A Foley Effect

In class, we’re working on our upcoming performance of Romeo And Juliet.  Before we can present the play to an audience, there is a lot of work that has to be done.  We need to recreate the script for Romeo and Juliet, assign roles, find out how we’re going to present this to an audience, and manage it all so it is all complete on time!

To prepare for this, I was assigned to the sound and technical team.  Our job was to make sure all the music and sound fx’s are ready for the performance.  In my group, someone mentioned to us that we were using a Foley.  When I heard this, I was confused.  I’ve never heard of a Foley before or what their job is.  For this weekly reflection, I’m going to tell you what I’ve learned from looking into what is a Foley and how it helped me set up our performance of Romeo and Juliet!

A foley effect is a reproduction of everyday sound effects that are added into films, media, and more.  A foley can be anything from footsteps to breaking glass.  It’s sound effects that you could hear in your everyday life that can be recreated.  Foleys are a great way to enhance the audience’s experience viewing the movie or play.  In our case, we’re using Foleys to enhance our radio play adaptation of Romeo and Juliet for our live audience.

Foleys can be broken down into three different categories being feet, moves, and specifics.

Feet is the replication of footsteps.  Foley artists sometimes may have to create walking sounds whether it’s walking on a gravel field or downstairs.  Each of these footsteps sounds needs a different environment to recreate the sound

Movement is the replication of subtle movement sounds.  An example of this could be the swishing of clothes.  This foley could be recreated by rubbing together two different materials or shaking a piece of clothing.  This is just one example of a movement foley.

Specifics sounds could be sounds like a rusty door hinge squeaking or a doorbell ringing.  Specific sound effects are usually added in by sound editors but occasionally  are added by a foley artist.

Overall, learning about these different foley methods has been helpful.  It’s already generated a lot of ideas in my head for sounds that I could add to our performance of Romeo and Juliet!  I hope you enjoyed this weekly reflection.  Make sure you look out for next week’s reflection!