounds remain compelling, though repeated use can gradually create a strange effect. Instead of sounding like imagined futures, science fiction sometimes begins sounding primarily like other science fiction.

    Nicolas Becker’s guest lecture explored a rather different approach to sound design. Across discussions of Foley, experimentation, recording techniques, embodiment, resonance, acoustics, and material behaviour, a common principle gradually surfaced. Convincing futuristic sound may depend less upon inventing unfamiliar noises than reconnecting audiences with physical experiences they already understand through memory, vibration, pressure, texture, and the body itself. One of Becker’s central arguments was that audiences do not believe science fiction worlds merely through novelty. Completely unfamiliar sound can quickly become emotionally abstract. Futuristic environments instead become convincing once they remain anchored to recognisable sensory experience. Pressure, resonance, vibration, friction, breath, and spatial instability all carry meanings audiences already understand physically, even within worlds they have never encountered before.

    Becker described discovering Foley at the age of fifteen before immediately recognising that it brought together many different interests simultaneously. Cinema, movement, physical performance, listening, material experimentation, and interaction all converged within the practice. Yet one observation from early in the lecture became particularly revealing. He explained that he does not primarily create sound out of fascination with sound alone. What interests him more deeply involves the way sound transforms images.

    A sound placed against an image does not merely accompany what audiences already see. Something else emerges through the relationship between them. Becker described this as creating a kind of “third image”, neither entirely visual nor entirely sonic. Foley therefore ceases to become simple illustration. Sound does not simply confirm that a door closed or that footsteps occurred. Instead, sound reshapes how physical movement, material presence, scale, emotion, weight, fragility, and tension are perceived altogether. The image viewers believe they are watching is partly constructed through listening.

    This relationship becomes especially complicated within science fiction. Historical films already require reconstruction of worlds no longer accessible, though futuristic films involve constructing environments that have never existed at all. Such projects force sound designers into unusual territory. Audiences must believe experiences they have never directly encountered. A recurring theme throughout the lecture was that realism does not necessarily emerge through imitation of previous films. Instead, he suggested that audiences connect most strongly with sounds grounded in bodily memory and sensory experience. Sound becomes convincing once it resonates with sensations people already recognise, even if they cannot consciously identify why.

    Discussion of Gravity formed one of the clearest examples of this philosophy. Space immediately creates a problem for sound design. Vacuum prevents conventional sound transmission, meaning many familiar cinematic approaches become difficult to justify physically. Rather than treating this limitation as an obstacle, Becker approached it as an opportunity to rethink how listening itself might function.

    Traditional cinema frequently treats sound as external observation. Audiences hear worlds from an impossible perspective positioned outside events themselves. Becker’s approach repeatedly collapses this distance. Listening becomes embodied rather than observational. He began considering what astronauts would still perceive internally. A pressurised suit transmits vibration. Bodies conduct sound through tissue and bone. Contact with vibrating surfaces produces sensation physically before it becomes recognisable as hearing. Becker therefore started attaching hydrophones directly onto his own body while performing sounds physically through different materials and surfaces. His body effectively became an acoustic filter.

    The resulting sounds possess a striking quality precisely because they feel simultaneously internal and mechanical. Vibrations seem to emerge from within the listener rather than arriving externally from a distant cinematic environment. Becker connected this partly to experiences such as immersion underwater or entering an anechoic chamber, where external sound becomes reduced enough that internal bodily activity suddenly becomes perceptible. Heartbeats, blood movement, breathing, pressure, and friction begin dominating perception once surrounding acoustic information disappears.

    Much of Gravity therefore became less about designing conventional spacecraft sound and more about constructing a sensory relationship between bodies, pressure, vibration, and isolation. Rather than relying primarily upon inherited science fiction conventions, Becker searched for sounds grounded in experiences audiences already carry unconsciously within themselves. The objective was not reproducing what futuristic machines might literally sound like. Instead, the work repeatedly explored how bodies might experience impossible environments from within.

