During the first semester Sam, Rob and I were contacted by David on behalf of Matt North, an Audio Production graduate who wanted some assistance with recording some foley and also sourcing ambiences for a film he was mixing call Callback. We wholeheartedly agreed, and Matt sent us the video file, suggesting that we work through chronologically and sent him OMF files at various stages, essentially like working on reels when working with physical film.

We recorded Foley for characters footsteps and cloth in places, and prop effects as well. Ambiences were an interesting challenge, as the film takes place over several locations, and we needed both exterior ambiences as well as interior room tones. It was challenging, but rewarding, and I think it definitely helped me towards meeting my primary learning outcome about improving my tracking, mixing and recording abilities, specifically in regards to sound effects and ambient effects, and will stand me in good stead when I come to work on the post for Cognition.

We did have a few issues during this time, which meant we missed a deadline at one point, but Matt was very understanding. The video file Matt gave us worked fine on the projector, but a combination of the resolution and frame rate of the file meant that Pro Tools could not send the video to either television in the Foley room or the voice-over booth, which meant we couldn’t sync to the picture when recording Foley. This link describes the issue we were having: the video file we were sent was a 1080p 23.976fps file, and the TVs in the Foley room and voice-over booth didn’t support PsF, which is necessary to display these files onscreen. We changed the file to a different version, but then this caused the Mac to run really slowly, so we had to get another version of the file that worked on the TV screens but didn’t slow the Mac down. Some of the picture was cut off, but we made do.

We have just recently completed the final reel for Callback and have sent it to Matt. He has said he’ll be sure to provide us with a link to the completed film in due course, at which point I will ask if I can update this post with the link to the film. I’ve also included a few photos we took of the footstep recording process below:

Rob trying to find the very best angle for a photo of the recording set up we had when recording grass footsteps. The artist, which I think was me in this case, pushes down firmly onto the tape with their fists clenched in sync with the actors.

This is a relatively simple set up for recording concrete footsteps, however we did periodically sprinkle the surface of the concrete slab with a few pinches of sand, in order to better create the scratchy scuffs that can happen when walking on concrete. The little things really do matter when recording Foley.