I saw this neat video on foley art today. I’ve known for a long time that most of what you hear in a movie is not what was actually recorded on set. I mean, like potentially everything, down to dialog – not just sound effects.

The first time I really became aware was for a behind the scenes look at a nature documentary of some kind. It showed a man, very much like the man in the below video, shuffling around in the dirt in a sound studio whilst staring at a bird on screen. And suddenly it was all clear. Of course they can’t get the sound of the bird rustling around in the dirt from a quarter mile away to the exclusion of all other ambient sounds. The entire sound stage is built in post production. Sure, maybe not everything, and not ALWAYS, but pretty much. The same goes for feature films. Obviously to a much greater degree as you pump up the special effects.

So here’s a look at a man who does this for a living. Seems pretty high on himself. It takes an exceptionally great man to do what he does. Most folks fail.

This lead me to this website called SoundWorks Collection, which features folks in the sound recording industry. The focus seems to be on sound recording in the cinema. Some are short 6 minute, almost promotional vignettes, while others are around an hour. Wish I had the time to sort through all these.