    This emphasis upon embodiment extended throughout the lecture. Becker frequently described recording less as a technical procedure than as a physical interaction with material. He spoke about “digging” into sound through microphones, surfaces, and objects almost like an animal searching for prey. Recording becomes exploratory rather than merely documentary. Instead of searching for predefined results, he experiments with materials, microphones, resonances, distortions, and spaces until unfamiliar possibilities begin emerging.

    Hydrophones, geophones, gyroscopes, seismic sensors, underwater acoustics, resonant structures, and sympathetic vibrations appeared throughout the lecture not as isolated technical curiosities but as expressions of a broader way of thinking about sound. Across these examples, Becker continually sought sound behaviours rooted in physical phenomena rather than cinematic shorthand.

    Microphones themselves therefore stop functioning merely as neutral capture devices. Different recording systems become ways of translating material behaviour into perception. Certain microphones approximate human hearing more naturally, while others emphasise transient aggression, resonance, spatial instability, or harmonic complexity differently. Technical systems therefore shape how audiences physically inhabit cinematic space.

    One particularly revealing example involved Becker’s rejection of familiar mechanical science fiction aesthetics built around gears, motors, and obvious physical contact. While developing robotic and futuristic sounds, he instead searched for systems involving minimal friction or direct interaction between moving parts. Gyroscopes, magnetic stabilisation systems, and no-contact mechanisms became especially attractive precisely because they produced movement without conventional mechanical aggression.

    This pursuit of unfamiliar material behaviour also led Becker towards geophones originally designed for oil exploration. Such devices normally detect vibrations travelling through the earth itself. After modifying them into recording devices for creative use, Becker discovered that they produced unusual forms of mechanical distortion unlike conventional electronic processing. Explosions, impacts, and vibrations acquired strange physical textures that felt simultaneously abstract and believable.

    What matters here is not novelty for its own sake. Throughout the lecture, he expressed dissatisfaction with science fiction sound becoming trapped inside references to earlier films. Once audiences unconsciously begin recognising cinematic conventions instead of connecting with physical sensation, realism weakens. He described this particularly clearly while discussing the enormous influence of Star Wars. Those films established an extraordinarily influential sonic vocabulary, though Becker noted that many later science fiction works gradually began imitating these established sounds rather than rediscovering material reality independently. Eventually futuristic worlds risk sounding less like futures than accumulated echoes of earlier cinema.

    Projects such as Gravity, Arrival, and Ex Machina interested him partly because they attempted moving away from these inherited vocabularies towards something more physically grounded. Becker argued that the real world already contains astonishing sonic material if designers remain willing to search for it. Lakes, seismic activity, industrial systems, underwater acoustics, resonant structures, pressure systems, wind, and vibration all contain textures far stranger than many artificially synthesised science fiction effects.

    Memory consequently became another major theme throughout the lecture. Becker repeatedly suggested that audiences respond most strongly once sound reconnects them with experiences they have already encountered physically, even if only indirectly. Rather than reminding viewers of earlier films, he aims to reconnect them with sensations stored within their own perceptual histories. Sound therefore stops functioning merely as representation. It begins activating remembered forms of bodily knowledge.

    These ideas shape even seemingly small technical decisions. Becker discussed reconstructing recording conditions with extreme precision, carefully considering acoustic environments, microphone placement, reflections, surfaces, and physical obstacles. A person walking behind furniture should sound physically constrained by that furniture. A room should behave according to its dimensions and materials. Exterior movement requires different transient behaviour than interior movement. Ribbon microphones become useful outdoors partly due to their softer transient response and spatial characteristics. These decisions emerge from a broader commitment to sensory plausibility rather than abstraction.

    Experimentation itself therefore occupies a central position within Becker’s practice. Constraints, unusual recording processes, collaborative exploration, and conceptual frameworks all become mechanisms for discovering unfamiliar sonic relationships. He repeatedly described projects less as standardised workflows than prototypes requiring entirely different approaches each time.

