soundscapes // the blob

As I did in my worksheet post, I'm just going to write out my journals how I have them written in my notebook, commenting and annotating as necessary along the way.

My first port of call for this project was to decide which film or show I wanted to use. I originally was going to do something modern or well known, like "Walking Dead" or "Jurassic Park", but all of those were made using modern sound effects and equipment. I called my dad because he LIVES for those old, B-list, seemingly goofy movies that were made before modern tracks were introduced. I remembered learning from the documentary during Launch that movies up until basically the 1970s used the same sound effects; you could watch a cowboy movie made 30 years apart and hear the same gunshot noises and horse whinnies, for example. So with the help of my dad, I decided to go old school.

I spent some time watching clips from Charlie Chaplin to the Blob (I noted needing to look up the release years for everything I was watching to make sure it was within the range I had determined I wanted to work with). My dad had also suggested shows like "the Twilight Zone" and "Buck Rogers".

After deciding on a clip, I needed to do some more research on Foley artists, the techniques they used, and their careers.

The first movie that came to mind after talking to my dad was "The Blob", which was released in 1958. There is a scene where the Blob is "chasing" (if you can call the blob blobbing a chase) the main characters into a kitchen (minute 58-59). I was also thinking "Night of the Living Dead" (1968). There is a scene from minutes 7:44-8:44 where the zombie is chasing one of the main characters and she is trapped in a car; he's banging on the glass and groaning and she's screaming and trying to get away. I decided to keep those in the back of my mind, and try to explore more than just horror movies.

I thought of my dad's suggestion of "Buck Rogers" (1939), but it would be a lot of repeating sounds like gravel crunching as they do a lot of walking around in what looks like the California desert. There weren't a wide range of sounds and the ones that were different were so spread out I would need more than a minute to recreate them. I found the same issue with "the Twilight Zone" (1959); there were either repeated sounds, the sounds were too far apart for my purposes, or there were no sounds at all. It was a very dialogue heavy show, which makes sense, since it was more of a story telling concept.

My next thought was animated movies. I figured that similarly to live action movies, anything before the 1970s would be good to use. I looked into some older Disney movies, but the full versions weren't on Youtube which is the platform I chose to find my materials. I thought it would be a lot easier than searching endlessly through Netflix or another streaming platform. "Indiana Jones" came up as a suggested movie, but you don't mess with perfection so I carried on. I thought "Spongebob" could be a fun one to tackle, but the time between sound effects was too much to make sense for this project, same with "Saun the Sheep" and "Scooby Doo".

After several hours of sifting through films and shows, I narrowed it back down to my original two: "The Blob" and "Night of the Living Dead". I decided to make notes about each by searching them on one of my favorite websites, imdb.com. I iMDB literally everything, it's a weird tic almost. I just really like to know things about the films and shows I'm watching, especially filming locations and actors, and what else they have been in. Since starting Soundscapes and learning about Foley artists, I've found myself looking at who they are on movies, and who is part of the sound department, and their background. When I get into something, I go IN on it. Anyway, here are my notes about the movies I was deciding between.

• The Blob

• Released 1958

• Sound department: Gotfried Buss; Robert Clement

• Gotfried Buss created the sound of the barking dog (I'm not sure why this was such a big deal, but they must have thought it necessary to give him credit, and I found this hilarious. Imagine being remembered and credited for making a dog noise?)

• Robert Clement is credited as the "sound" in "The Blob", "sound mixer" in "Thunder in Dixie" (1965), and "sound recordist" in "Way Out" (1966)

• Night of the Living Dead

• Released 1968

• Sound department: Marshall Booth; Gary Streiner

• Both men are credited as "sound engineers" instead of just "sound" like in "The Blob"; it's amazing what 10 years can do to an industry

• Marshall Booth only worked on "Night of the Living Dead"

• Gary Streiner did sound on "The Affair" (1971) and "The Winners" (1974)

