Robert W Booth

@robertwbooth

32 posts

Barnaby Smyth Discussing Foley on BBC Radio 4

Barnaby Smyth is a Foley artist and editor who’s credits include “Downton Abbey”, “Suffragette” and “Kingsman: The Secret Service” amongst many others; he has also featured a few times as Foley supervisor, notably on “Mr Bean’s Holiday”. Barnaby started out in 2000 as a Foley editor and recordist with his first credited artist role coming in 2006.

At the beginning of this month he joined Francine Stock on BBC Radio 4′s “The Film Programme” to offer a small insight into the sound of Foley in film and TV. The first port of call was Barnaby’s impressive shoe collection, at least his suitcase full of worn and torn shoes used for his work as a Foley artist (shown below). This contained everything ranging from trainers to sandals to flats with the ends ripped off; it can be sometimes be difficult to find a size 10 female shoe that sounds like a heel (wearing heels as an artist can be painful due to the constant walking)!

Amongst a couple of demonstrations, Francine raised the question about how to make the footsteps sound like the character. As a Foley artist myself it was no surprise that his answer pertained to anticipation, changes in velocity and small nuances. It’s all about serving the narrative and channelling the character’s mindframe.

Also discussed was the principle of reverb and decay. Barnaby explained that it’s all about the control of the source recording to be able to place the foley correctly in the scene by adding artificial reverb later in the process. Ironically he then went on to show a recording used in Suffragette that he and his wife recorded with a couple of crows in the background; it appears it still made it into the film however!

You can listen to the programme here, where Francine also talks to Robert Zemeckis about “The Walk” and Joe Wright about “Pan”.

BSc Audio Engineering Year 3!

This blog post marks the start of my online presence for the academic year. The aim is to try and maintain a stream of information about degree and Noise Four projects along with a couple of other (most likely film or music related) entries. I will try and incorporate other social media platforms into this blog such as Medium; it seems like a fresh approach to writing articles and interacting with other users.

Time is already at a premium due to various commitments but I feel that utilising this blog will help develop my writing skills and therefore provide a helping hand with my dissertation. This post may only be brief but I will be coming back here as often as I can to keep the content up to date. For now, please take a look at the following links to see what I’m up to!

My Twitter

The Noise Four Facebook page

Final Mix

With the premix coming to a close we have made many decisions on where we think the final product will end up. We feel we have most departments are sitting well with each other and everything is starting to gel.

It became clear early on in the premix stage that we wanted more control over some of the editing decisions. It was mainly because of this that we decided to switch to an ‘all in the mix’ premix approach. This meant we imported all departments edit sessions into one big session. This allowed us control over each subgroup and its contents.

All sync is locked in and the layering between sound effects and foley is seeming to work. A couple of extra elements are needed in the sound effects department to really sell the piece but those will be brought into the mix on ‘fix tracks’. This means we can slot in extra sounds where we need them. They will just need to be placed in the right sub-group so as to gel with the rest of the effects.

For the final mix itself we will be stemming down again to subgroups and committing to the levels within. This will mean that in the final mix we can further gel everything together and make very small decisions on the fader with automation. At this stage we will also apply a last pass of noise reduction to the necessary stems and shape the piece as a whole using a final pass of EQ and dynamics. The very last stage of this process will be to print the master stems and a video export for submission/delivery.

Premix

Premixing is the art of keeping your options open. This means making mixing decisions while still being able to go back and change how it sounds. One way of doing this is to limit the amount of permanent changes made to audio on the timeline. Less AudioSuite more inserts. If that is not always an option then creating copies of the audio you are to process on mirror (junk and work) tracks allows decisions to be reversed during the mix.

Working with temporary effects such as EQ and reverb on sub masters allows the mixer to tweak these later in the process. As we are mixing this film sequence ourselves we do not deem it necessary to print dipped and un-dipped stems to allow for further tweaks however keeping as many options open in the premix as possible is a good practice.

I am in the final stages of my edit now and fully ready to print stems for the aforementioned premix workflow. There has been much work on finalising the ebb and flow of the sound design and refinement of the sound effects. We have all been editing with weekly-updated stems from each department to allow for the best possible start to premixing.

Sound Effects

As I have mentioned previously the idea for this project was to keep most elements of the sound design close to reality yet grab the attention of the audience. One of the ways to really take this on board was the sound effects editing. In the fight scenes we felt it should be brutal and visceral but not over the top; we also felt that we wanted to make the gunshots as deafening yet ‘realistic’.

To help with this in other departments the dialogue editor was able to edit in efforts and breaths along with foley adding in heavy movement and impact sounds to make it feel believable.

In terms of workflow I split my tracks into categories so it made it more manageable. Each category had 8 tracks (4 mono, 4 stereo) as a starting point and I added where needed. I kept this session separate from my backgrounds and atmospheres so as to keep the session track count down.

