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Lara Dale, Foley Artist

Lara Dale is a New Mexico native, trained in classical music and ballet, who fell in love with choreography and began creating ballet and modern works at the University of New Mexico before moving to NYC to pursue a career as a dancer and choreographer. 

Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans. Through a series of career twists and turns, she ended up in the East Village working as Administrative Assistant for the late great Howard Guttenplan, Director of the legendary Millennium Film Workshop, back in the days of Super 8 and 16MM.

She got to see early works by Todd Haynes, Susan Seidelman, Spike Lee, Jim Jarmusch, and others, and was deeply inspired by their hard work, innovation, and independent success. She went on to pursue theater and the arts for many years, and has resided on both coasts and in Europe. She is now happily back in her home state of New Mexico. 

While searching for a job in the flourishing NM film market, she came across a Craigslist ad asking for someone with a trained dance background to become a Foley Assistant. The precise timing of classical music and the rigorous physical movements of ballet and modern became the perfect background for mastering the art of Foley, which she learned from the Academy Award-winning Foley Artist Ellen Heuer, who was ET’s footsteps among many other amazing credits. 

In partnership for many years with Wildfire Studios in Los Angeles, she built an extensive Hollywood resume of both major features and important independent projects. She opened Footvox Studio in 2013 to better serve the vibrant New Mexico film community. 

Her credits include Twilight: Eclipse, The Mechanic, Mildred Pierce, Drunktown’s Finest, Rosemary’s Baby – NBC, Black or White, and Expendables 1 and 3.

Lara’s credits on iMDB

What is the job of a Foley mixer and a Foley artist?

As a Foley Artist, at the most basic level, I walk all the footsteps of the characters in a film, whether animated or human, while my sound engineer makes sure they are recorded correctly. It’s actually way more complicated than that, so I will use Toy Story as an example since so many features today are animated or have animated effects.

Cartoons don’t make any noise. The filmmakers have to bring all the actors into the sound studio to record them reading the script, then the studio animates to those vocal tracks. Once the animation reaches final edit, some of the greatest Foley Artists in the business, including Jana Vance and John Roesch, have to invent from scratch all the physically generated noises of each of the characters.

They meticulously invent sounds like Buzz Lightyear’s wings unfolding, or the footsteps of Woody walking along the wooden bedroom floor. Every single toy has to have a distinct sonic footprint, both literally and figuratively. This can literally be hundreds of tracks, and thousands of cues.

What is Foley responsible for covering in a film or tv show?

We do all the human or character-generated noises in a film – walking, running, eating, brushing hair, brushing teeth, punching, kicking, even kissing noises since the room mic doesn’t pick that up. What we don’t do is sound effects such as explosions, car crashes, trains, planes, factory sounds, etc.

If you want to hear a brilliant example of Foley and sound effects, seamlessly mixed to seem like the hundreds of tracks are the real sounds, watch the chase scene in Toy Story when Woody is trying to catch up to the moving van. That is true Post Production sound at its finest. And there are a number of really good videos online now if you use the search term “Foley Artist.”

A talk Laura gave about her work

Can you describe the workflow of a Foley project? What elements do you cover?

When I tell people that I worked on major projects like Twilight: Eclipse and Expendables 1 and 3, I often get asked if I got to meet any of the actors. I patiently explain that post means post and that some films can take a year or more to edit, so Post Sound teams are generally getting the project long after the sets have been torn down and the actors are on to other films.

Picture Lock is a technical term, meaning what we get is what audiences will actually see on the big screen. Once the final edit has been approved, we are part of three sonic stems. The first stem is Composing or Soundtrack, the second stem is Foley (human-generated sounds), and the third stem is Sound Effects (non-human-generated sounds) – not necessarily in that order.

Most beginning filmmakers think music is all they need for Post Sound until they do a horror film and realize music doesn’t create the heart-wrenching bloodiness of someone being stabbed or having their eyes gouged out. Then they hear the boom mic sound and realize most of that is unusable. It used to be that 50-60% of the on-set sound was wiped and re-recorded. Nowadays with all the green screen and visual effects, the post teams pretty much wipe the entire original soundtrack and then meticulously rebuild it from scratch.

The shiver you get in horror is a lot about Foley, with lots of layered sounds and very messy props, what with stabbing or hacking watermelons for bodies being dismembered, or wrenching celery to do a neck being broken, or biting through a Pomegranate as I did in NBC’s Rosemary’s Baby, to simulate the sound of Rosemary eating a human heart in one of the creepier scenes.

