No Film School

Backyard Foley

Foley is a very important part of film, but it can be hard to do it well when you're on a budget. In this article on NoFilmSchool.com (which you can read here) Rob Krekel, sound designer for the game The Last of Us, walks us through the basics of capturing (cheap) foley, like setting up your recording devices, arranging your mics, and choosing the materials that will give you some great sounds.  Krekel sets up shop in someone's backyard to show us how to create fight scene foley with all of the hits, slaps, bangs, whooshes, and bone breaks one would expect from excellent on-screen violence. Krekel describes many ways to get some nice foley sounds using cheap items you can buy anywhere. For example, he talks about using celery to replicate the sound of bones breaking and how if frozen it can give the sound an even more brittle feel. So if you are an aspiring foley artist this is a great article to read, because it is chock full of great tips for beginners!