Sound Effects For Videos: Behind The Scenes @ Warner Bros. & "Frasier" Humor
Steve K
Posts: 3,232
A well done 6 min video on Foley artists (sound effects for videos):
One of my alltime favorite comedy bits is an episode of "Frasier" titled "Ham Radio". It involves creating an old fashioned radio drama, complete with sound effects. Here is the full episode, the sound effects humor starts ~10:00:
Comments
Fantastic! Thanks for sharing this!
I'm going to also share that first video in the Inspirational Videos thread, with a link back to this thread, so we can always find it again! ;)
Good idea, glad you liked it. Full disclosure - I almost never create my own sound effects, but mostly rely on a large collection from Digital Juice - about 40 DVD's, key worded, organized by type, etc. Don't tell anybody.
It'll be our little secret! ;)
Prepacked sounds are an excellent way to go! Add some sound editing software and those sounds can be so much more!
My singer is all excited towards helping me with foley and voice recording and such. He's really been upping his game this winter, always keeping his recording studio/pro sound company up to date with the latest and greatest stuff. Very impressive.
But it clearly shows me how expensive these tools are. In the realms of sound, we truly get what we pay for. His microphone are all top-notch, mine are the cheapest money can buy. Huge difference in what gets recorded!
Agreed, sound recording is an art unto itself. One idea is a low cost "sound booth" - lots of approaches if you search "DIY sound booth". I built a small one years ago with a Container Store collapsible box (about 15" cube) and some sound insulation from The Guitar Center. An even cheaper way to record voices is to sit in the car, a good sound insulated environment. The best way IMHO is to simply not have any dialogue ...
Here's an example of a commercial small sound booth for voice recording:
https://reverb.com/item/2762146-vbx-desktop-usb-studio-microphone-recording-studio-vocal-booth-for-podcast-voiceovers-vocals?gclid=CjwKEAiAtefDBRDTnbDnvM735xISJABlvGOvf9FyQMtRPz3JNlMsBVP6qhFcNKVlVBdcSC67mDs7gxoC5NDw_wcB&pla=1
My Dungeon Master from back in the day is now a sound engineer, and my Singer hired him to design the new recording booths which are nearly complete. They're really cool and state-of-the-art, with wired-in communications to the recording studio and sound-insulated windows that are only transparent when we tell them to be! LOL
Ever see those super-expensive microphones? He's got those too... many various types.
But he's also always been really good at picking spots to record for great quality. Love this guy!
more sound effects than the sony sound effects vol 1 - 10?
How many DVDs does each Sony volume include? There's a lot in that series, for sure!
But I think it may have been Steve K who's shared the link to Freesound.org, so we can very easily go overboard building up our sound libraries.
As many sounds as I already have, I'm most grateful for getting that link, even though I still haven't checked it out.
Keep in mind, however, that Ben Burtt collected/created every sound for the Star Wars movies entirely from scratch, very much like those in the above video have done, and even more outgoing. He's create or record sounds, catalog them, edit them, and map them to keyboard keys so he could further blend them or play them in sequences. He is quite famous for doing such an amazing and thorough job of painting with sounds so authentically and completely. I've learned a lot from Ben over the years ;)
He's passed his knowledge, techniques, and skills on to Mat Wood, whom is now also passing that all on to younger and younger generations of future sound designers. It's a powerful field of study/practice that will likely never lose its value/need. Mat was the voice of General Grievous in both the movie and the entire Clone Wars saga, as well as the voices of battle droids. Like Ben, he'd create many sounds for the movies and TV series by traveling around the globe to catch that perfect, specific and unique sound.
Many of the star ships' sound are made up from real aircraft, hired to fly especially for recording purposes, mixed with other things or simply edited in the studio to make it all it's own. Ben created R2D2's voice by using combinations of sounds he made using an old ARP keyboard and his own voice trying to mimic toddler babbles and screaches! ;)
Top 10 Greatest Sound Effects in Movies:
I kinda like the wood chipper in the movie "Fargo" (later given a nice meat grinder tribute in the TV series):
Music & Sound Design for Film - by our friends at Film Riot ;)
The Beautiful Lies of Sound Design | Tasos Fratzolas | TEDx Talks