    Such an approach has increasingly pushed his work beyond conventional Foley stages altogether. Rather than always recording inside controlled studio environments, Becker often seeks real locations whose acoustics already contain the physical characteristics required by the film. Castles, industrial structures, resonant chambers, unusual landscapes, and environmental spaces become active collaborators within the recording process itself.

    Collaboration more generally emerged as another important dimension of his work. Becker repeatedly described involving musicians, engineers, scientists, architects, landscape designers, instrument builders, and conceptual artists within projects. Sound design becomes a form of interdisciplinary experimentation instead of isolated post-production labour. Conversations with geophysicists led towards seismic recording experiments. Underwater acoustic research informed approaches to resonance and transmission. Work with conceptual artists encouraged treating every project as a unique prototype requiring its own conceptual logic and constraints.

    One of the more compelling aspects of the lecture involved Becker’s refusal to separate technical experimentation from artistic thinking. Microphones, recording formats, resonances, distortions, acoustic physics, and bodily sensation never appeared merely as engineering problems. Technical systems instead became methods for reshaping perception itself.

    Curiosity emerged throughout the lecture as a driving force behind his practice. He described continual experimentation with new technologies, new collaborators, new recording situations, and unfamiliar physical systems. Yet beneath this openness sits a remarkably coherent underlying philosophy. Sound becomes meaningful once it reconnects audiences with material experience rather than cinematic habit.

    Perhaps this explains why Becker’s science fiction work often feels unusually tactile. Machines appear heavy, spaces feel pressurised, vibrations seem physically present, while futuristic environments retain connections to recognisable sensory reality. Audiences may never consciously identify the specific recording techniques involved, though they respond to the bodily logic underneath them.

    Science fiction frequently concerns imagined futures, impossible environments, and unfamiliar technologies. Becker’s lecture repeatedly suggested that convincing audiences of these worlds may depend less upon escaping physical reality than listening to it more carefully. The future begins feeling believable once sound reconnects viewers with the textures, pressures, resonances, and vibrations they already understand through lived experience.

    Rather than constructing futures entirely from abstraction, Becker instead builds impossible worlds from sensations audiences have carried within themselves all along.

  • There and Back Again: The Foley Journey of John Simpson

    The magic of cinema extends far beyond what appears on screen. The immersive power of film owes much to sound, particularly the subtle, often unnoticed details that breathe life into scenes. At the heart of this auditory craft is Foley, a specialised discipline within sound design that recreates everyday sounds to enhance the cinematic experience. From the rustling of fabric to the crunch of footsteps on gravel, Foley artists bring a level of realism and texture that elevates storytelling.

    John Simpson

    John Simpson’s Path into Foley

    A distinguished Foley artist, John Simpson, shared insights into the evolving landscape of the craft. With a career spanning decades, his journey into Foley was, like many others, serendipitous. Initially a Foley recordist, his early work took place in an era when Foley was far less complex than it is today. At that time, Foley was not a comprehensive soundscape but rather a tool for editors to fill in the gaps left by automated dialogue replacement (ADR). Soundtracks were often constructed from a limited number of layers, with minimal dedicated Foley elements. However, as film audio technology advanced and stereo soundtracks became standard, Foley took on a more significant role in shaping cinematic experiences.

    Bringing Iconic Films to Life

    John Simpson’s extensive film credits include work on major productions such as Mad Max: Fury Road, The Adventures of Tintin, Happy Feet, King Kong, The Lego Movie, and The Hobbit trilogy. His expertise has contributed to some of the most visually and sonically compelling films of recent times, adding depth and authenticity to their soundscapes. His ability to craft distinctive auditory textures has made him a highly sought-after Foley artist in the industry.