I was still unsure of which film to choose, so I decided to start researching what a Foley artist actually does, what's involved in the job, who these people are, and so on. Foley artists didn't even start getting credited in films and shows until the 1980s. This came about from a short made with Foley artists John Roesch and Hilda Hodges, and Foley mixer Mary Jo Lang, which made more people aware of Foley artists and what they do (Cine Montage). These are some pretty impressive people. John Roesch is best known for big name films like "ET" (1982), "Gremlins" (1984), "The Addams Family" (1991), "Top Gun: Maverick" (2022), "Guardians of the Galaxy 3" (2023), and so many more that the whole page would be filled with his accomplishments, but I picked the ones I either recognized or really enjoyed. Hilda Hodges accolades are nothing to sneeze at either; her name is attached to huge films like "Weird Science" (1985), "Beetlejuice" (1988), "The Lion King" (1994), "Twister" (1996), and even the hilarious 2009 film "The Hangover". These two are a great example of how incredibly diverse a Foley artist needs to be in order to do what they do.

research continued

I decided to watch some videos on Youtube and take notes on the part I found interesting or useful. What I'm finding the most incredible is how readily available information is online. I know I keep reverting back to when I was a student 12 years ago, but much like the film industry, a lot can and has changed in the last 12 years. What would have taken me several books and multiple google searches, and whatever else, took me one search on Youtube or Google. It's just wild the developments and the ease in the last decade, and it's honestly a little scary for someone older than Google who has seen a massive uptick in technology. Somehow I always wander off on the philosophical rants, but I think deep thinking and being made to come to realizations outside of the main subject area is what makes us artists, what makes us human. A willingness to learn and to grow is the best way to move forward in all aspects of life, but especially within art. Below are my notes from the various videos I watched. Some of them were more useful or informative than others, but they all had their place.

• Fight Club: The Beauty of Sound Design

• Daniel Netzel

• Good sound design is meant to be paired with the visuals so that it goes unnoticed

• "Die Hard" sound designers missed the mark, whereas "Fight Club" uses really effective sound effects to convey realism (they actually went back and replaced the sound effects in the film with sound effects that have been used in other films to show fight scenes, and it took away from the authenticity of it)

• To get the right sound, the Foleys used chicken carcasses stuff with walnuts tracked over what is usually used (celery stalks wrapped in wet cloth)

• The main job of a Foley is to create sounds that don't exist in our world. They used the example of the lightsaber sounds being made with a projector and the hum of a tube tv, while the blaster was made with a stretched out slinky that was being struck

• Ren Klyde and Richard Hymns are the "Fight Club" sound designers

What I found most interesting about this is the process of finding the right combination of things to get the right noise. Who else would think of stuffing a chicken carcass with walnuts to sound like someone being punched? I think that's what is drawing me to Foley so hard, is the creativity behind it all, the option to say, "yeah, I'm going to stuff a chicken today to make a sound effect."

• Common Film Sound Effects: Cliches and Overused

• Cato Zane

• 1) Gabriel's horn sound – used to indicate an ominous scenario; one big, long bass horn note repeated; biblical proportions kind of idea; often used in film to indicate soon to come destruction

• 2) Red tail hawk sound – often paired with an eagle because actual eagles are really wimpy sounding

• 3) Wilhelm scream – this is a stock sound effect used in hundreds of films; some sound designers use it as a but of an easter egg or jest for other sound designers; it came from a film called "Distant Drums" and is labeled as "man getting eaten by an alligator scream"; Ben Burtt used it in "Star Wars" which increased the sound's popularity

• 4) Howie scream – this is a longer, more anguished scream than that of a Wilhelm; it was actually used as the noise of the tie fighters in "Star Wars"

• 5) Diddy laugh – this is the somewhat creepy sound of children laughing; used in the opening scene of the Nintendo 64 video game "Diddy Kong Racing"; also used in many TV and film productions

This was just a suggested video after the "Fight Club" one and I thought it was interesting that I recognized every sound effect she was talking about. I recently watched "Sons of Anarchy" and there was one sound that stood out to me and actually annoyed me deeply, even before starting this class. There was a particular door that would be opened and the door would absolutely not make this sound in real life, but it was the sound I would imagine a heavy jail cell door would make. I commented on it every time because it was so incredibly out of place.