One of the major components of Foley recording is footsteps. How many types of shoes do have for work? How many different surfaces are there at the studio?

If you work long enough on diverse projects you will eventually need to have every type of shoe, or at least the sound of that shoe, that you possibly can. I have about three hundred pairs of shoes, both male and female – everything from 1940s orthopedic women’s heels that sound like really great stilettos, to men’s Italian leather loafers that sound like Fred Astaire style ballroom dancing shoes.

My best shoes I have whittled down over the years and they are the ones reserved only for leading characters. I tend to name them after old Hollywood stars, so I have Greta Garbo, Marilyn Monroe and Betty Davis as my favorite leading lady shoes, and Clark Gable, Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart as my favorite leading men.

As far as surfaces, next time you watch a major movie, pay attention to how many surfaces all the characters are walking on. Everything from mud to dirt to concrete to wood to carpet to linoleum to tile to marble – filmmakers shoot anywhere and everywhere, including outer space, so you have to have floor surfaces that can stand in sonically for whatever that location requires.

I have about thirty to forty floor surfaces I can create. Some of them I walk as is, and some of them I layer to get different types of sounds, such as making a wood floor creakier for a scary scene by layering another creaky floor surface on top or making concrete more gritty for an urban crime setting by adding fine dirt and broken glass. It’s all about the layers and about how well you know the particular complexities of each surface you are working with.

What are the challenges of doing different types of footsteps especially when the character is much larger or smaller than you are (and you naturally don’t sound like them)?

Learning to walk Foley correctly for your skills and body type is the hardest part, especially since you have to get in a heel-toe, heel-toe sound, and most people tend to flatfoot it when they are first learning, which makes it sound like Frankenstein or a weird stalker.

The shoe choice is critical in the sense that the expectation of an audience is that a high heel sounds a certain way, and when you don’t produce that, it pulls them out of reality and into a place where now they are concentrating on the sounds and not the character. Gathering all your types of shoes and mastering how to walk in them can take many films and many years, and I personally didn’t come into my stride, so to speak, until about the third year or so.

Do you ever work on headphones or just listening to what’s happening in the room?

Some Foley Artists swear by headphones while others feel it compromises your ability to accurately hear what you are doing. I personally like headphones because I feel like I hear the nuances of the performance better, but I highly recommend using wireless because the cord can really get in the way when you are trying to bust through a lot of sound cues and you keep tripping or getting tangled up in the cord.

What are you listening for? How is it different from everyday listening? Or are you thinking more about performance?

The old cliché in Foley is that you are only a good Foley Artist if the audience doesn’t notice your work. If they are completely immersed in the film and the sound seems so real they don’t even pay attention to it, then our sound team is doing their job. If anything in the sound starts to stand out, then it is either poorly performed or a bad sound mix and we are not doing our jobs.

Consequently, though there are lots of tricks and techniques you learn or discover, the most subtle and real-sounding performance is always the best. When I am walking a character, I try to get my bearings as far as how many steps they have in that segment, what surface they are on, and what shoe they are wearing. Then I try to let go and just concentrate on the emotions they are conveying, particularly if it is a strong negative emotion such as sadness or anger which deeply informs the tone of the scene. If I am doing the mother of a dying cancer patient and I make her sound too cheerful or upbeat, I’m cutting into the work of that actor and undermining their performance. Your biggest job in Foley is to enhance and support the performance of each actor without any of your hard work ever being noticed.

Since the Foley artist is typically responsible for moving the mic while working, have you learned mic placement by watching other walkers or from Foley mixers instructing you? Was there a learning curve to learning mic placement?

Mic placement is definitely learned, but it is also about having a good ear. Your sound engineer may also request specific mic placements in order to create recording effects such as larger or smaller resonant spaces so they will not have to pull them from a sound effects library later.

I’ve definitely learned how to listen over the years and will say that generally for me a mic at about 18 inches away, at a somewhat low 45-degree angle is best for most of my footsteps. That of course can change from studio to studio but is what works best in my own space. I will say that the industry standard for mics can vary but the good studios use the finest mics regardless of cost, and the most commonly cited brands are Sennheiser and Neumann.