    The Art of Sound Creation

    Simpson detailed some of the unique approaches he has taken in his work. For The Adventures of Tintin, he described the challenge of creating exaggerated yet believable sounds for animation, including the intricate layers needed for the dog Snowy’s movements. He also explained how he and his team created the sound of ship sequences by recording inside a Foley room, using a specially built box to enclose a microphone and simulate the enclosed resonance of a ship’s interior.

    In Happy Feet, Simpson recalled working extensively on the penguin characters’ movements. To replicate the sound of their feet sliding on ice, he used his fingers on different textured gloves and employed frozen fish to achieve realistic wet movements. The Foley team also created unique water effects by stomping around in a bathtub. Additionally, for the character’s dance sequences, he used wooden boards and various shoe types to capture the different weights and styles of tap dancing.

    Crafting the Sounds of Middle-earth

    For The Hobbit films, he described the meticulous work involved in bringing the sounds of Middle-earth to life. One of the most memorable tasks was recreating the sound of Bilbo running through Smaug’s treasure hoard. This involved pouring and shifting buckets of metal coins across the floor and layering multiple elements, including washers, chains, and lightweight metal pieces, to achieve depth and variation. In addition, he highlighted the use of cloth and military-style rustling to enhance battle sequences. He also mentioned that much of the squishy, organic sounds of creatures in The Hobbit were recorded long before the film, creating a library of textures used in later productions. For dragon movements, he described using leather straps, adding weight by dragging them across various surfaces.

    Experimentation and Innovation

    Experimentation remains at the core of Foley. Simpson recalled a scene in King Kong that required simulating the movement of Kong’s enormous hands gripping the Empire State Building. Instead of relying solely on standard props, he used a large copper pot with padding inside to mimic the deep resonance of Kong’s fingers moving across the structure. He also shared how sounds for the ship sequences in King Kong were recorded by stomping around in different types of boots and walking across various wooden surfaces.

    For The Lego Movie, he described how the character MetalBeard’s mechanical movements were enhanced with retractable vacuum cords, chains, and various metallic elements to create an organic yet plastic sound. He also explained how he carefully mixed different Lego brick sounds at various angles and pressures to ensure authenticity while keeping the movements dynamic and engaging. He mentioned how he used garage sales and second-hand stores to find items that could be creatively repurposed for unique sounds.

    For Walking with Dinosaurs, Simpson shared how he approached the challenge of creating dinosaur footsteps. Boxing gloves were used to strike damp sand, providing a weighty, natural sound. To add layers of movement, leather straps and thick ropes were manipulated to simulate the shifting of large creatures. Additionally, he recorded various cloth and harness movements to replicate the creaking of dinosaur skin and muscle shifts. The roaring of creatures was sometimes constructed using unconventional means, such as dragging large, heavy objects across surfaces to create deep, guttural tones.

    Recording Techniques and Unique Methods

    Simpson also experimented with microphone placement to capture unique sounds. For heavy, weighty footsteps, he buried microphones underground and recorded stomping overhead. To simulate the distant echo of footsteps in deep caves, he used long metal pipes and recorded sounds reverberating through them. Additionally, he used hydrophones to capture underwater movements, such as recording splashing and bubbling sounds for ocean-based scenes.

    The Future of Foley

    Beyond feature films, Foley plays a crucial role in television, video games, and even virtual reality experiences. The craft continues to adapt alongside technological advancements, ensuring that sound remains an integral part of storytelling, no matter the medium. While Foley often goes unnoticed by audiences, its absence would be keenly felt, as it provides the subtle authenticity that draws viewers into the worlds they see on screen.

    This lecture highlighted the dedication and ingenuity required in the field of Foley. The work of Foley artists, often overlooked, remains a cornerstone of cinematic storytelling. As long as there are stories to be told, Foley will continue to shape the way audiences experience them, adding depth, realism, and emotional resonance to every scene.