• Story Telling with Cinematic Sound Design

• Film Riot

• Hard effects are things on screen that make noise for a short period of time

• Terminator 2

  • The purpose of the first shotgun blast needed to be taken into account; the cop was a bad guy made of liquid metal and the sound design team needed to figure out the best way to make this happen

  • The shotgun sound wasn't simply a shotgun being fired, it was a layering of a phased .38 pistol, rifle echo in a canyon, cannon, another cannon sped up, put together by composite mix and then final mix

• Most great sound moments are actually already written into the script and its up to the sound designer to make it happen

• Hyper-real sound is bigger than life sound (emphasizing a sound to make it more distinct), not really a thing 80 years ago

• Mark Mangini

  • Sound designers focus more on every day things such as doors; doors opening and closing, what the door is made of, what is in front of and behind the door, how much of a gap around the door, even down to how the doorknob functions

  • The sound a door makes can set the tone for a whole scene, especially in horror movies

• Sound design of a scene

  • Sound design is everything you hear

  • Walter Murch is the first person to be credited with sound design

  • In "Terminator", punching through the face of the bad guy was a glass being pushed into yogurt

  • Terminator uses the juxtaposition of loud-quiet-loud which is a great way to show contrast; sometimes the lack of sounds is as effective (for example, in "Terminator", there is no sound of exertion or dialogue because the characters are robots so the lack of human emotions just shows their inhumanity even more)

  • "The visiual material knocks on the front door...sound tends to come in the back door, or sometimes even sneak in through the windows or through the floor boards" – Walter Murch

• Sound design can be the entire film; "The Matrix" sound designer wanted to use an arc of sound so that it doesn't use their whole arsenal of sound effects right away which leads up to the final epic fight scene where they throw all the sounds in there

• Sound design is the backbone of cinema

• Sound design can be expansive

  • Ben Burtt and George Lucas decided to leave out music altogether in the first "Star Wars", and as it goes on, the music is added in and builds to show the growing relationship between Vader and Luke

  • Sound design shouldn't be limited by once scene, movie, or series

  • The sound design in "The Matrix" grew exponentially as the series went on, the sound designers pulled out all the stops by the final movie

• To be cinematic is to be bold with sound

I found it really interesting how every day things that we don't even think about, like the sound a door makes or footsteps, can be the main focus of a Foley artist. It's pretty crazy to think that days are spent on figuring out how to make a door sound like it should, or figuring out what type of material to use to make footsteps.

• Foley Artist Peter Burgis Demonstrates Sound Effects

• IntoFilm Clubs

• He uses celery to show someone cracking a stiff neck; sugar can be used on wood to sound like gravel or walking outside; creaks can be made by pinching cassette tape between your fingers and pulling; a pillow case of salt can sound like snow; cassette tape bunched up sounds like grass; corn flour in a pillow case sounds like crunchy snow

• You don't have to use the things that make the noise, for example, you could record a horses hooves but they might not be in time with the film, so Foleys use (much in the spirit of "Monty Python") halves of coconuts on various surfaces to sound like hooves, and bits of metal clanged together to indicate a bridle

• Burgis worked on 7 of the 8 "Harry Potter" films

It was super cool to see how some of the most common sound effects are made using the most uncommon of methods. It's truly unreal how someone says to themselves, "maybe if I put flour in a pillow case it'll sound like snow." The creative mind is truly fascinating. I noted all of the various means of making the sounds in case I could use it on future projects.

• Foley Artists: How Movie Sound Effects are Made

• Academy Originals

• The dialogue is of course the main focus

• Foley and visual effects work in tandem

• A-B reels: 15 minute chunks where the Foleys are told to make sounds for a particular section

• They make sounds not cut from a sound library

• Sometimes there are lines on the screen called sync points that indicate when a sound needs to be made and the duration of that sound

• Footsteps are the most frequently added sound

• Shoes are a big thing; a Foley artist could go through 50 pairs of shoes to find the right one for the character

• Foley is acting, you have to convey emotions with sound, so if someone is sad you have to walk like their sad, if they're angry you walk like they're angry, etc.