Sound Design

With this being my first sound design for a film sequence my research most has consisted of reference watching/listening and researching the role as well as preparing technically so as to give me the best possible start to the project.

During the past couple of weeks I spotted everything in and made sounds maps to focus my creative vision on where the film needed to be taken. I split my sound palette into categories to keep all my sounds organised and easily accessible. My vision for the backgrounds themselves (as opposed to the atmospheric elements) is progressively become darker and darker as the film progresses, making room for more hyper-real elements towards the climax.

In terms of atmospheres I want to introduce almost organic elements and then gently twist them tonally as the scenes progress. Stingers and risers are still essential to creating tension and release despite the director wanting a ‘down-to-earth’ approach to the audio. I feel that a solid bass layer of sounds accompanied my modulating mid-range tones and delicate highs are the key to telling this story.

With regards to workflow I decided to go with the near, mid and far plane approach. This meant I had 6 sub-groups (near, mid and far checker-boarded) and allowed for a clean and organised session. I split my atmospheres into separate groups to enable me to listen between ‘natural’ sounds and more hyper-real elements.

Foley & Sound Design

In conjunction with my role as sound designer for the project, my foley artist role allowed me to collaborate between departments to ensure that the most efficient augmentation could be achieved. I read this article by Bruce Tanis and felt that taking a layered approach to designing a fight scene would work very well indeed. To enhance the process and provide options during the mix I communicated with the foley editor to go through and decide which elements we would each focus on. Recording dynamic movement and footsteps in foley along with impacts from sources such as meat (chicken, pork etc. as described here) would allow me to concentrate my efforts on lower thumps and mid-range impacts.

Foley

Foley is an area in which I have delved previous to this project and is one of the areas of film in which I particularly enjoy. I feel I am more adept at troubleshooting and approaching things in a technical manner than coming up with creative ideas. These factors - in addition to my musical background - make the foley artist role perfect for me. The role does force me to flex my creative muscles when spotting and compiling a list of props and I feel this is a benefit to me. I feel my understanding of rhythm and dynamics in a performance really translate to the foley artist role.

It is far from a wholly technical role however and that applies all the way from spotting to mixing. To emphasise the creative vision I feel it it is necessary to approach the foley ideas in the same manner.

For Retribution myself and the foley editor came up with a list of props based on the spot of the film we carried out. This allowed us to be prepared when it came to a recording day and not spend a large amount of time figuring out what was needed to create the necessary sounds. We really felt that the fight scene would be a welcome challenge and we plan to spend much of the recording time on that scene along with the gunshots.

Retribution Pre-Production

With the Christmas break coming up we inevitable have deadlines before and after the holiday. With preparation for this in mind December is a time to focus on preparing for the mixing for picture module.

This pre-production process consists of reading the brief, the script and watching the video for started to get as good an idea of the project as possible before diving in. To aid my vision for the film alongside the director’s brief I looked into reference films that contained elements I believed would work. As I will be working in the foley department in addition to my sound designer role I have decided to watch The Departed and Reservoir Dogs as references I felt were close.

We are then to get together to spot the film sequence to come up with a group vision so that we are all on the same page. The next step for me is to begin preparing sound maps and cue sheets that will enable me to stick to a creative vision and prevent me from wandering onto a different course.

Personally I have since created session templates for backgrounds and sound effects. The way we worked these out as a group should allow us to reach the final mix stage with the appropriate stems and groups.

For ease of collaboration and in order to maintain good communication creatively we have set up a central file system online to upload stems and video bounces to. This will allow us me for example to download the latest dialogue stem to import into my sound effects session.

Once all these steps are complete I can create a sound palette for my backgrounds and sound effects and collect props for foley.

ADR

ADR, or ‘getting the lips to flap in sync’ as David Yewdall describes it in his book ‘Practical Art of Motion Picture’ is something every sound team wants to avoid (unless you’re the ADR mixer of course!). If not performed, recorded or matched well it can stick out like a saw thumb in a film mix.

Most of the time ADR is needed to replace a line that couldn’t be captured well enough on set; this could be down to a large amount of unpredictable problems that face the production sound mixer, or just a lack of preparation from either the production sound mixer, director or 1st AD…

Although this is often seen as detrimental to a film, it can be used as a performance enhancing process if the actor didn’t quite hit the right notes (so to speak). In fact, it is commonly rumoured that Marlon Brando used ADR as a creative process to enhance his own performance [LINK].

Cinematic Game Trailer - Eve Origins

After running through a couple of different trailers to use for this assignment, including Titanfall and X3 Albion Prelude, I finally decided on Eve Origins and had this approved by our tutor.

First of all, I’d like to say I have not listened to this trailer with the sound at all, as I want to approach it without being influenced by the original; I have no plans to do so until I have completed the assignment.

One of my first impressions was that the eb and flow of this trailer in terms of action was impressive. I thought this allowed it to breath narratively, giving room to have a voice over running in certain sections.