Props are a whole other challenge as you may be doing a dining scene and need to raise the mic up and over the props table if you are working on picking up silverware and plates for example. Certain props are much louder like paper, ceramics, or metal, so you have to either perform more subtly or move your mic back slightly from the noisy prop. With an experienced engineer, you can always run it by their trained ear if you aren’t sure about the sound you are producing. It’s kind of a sonic dance between the Foley Artist and the Sound Engineer when you are working out all the sound cues.

How has your background as a dancer helped you as a Foley artist?

Though Foley has its roots in radio, the earliest commonly heard Foley for major studios was tapping sounds for dance numbers. Uncredited day players with dance training were brought into the sound studio to overdub the rhythms of the tap shoes in any given dance number.

The most famous dance routines you hear with old Hollywood stars were not the actual recordings of the dancer’s performance, but post-production overdubs with contract day players. One exception was Fred Astaire, whose Foley was performed by his choreographer, Hermes Pan, because he knew the dance routines inside and out.

One of the only stars to do his own Foley was Gene Kelly. A notorious perfectionist, he would go into the studio after picture lock and record his own dance routines, so “Singin’ in the Rain” is one of the rare instances where you are hearing the artist’s own performance, re-recorded in a professional sound facility.

The precision, strength, and timing a dancer acquires through rigorous training is priceless when it comes to Foley, so I strongly recommend dance and/or music training as a prerequisite. Even some experience in martial arts can be beneficial, as you will know how to listen with your body and repeat precise sonic performances over and over again when necessary.

How did Footvox come about?

I originally answered an ad on Craigslist for the acclaimed Foley Artist Ellen Heuer, who was from Los Angeles and did ETs footsteps and Dirty Dancing, as well as hundreds more great films. She was looking for an assistant for a studio she was opening in Corrales, in order to take advantage of the New Mexico film incentives. I ended up apprenticing under her for about three years until she moved back to Los Angeles and I inherited the props from her studio.

I got to watch a master at work and did do some footsteps and prop noises for crowd scenes, but most often I was feeding cues, buying new props, and cleaning up the studio afterward. It wasn’t until Ellen moved back to L.A. that I really began to learn the serious work of walking for the major Hollywood stars. My engineer helped a lot, as he had seen so many sessions by that point that he could coach me when I had cues that I didn’t know how to execute. But I am proud to say that I did a lot of learning on my own, just experimenting and working things out by ear.

For someone interested in becoming a Foley artist, what personal strengths, skills, etc are beneficial or needed for the job?

A movement background of some sort is essential – either dance or martial arts or tai chi – anything that requires you to be in total command of your physical body. Dance is really the best foundation because timing is everything in Foley and dancers are masters at watching someone move and then duplicating it exactly.

How do you get a foot in the door or what’s the best way to get started?

Foley is handed down from artist to artist and there really aren’t that many of us in the industry compared to how many actors, editors or directors there are. My lineage through Ellen actually goes back all the way to Jack Foley, which kind of amazes me.

I would say that finding a good sound engineer who has worked on Foley and asking if you can sit in when they have a session would be a good place to start. Also, asking around in your community and seeing if there is a Foley artist who needs an assistant for bigger projects. In my case, I would never have known about this profession if I hadn’t seen an ad in Craigslist and had the curiosity and determination to learn about it from the ground up.

How much of your work comes from projects in New Mexico?

I would say that a lot of my independent work comes from connections I have to local filmmakers in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, and all of the features come from connections my engineer has out in Hollywood.

Could you give us a couple of Foley hacks? What sounds do you make in a way that probably aren’t how most people would guess you do it?

Grilled Chicken used as Foley for Rosemary’s Baby

Wet chamois is your best friend when it comes to dripping blood and gore kinds of noises, and in the Rosemary’s Baby remake for television, I used a grilled chicken to make the hacking sounds for a particular flashback scene where the ancient witches that are haunting the building are seen hacking a body to pieces in a human sacrifice ritual.

What’s your favorite part of being a Foley artist?

Everything, but most of all I love turning a promising film into a good film just by being able to do precise sonic choices that enhance what already exists or creates a new atmosphere that didn’t exist in the original tracks. My slogan is “Foley Makes a Bad Film Better and a Good Film Great!”

What’s your least favorite part?

I guess studio clean-up, but even that is very satisfying to me. After Rosemary’s Baby I cleaned up meticulously, as I do after every session, but I was finding chicken bits for weeks afterward in the strangest places as I had hacked so hard it had splattered everywhere.