• Multiple layers of sound can be used to make one single sound

• Foley artists have Foley mixers that they work very closely with, it's all a very creative process

A lot of the information in this video was repetitive but still a good reminder of how although they play a small part in production, Foley artists are super important. What I did find interesting was the A-B reels. It makes sense that they production crew wouldn't just hand Foleys a full two hours worth of film and say "here deal with this." It makes it far more manageable in smaller chunks. The sync points are helpful too because it gives the Foley a heads up of when something needs to happen instead of anticipating and missing the cue. It also still blows my mind that one sound sometimes isn't just the one sound, sometimes its a layering of sounds to get one.

• Foley Artists

• Gigniks

• Large sound goes in first, then the Foley effects come in; they explained it as sound being a mosaic, and that sound effects are the tiles and Foley is the grout

• Foley artists should know about all aspects of sound - music, dialogue, sound effects - it will help them be better at their jobs

All seems a bit obvious now that I'm reading it back, but it is still interesting that the big noises are added in first and then the Foley fills around it

• "The Hunger Games" and "Frozen" Foley Artists Turn the Sound of Junk Into Miracles/Art of Sound Ep. 3

• Variety

• Cue sheets - the road map of what needs to be worked on

• They were originally called "Foley Walkers" because of how much walking and how many footsteps need to be added

• Bring the audience unknowingly into a film

After completing the research to a point that I felt was helpful, I had to make a final decision of which clip to use. After having a vague idea of how each sound could be made, I had to figure out which of the two would be best and not necessarily easiest, but most achievable given the materials I had available. Upon further review, I decided "The Blob" was my best option. I watched it a few times, all on mute, so I didn't have any preconceived notions of what the sounds were that were already in the film. Given who my father is, I've certainly seen the film at some point in my life, but I definitely don't remember it, especially not what sound effects were in it.

The next step would be to make a cue sheet of sorts. "Cue sheets are documents provided to the Foley artist which is detailed information about the timing and placement of audio elements" (Fivable). Making a cue sheet isn't as simple as writing down when things happen, there needs to be far more information included. "In order to build a cue sheet, you need to spot footsteps, scenes track, notes marker track, surfaces, characters, spotting props [etc]" (Foley First). What do all of those things mean? Spotting footsteps means that you spot the footsteps before you record anything, while determining the character (the surfaces they walk on, their mood, scene changes, etc). Scenes track is pretty self explanatory; it keeps track of which things are in which scene. Notes marker track contains markers that indicate things like character's shoes, how they interact, and what the surfaces are. Surfaces keeps track of which surfaces the characters are on; it helps to name each on to keep them in order, so you could write "concrete", "wood," "metal", whatever the surface that needs to be observed is. Characters keeps track of which characters are in which scenes, their movements, shoes, clothing, etc. Spotting props just keeps an eye on the props and what noises if any they make.

I took all of this information and made my own cue sheet, or tried to anyway. I've kept it relatively simple, using columns marked for time, character, footsteps, sound effects, and props. I made a note about what order to put everything in and maybe adding something about surfaces. There are only three characters – Steve, Jane, and the Blob – so keeping track of everyone was easy. The scene itself is Steve and Jane running through a grocery store. Jane is wearing a flowing dress with tule underneath, with a pair of kitten heels. I did a quick google search to see what grocery store floors would have been made out of in the 1950s, and very much like today it would be composite tile or linoleum flooring. Steve is wearing jeans and Hutton of Northampton chukkas, thank you Google, which are a suede boot with a rubbery sole, much like the Doc Martin Chelsea boots I have. The door in what looks like a kitchen in the grocery store is an industrial door with metal levers. Those are just some of the observations I made, and I have included a screen shot of my cue sheet.

The next step was figuring out how to make the sound effects. I originally thought of yogurt or jam squished between glasses or something. I have a pair of heels that would work for Jane's shoes, and Chelsea boots for Steve's shoes. My kitchen is linoleum floored which is perfect for the grocery store floor. I made notes of various methods to make sounds, like how to make a knife being pulled sound obvious but not fake, so I figured sliding it against a counter top would work. In the end I slid it across the grate on my stovetop. I had said the metal door opening could be a clothes horse, but mine didn't make enough noise.