     

  • Stepping into Sound: Insights from Dr Vanessa Ament’s Lecture on Foley

    Dr Vanessa Ament, an acclaimed Foley artist and author of The Foley Grail, shared her insights in a fascinating lecture that covered everything from the nuances of Foley artistry to the philosophy behind sound in film. The Foley Grail is widely recognised as a definitive guide to the craft, offering a comprehensive exploration into the techniques, history, and significance of Foley in cinema.

    Dr Vanessa Theme Ament

    The Power of Sound in Storytelling

    Dr Ament underscored how sound shapes emotional responses, sets the tone, and supports the narrative. She pointed to films like Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, where carefully placed silence enhances audience engagement, avoiding unnecessary auditory clutter. She also referenced The Color Purple, where subtle ambient sounds and quiet moments in key emotional scenes amplified the depth of character interactions, making the audience feel more intimately connected to the story.

    Beyond silence, she highlighted how specific sounds can evoke emotional shifts. In Edward Scissorhands, the delicate snipping noises of the protagonist’s scissors were not just functional but reflective of his emotional state—gentle and rhythmic in moments of tenderness, erratic and sharp in times of distress. This attention to sonic detail, she explained, enhances storytelling in a way that audiences often register subconsciously. By using these examples, Dr Ament reinforced the power of sound as an unseen yet essential component of cinematic storytelling.

    Foley as a Craft

    Foley is not just about adding footsteps or the rustling of fabric—it is about enhancing the believability of a character’s movements and interactions with their environment. Dr Ament explained how the best Foley is indistinguishable from production sound, ensuring seamless integration. In her discussion, she highlighted the difference between various approaches, particularly contrasting the Hollywood tendency for hyperrealism with more nuanced approaches in other parts of the world.

    Dr Ament’s Foley work exemplifies the creativity needed to craft immersive and convincing cinematic soundscapes. In Die Hard 2, she and her team crushed VHS tape cases underfoot to authentically replicate the sound of crunching snow, ensuring that each step taken by the characters felt natural and immersive.

    In Predator, the challenge was to give Arnold Schwarzenegger’s movements a sense of weight and power. To achieve this, Dr Ament used a combination of leather straps and metallic elements to create the sounds of his gear shifting with every step. This meticulous approach enhanced the character’s physical presence, ensuring that audiences felt the weight of his every movement.

    Beyond these, Dr Ament has employed unconventional techniques tailored to specific films. In Die Hard, she used a combination of cracked walnuts and frozen bell peppers to create the distinct sound of breaking bones during the film’s intense fight sequences. For The Addams Family, she layered fabric swishes and creaks to bring authenticity to Morticia Addams’ flowing gown, ensuring that every movement felt as elegant and eerie as Angelica Huston’s performance. Additionally, in Total Recall, she used compressed air bursts and manipulated rubber materials to enhance the futuristic, mechanical quality of the film’s synthetic environments and action-heavy sequences. These examples demonstrate how Foley is an indispensable tool in enhancing storytelling through sound.

    Working with Actors’ Performances

    One of the more compelling parts of Dr Ament’s talk was her exploration of how an actor’s physicality influences Foley. She spoke about working on Batman Returns, where Michelle Pfeiffer’s precise and deliberate movements as Catwoman allowed for equally meticulous Foley work. In contrast, Danny DeVito’s Penguin, though an interesting challenge, required more consistency in grotesque and exaggerated sounds rather than delicate nuances.

    Dr Ament used wet rags manipulated with precision to create the grotesque, slimy textures that defined Danny DeVito’s Penguin. This technique helped reinforce the unsettling nature of the character, making his movements feel more visceral and authentic. The Penguin’s waddling gait was accentuated by dampened fabrics, ensuring that every step carried an additional sense of discomfort and unease.

    Additionally, for the same film, various materials such as stiff rubber and leather were used to capture the distinct sound of Catwoman’s costume, bringing an additional layer of realism to Michelle Pfeiffer’s precise, feline movements. Every flick of her whip and the sleek motion of her tight-fitting suit required sonic precision to maintain the character’s agile and controlled presence. Dr Ament ensured that even the subtlest swish of fabric complemented Pfeiffer’s physicality, enhancing the illusion of fluidity and grace in Catwoman’s movement.