Check out our interview with Lara on The SoundGirls Podcast

Find More Profiles on The Five Percent

Profiles of Women in Audio

 

FOLEY 101: A Crash Course

In my journey to learn more about different jobs in audio, I have decided to share what I learn within these blog posts. My first topic is one that I am most familiar with: foley. As a foley mixer and editor, I am often asked: what exactly is foley?

If you’ve watched a film lately, you’ve heard Foley. Foley is the reproduction of sound for any visual medium. Foley is in film, television, video games, VR and digital media. The art of foley is named after Jack Foley, an early sound effects artist. Jack was a pioneering developer of performing sound effects live and in synchronization with pictures. We need to re-record these sound effects because often what is recorded on set is unusable. Microphones on set are focused on capturing the actors’ dialog as cleanly as possible; therefore all other sounds become neglected.  Everything you hear in a film – from footsteps to handshakes, kisses to puking – is created specifically for and in sync with a picture.

Foley, as we know it today, consists of a team of usually 2-3 people in a studio performing, recording and editing everything you hear on screen. Okay, maybe not everything… we leave the explosions to the sound effects editors. Each member of the team plays a different role in creating and capturing the sounds for a project. And those members are:

The Foley Artist

These are the people who begin to bring characters to life, sonically. They are tasked with recreating the sounds for anything the actors interact with and anything on screen that would make sound. The foley artist manipulates props to create these sounds as well as performing footsteps for the characters on screen.

The Foley Mixer

While the whole team has a role to play in the sonic quality, the mixer works with the microphones, preamps, and other gear that may be used to capture the foley. We generally use two microphones (a ‘close’ mic and a ‘far’ or ‘room’ mic) for interior locations on screen and one close mic for exterior locations. The mixer is in control of the balance of these microphones and uses the two in combination to create perspectives or distance in the sounds.

The Foley Editor

This is a fairly fluid role and is often varied depending on the foley studio. The editor may be part of the team before or after the recording stage. Sometimes the editor and mixer roles are combined. In general, though, the job of the foley editor is to ensure that all of the recorded sounds are in sync and without any artifacts or distortion. The foley editor uses software such as Pro Tools to perform these edits. The editor may also play a part in the creativity of the sounds; manipulating what was recorded into something different. For instance, they may pitch down a set of footsteps to give a character more weight.

The Process


An assortment of foley artist’s shoes
Photo by Jeremy Benning

First, we begin with the footsteps. The artist chooses a pair of shoes to suit the character and we go through scene-by-scene capturing footsteps. On our second pass-through, we cover all of the props. These are items that the actors interact with that would make sound. This includes simple things like putting down a glass or shaking someone’s hand to more complex sounds like swords unsheathing or a person skateboarding. The final pass is the cloth pass. This is where the artist manipulates different types of material to capture the sounds of characters’ clothing movements. The cloth pass adds another layer of subtle depth to the soundtrack; giving the characters even more life.

Once all passes have been completed, and everything has been edited and synced, we prepare the session for delivery to the final mix stage. There, our tracks will be combined with the sound effects, dialog, and music to create the complete, finished soundtrack.

When Foley is done well, you generally don’t hear it. That’s because it fits in so seamlessly with what you are visually seeing that you shouldn’t notice it. If something stands out, it can take the viewer out of the experience. That is what we aim for every day – our work to not be heard. It sounds bleak, but it is actually very rewarding. We often are so absorbed in what we are creating that it becomes almost a challenge to get a reaction out of each other. When the artist performs a perfectly in sync, great-sounding footstep pass, we all cheer. When we build a really gross sound, the usual indicator of where we’ve reached peak grossness is based on those reactions too. If the artist looks back and sees my face contorted in disgust, we know we’ve just made magic.  Ultimately, the natural human elements that foley can bring to a soundtrack are irreplaceable.

 

Going Freelance

Hello everyone and welcome to 2019! As a new contributor to the SoundGirls blog for 2019, allow me to briefly introduce myself.

I am a foley recordist/sound editor based in Toronto and have been working in the audio post industry for just over three years now. In late 2017, I left my salaried position at a studio to pursue a freelance career. 2018 was my first complete year as a full-time freelancer. As a recent newcomer to the freelance world, I would like to share what I’ve learned and what has helped me so far. Here are some tips I hope you find helpful if you are thinking about, or are in the process of going freelance.