The most interesting part of this is what in my house I can use to make the noises I want. What I learned from watching the videos was that most of the sounds aren't made with the actual object, but maybe even a few objects combined. Creating the cue sheet took a good couple of hours for only 60 seconds of content, I can't imagine how long it would take for a feature length film. It was a lot of scrubbing second to second, deciding what sounds to focus on, how those sounds, are going to be made and what to make them with. It was all a very fun learning process.

sound effects and recording

I started off by focusing on how to make the sound effects that I needed given my limited range of equipment, and using what I had around the house. This was a particularly fun part of this project because I got to use my imagination while following along with my cue sheet, visualizing what I could use for each sound, the timing, etc. I kept track of what I used for each sound, especially in case I had to use an object or prop more than once. I set up in my kitchen, which actually is one of the quietest rooms in my house, I discovered. The backyard has two rows of high hedges which block out a decent amount of road noise, and the kitchen is attached to the neighbors house (who is a very quiet person), and there is another room between the kitchen and street in front.

Of course the most important sound of all would be the film's namesake, the Blob itself. I originally started with a disgusting combination of protein pudding (thanks a lot, Morrison's, I ordered yogurt and they sent me that instead, yuck), jello (sorry, jelly...I'm learning), and mayo. They were all of the squishiest things I could think of. Unfortunately, I did nothing productive and made an absolute mess of my counter.

I genuinely tried multiple applications of the vile concoction; I thought maybe squishing it into a bowl would do it, then I tried a potato masher, a rice mold, a plastic container, and glassware. None of it yielded the results I wanted or needed for the epic entrance of the Blob. So in the spirit of a Foley artist I stood in the middle of my kitchen picking up various objects and items, and I finally landed on half expired oranges. They were a little stiffer than the ripe ones, which helped with multiple uses. I tried squishing it onto the parchment paper and ended up getting too much paper noise so I tried a plate. I got too much plate noise so I tried the straight up counter top and that was the winner. Please enjoy this video of me figuring this out.

The other props I used were two blouses for Jane's dress, a pair of high heels for her shoes, a pair of Chelsea boots for Steve's shoes, a winter jacket for the rustling, a knife (for the knife pull), my stove grate (for the knife pull and fire door rattling), and a fire poker (for when Steve throws whatever that thing from behind the second door is). After assembling my box of props, I attempted to record and turned the Tascam on. I had a complete brain glitch and decided to put it down for the day and try again the next.

I was a little disheartened from the previous day when I set up to record. I thought it would be a simple "plug and play" type of scenario, but when I turned the screen on it was immediate intimidation. I felt like I was looking at coding again for the first time. As always, I was being hard on myself because I'm so incredibly excited about this new path I could take, and felt like I should just be able to DO it. (Picture Shia Leboeuf yelling "DO IT, JUST DO IT"). But, much like anything else that anyone has ever done for the first time, this will require learning, more learning than can be done in the matter of a few days.

I read through the manual and did some Googling, and ended up getting enough of the basics that I felt confident going forward to record. I was definitely still intimidated by all of the functions and didn't dive any deeper into it than getting the basics of what I needed done, but I don't think that was expected of us and I got everything done that I needed to do. I ended up splitting the recording into two days. I kept track of everything by making notes of what each sound was, which file number it was, and made notes of how I felt about each sound. (I'll include photos of my notes below. I was going to type them all out but in reality they weren't really for anyone but me so I could figure out what I was doing.) Day one was a success, but not without its trials. One of the hardest lessons I learned was making sure that the Tascam was recording. Apparently when you press the record button only once, it sets itself up to start recording, and then requires a second press to actually record. Frustratingly, I had several really good takes, and of course they weren't recorded. I tried to look at the silver lining of calling it practice. Another thing I noticed while playing the recordings back, was that it was only playing out of the left speaker. The reason for this, which I later was told during the Support session, was because I had recorded in stereo but it was an easy enough fix to change the recordings to mono, thankfully. I will say, please excuse my absolutely atrocious handwriting. Everyone thinks because I'm a tattoo artist I'd have great handwriting, and I've had clients say, "Just write it out yourself." Yeah. No. You don't want those kinds of problems, buddy.