It contains every element we are required to, including foley. It will undoubtably be a huge challenge for me but with the right preparation and approach to creating the sound design I believe I can enhance the visual with sound that tells a great story.

My aim now is to go through and spot the trailer along with coming up with a script for the voice over. Time to get busy…!

Dialogue Editing

Despite not taking the role of dialogue on Retribution I feel it is still necessary to understand at least the most basic elements of the role to be able to assist me in conversing with the editor and being able to enhance my experience as sound designer on the film.

While reading up on the role I found elements that came in useful for myself such as knowing that the dialogue editor should remove and PFX (production effects) from the dialogue to provide the sound effects editor with [LINK]. This helps with being able to create a hyper-real version of a real sound or be able to judge a sound effect in with the dialogue without being layered along with the PFX.

A clean production track provides the sound designer with the best possible focus point to build a world around.

Location Sound

The worse the quality of the capture at the source, the chances of being able to produce a great dialogue edit become slimmer. The production track can only be salvaged to a certain extent by the dialogue editor. It is also possible to mask some elements of bad production audio in either sound design, foley or ADR.

Knowing this going into post-production makes you appreciate the preparation and attention to detail of a production sound team for many reasons. If a production sound team come off location not having detailed sound reports then the dialogue editor will suffer. If they fail to eliminate as many unnecessary elements from production on set the dialogue editor may take longer to provide the sound designer and foley team with a PFX-free guide track.

The location of a shoot does not necessarily determine how the backgrounds and atmospheres of the film should sound, that is down to the director and his vision. The details and sound of a location can help, however, when it comes to making backgrounds. If a production sound team has detailed the environment and recorded a wildtrack of a location (especially outdoors) it can help translate the story of the film, depending on how the director sees the film.

With regards to Retribution I feel the details of the shoot in relation to the director’s brief can be used in the sound design; “The sound needs to be both understated and OTT”. What I take from this is that a more grounded approach to backgrounds can be used in places to help the ebb and flow of the film.

The Expressive Power of Sound in Motion Picture

Storytelling. It’s all about storytelling!

In today’s lecture we looked at how sound design isn’t about creating the sound on screen, you’re just a sound editor if that’s the case. It’s about playing with emotions and senses, enhancing the storyline through sound.

We saw some examples of this, one being Punch-Drunk Love, other being Saving Private Ryan.

With Punch-Drunk Love we experienced the bending of realism, focusing on painting a picture of the character through sound. Going into the mind of the main character and being in his shoes, making the viewer uncomfortable.

With Saving Private Ryan it was all about creating fear, giving the viewer a sense of what it was like on that fateful day on Omaha beach. An iconic piece of sound design that keeps viewers on edge, no matter how many times you watch it…

Punch-Drunk Love is a film I definitely need to watch, having seen the first 15 minutes of the film I feel I need to watch it as a straight-up film watcher, then as a sound designer. The skill of being able to switch between different modes of listening is something I need to develop if I am to become a true sound designer.

Module Introduction - MU2404

MU2404 is the Digital Tools & Workflow (game audio) module of the BSc Audio Engineering & Production degree in year 2. Today’s lecture was an introduction to the module and its contents.

I’m really excited for this module as I enjoyed working on a game trailer last year for my diploma and I hope to produce a better product than last time.

There are two parts to this assignment; the first being sound design for a cinematic (game trailer) plus an 800 word essay; the second being sound design for a game level plus a 1200 word essay. The practical side to both of the assignments require the content to be between three and five minutes.

During the first lecture we covered audio requirements and acquisition techniques for the module. This included information such as what to look for in a trailer, the difference between trailers and gameplay videos and how to go about organising the content we’ll be acquiring.

A History of Motion Picture Sound

The history of sound for motion picture goes back a looong way, to the end of the 19th century, in fact. In this lecture we covered everything from the phonograph all the way up to DTS and SDDS. Inevitably we looked into some of the pioneers of sound and their landmark inventions, including Marey, Edison and the Lumière brothers.

It was a lesson in appreciation and respect for the the craft. Whilst we learned about the creators of what made motion picture sound possible, we also looked at an example of sound design - Apocalypse Now. We explored how the legendary Walter Murch went about the art form. It’s all about the storytelling and almost manipulating the viewer into a false sense of realism.

The power of being able to control what the viewer experiences and the potential of telling completely different stories depending on what you hear makes you appreciate those who do it with ease. I can’t wait to get stuck in on this module…

Module Introduction - MU2402

MU2402 is the Mixing for Picture module of the BSc Audio Engineering & Production degree in year 2. Today’s lecture was an introduction to the module and its contents.

Having undertaken post-production for a film previously, I’m excited to do this again with different material and with a different aim.

There are two assignments in this module, a film mix and data archive, and a 2000 word essay. It is weighted 80% in favour of the practical side leaving the other 20% for the essay.

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