FINANCES


This is going to be the most significant subject because it is the most important – in my opinion – if you are considering going freelance. Some of us don’t like thinking about the money part. It can be stressful, but it is one of the most important things you need to do to set yourself up for success and peace of mind. Freelancing can be unsteady. You may be swamped with work for a month and then not have a single job the next. This uncertainty requires advanced planning, financially. The first thing you should ask yourself is: “How long can I survive without work on the current savings I have?” It was recommended to me to have six months of expenses saved.
At the time I went freelance, I maybe had four. This is really up to you and what you’re comfortable with. For me, the timing was more imperative, and I felt the decision to leap into a fantastic opportunity outweighed my concerns of not having enough savings. What did help ease my peace of mind in those uncertain first few months was keeping a budget. Whether you use a simple spreadsheet (as I did) or go for software like the highly recommended YNAB, a financial tracker at the very least will help you see where your money needs to go vs. where it is going. One important thing you need to include in your budget: setting aside money for taxes.


TAXES


The word generally comes with a winced or exhausted expression from a freelancer. Being your own boss requires you to do the not-as-fun stuff that your employers would have done in the past. This means keeping track of and filing your taxes. Now since I am in Canada, my advice may not specifically relate to your region, but I will try to be broad.

Two pieces of advice here: 1. Keep all of your receipts for EVERYTHING and keep them organized. You will be doing yourself a huge favour if you can keep up the habit throughout the year. Buy one of those small accordion file folders and organize your receipts by category. Things like ‘work equipment,’ ‘travel fees’ are good business expense categories to file in. You should also keep a record of your invoices. (I have a digital record to save on printing.) You may also consider digitally tracking your receipts/invoices with software like Quickbooks or Wave (Free). Organizing this paperwork will make things easier to tally at tax time, and heaven forbid, keep things in order if you are ever audited. * knocks on wood *


HIRE AN ACCOUNTANT


believed I could file my taxes all on my own and I probably could have with relative success but having an experienced accountant or tax preparer handle this for you is well worth the money. (Plus you can write off their bill as a business expense.) An accountant who specializes in your industry will be extremely helpful as they will know all the ins and outs of what expenses you can write off. They will also be your best bet to save more of your money from going to taxes. I mentioned earlier that you should budget for taxes. Your accountant can help you to determine what percentage of your income you should be putting aside based on your estimated income. You should also set aside any sales tax earned (HST/GST/PST in Canada). Once again, your accountant will again be a useful resource in knowing how to file your sales tax return as well. Keep the money you set aside separate for organizational purposes and so that you don’t inadvertently spend it.As far as finances go, I’ve only just scratched the surface. I would highly recommend you research resources specifically pertaining to the region you live in – especially in regards to taxes.


Networking


It can be extremely daunting, exhausting, and anxiety-inducing for some, but networking in the audio industry is your best way to gain work and experience. This is a relatively small industry. Everyone typically knows each other – especially locally – so try and use that to your advantage. One connection can help introduce you to another.

My biggest piece of advice for networking is to try your best to be yourself and be genuine. Those who have been doing this for a while can sense when you are being fake or insincere. No one wants to work with someone with a bad attitude or an ego and those people will have a much tougher time finding work no matter how knowledgeable they are or how qualified they are for the job. Also, being a small industry, your reputation will go far. So just in general, be a good person. Also, never expect anything from someone else and appreciate whatever opportunities or experiences you may be given.


Stay Social


Freelance work can be very lonely, especially as a sound editor where you may spend your days working from home. I like to stay in touch with my other audio friends and make plans to meet up every so often. It’s helpful to have that community of like-minded people to bounce ideas off of. And they usually know some key commands you haven’t heard of yet that will change your life (I’m looking at you, OPT + CMD + V). That community can also be a great way to get more work. If we have work pop up that we are too busy to take, we often recommend or offer it to each other.

 

SoundGirls’ social media groups are a great way to connect to the industry.

 

As much as I dislike social media, it can also be a great way to stay connected to the industry, learn new things and even find work. There are tons of groups online for audio (including SoundGirls’ various social media sites) that you should definitely bookmark and keep in touch with.

I would not have been able to survive the leap to freelance if it weren’t for the amazing support I had in my professional and personal life. I was very fortunate to have great mentors share their own advice with me and I hope this information helps someone else. Freelancing certainly isn’t for everyone and that is OK! In the end, you’ll know what works for you.

If you have any other advice from your own experience or have any questions, please leave a comment or feel free to contact me.

I’m looking forward to sharing more of my experiences and what I’m learning in 2019.


 

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