    The Influence of Backgrounds and Training

    Dr Ament discussed how a Foley artist’s personal background can shape their approach to sound, influencing the way they perceive and create auditory experiences. Coming from a performance background herself, she highlighted how musicians often have an acute sensitivity to rhythm, tempo, and tonal variation, which translates seamlessly into the nuanced timing of Foley sounds. Dancers, on the other hand, bring a deep understanding of movement and physicality, allowing them to interpret the kinetic energy of on-screen characters with precision.

    She also noted that artists with a fine arts education tend to approach Foley from a sculptural perspective, treating sound as a three-dimensional entity that interacts dynamically with visual storytelling. Additionally, she emphasised that some of the best Foley artists and sound designers emerge from musical backgrounds, where their appreciation for space, resonance, and dynamics enables them to craft sonic environments that are both immersive and expressive. Dr Ament underscored that this diversity in training enriches the field, allowing for a more varied and innovative approach to Foley work.

    The Evolution of Sound Design

    Comparing classic soundtracks with modern blockbusters, Dr Ament was candid in her critique of contemporary sound design trends. She highlighted how many recent films opt for an overwhelming auditory assault, where layers of sound effects, music, and dialogue compete for attention rather than complementing each other. This, she argued, often leads to sensory overload, diminishing the audience’s ability to engage with the film on a deeper emotional level.

    She contrasted this with earlier approaches where sound designers exercised greater restraint, allowing for moments of silence and subtle audio cues to build tension and heighten suspense. For example, in Predator, strategic use of environmental sounds and quiet moments amplified the sense of unease before action sequences, making the soundscape an active part of the storytelling rather than an indiscriminate barrage of noise. Similarly, in Die Hard, selective use of reverb and distant echoes added a sense of scale to the confined spaces of Nakatomi Plaza, reinforcing the intensity of John McClane’s experience without overwhelming the audience.

    Dr Ament noted that while digital advancements have simplified layering sound, they also pose the risk of overuse, reducing the clarity and impact of a film’s auditory landscape. She suggested that modern filmmakers could benefit from revisiting classic films to appreciate how purposeful restraint in sound design can create a more immersive and emotionally resonant experience.

    Global Perspectives on Foley

    Dr Ament has conducted extensive interviews with Foley artists from around the world, uncovering innovative practices that differ from Hollywood’s established methods. She described how some European Foley artists prefer to record sound effects outdoors for authenticity, capturing the natural resonance of footsteps on varied terrain or the organic rustling of leaves. Others incorporate real-world spaces into their recordings, using locations such as abandoned buildings, underground tunnels, or historic courtyards to enhance the authenticity of their sounds.

    She also highlighted the differences in approach across regions, such as how Scandinavian Foley artists often integrate the natural acoustics of forests and icy landscapes into their recordings, while Japanese practitioners frequently employ traditional materials and handcrafted props to achieve unique textures. Additionally, some European studios encourage improvisation by bringing actors into Foley sessions, allowing them to physically engage with props to create more naturalistic performances.

    Dr Ament’s research underscores the vast diversity of Foley techniques worldwide, demonstrating how each region’s cultural and environmental influences shape the soundscapes of cinema in distinctive ways.

    Final Thoughts

    Dr Vanessa Ament’s lecture offered a compelling exploration of sound design and Foley, highlighting craftsmanship, industry challenges, and the evolving role of sound in cinema. For anyone interested in film, her insights serve as a reminder that sound is not just an accompaniment to visuals—it is a storytelling force in its own right.

    She emphasised that effective Foley seamlessly blends into a film, subtly enhancing the experience without drawing attention to itself. As the industry continues to evolve, the challenge remains to balance technical advancements with artistic integrity, ensuring that sound continues to serve the story rather than overwhelm it.