editing and finalization

Within the workshop we discussed various editing tools such as ProTools, LogicPro, and Garage Band, but we would be working with Adobe Audition. I think it's really neat how Adobe has the Creative Cloud suite that allows you to do just about everything you would need to do from editing photos, to building a book, to creating music. We were also told about sound libraries that we could access, including Freesound and Soundsnap. Freesound is great because it's free and anyone can upload to it, but it's also not great because anyone can upload to it, so to find what you're looking for may take some sifting through absolute dross to find one gem. Soundsnap is a lot more structured, although not free, it has a better range of what you can find in a more organized format. I only used Soundsnap for the background/room noise. I wanted to stay true to Foley and make everything myself. I'm also just really stubborn, which is a good and bad thing when it comes to creating.

We then got into the inter-workings of Audition. There are two main sections of Audition: Waveform and Multitrack. For the purposes of this project we used the Multitrack section. We were told to always work in stereo as opposed to mono or surround sound (5.1). Unfortunately for me, I had recorded my tracks in stereo, but only from one side. I ended up having to switch all my tracks to mono in the end, which wasn't really a big deal and an easy fix, and of course all part of the overall learning experience. Within Multitrack, there are two windows: Editor and Mixer. In the editing window, you can layer, trim, add effects, and many other things. The mixer window looks a lot like what a mixers desk would look like in a studio. The mixer boosts and reduces sound as needed. There are three phases within editing as well. These are, most obviously, the editing phase which is deciding which sounds are best, mixing which is balancing and fine tuning all the sounds, editing and mixing work in tandem, and finally mastering which is also self explanatory, as it is the master of all of the editing and mixing.

The next step was to go through what all the various buttons do. These are all things I was familiar with as a music lover, like the transport buttons and directional arrows. A new thing to me was the idea of the timeline. This is where all the audio tracks live and can be organized accordingly. Within the audio clips there are various indicators; the yellow line is the volume, and if the yellow lines cross, it means there is an automatic crossfade. We went over the various tools we could use to edit the tracks, such as the razor tool, the slip tool, and the time selection tool. We also learned about something called buses, which are the groupings of tracks. I could probably have done that for a couple of the clips I used, but hindsight is 20/20. I have in my notes "what is an envelope," as well as what do all of the technical terms mean such as panning, flanger, and bouncing. According to the Adobe website, "Automation envelopes visually indicate settings at specific points in time, and you can edit them by dragging keyframes on envelope lines. Envelopes are nondestructive, so they don’t change audio files in any way. If you open a file in the Waveform Editor, for example, you don’t hear the effect of any envelopes applied in the Multitrack Editor." From a simple Google, the other things I was confused about are basically just effects that can be put on tracks. I think this would require a deeper dive than I have time for at this point, but is certainly something I could use in the future. I think I was just so focused on getting the sounds correct and timed properly that I didn't use any effects.

I took a lot of notes during my actual editing process. Most are in regards to each sound or tracks. Again, I'll include those below. The actual editing process for me was relatively straightforward. I was going to say "easy" but it certainly wasn't a breeze, but it wasn't torture either. It was very time intensive especially because I had a total of 28 tracks, some with as many as six and as few as two takes within them. So most of my time was spent widdling down each clip and take out any part of it that wasn't needed. At first I would move the video part at the top to match up with the sound, which was just silly. So I figured out that you can add empty tracks and just dragged each clip and lined them up, then deleted the ones I didn't need.

When I was recording the sounds, I watched the actual footage to make sure my timing was right, much like an actual Foley artist would do. I also watched the clip on mute so I didn't have any preconceived ideas of what the sounds would be. Funny enough, when I finally watched the original, there were barely any sound effects. I guess that could be because it came out in 1958 before Foley really took off. I'm most impressed with my doors, which ironically enough, one of the artists in my research emphasized the importance of doors. While I was editing, I played each sound alone, then played all of the ones I had together. This helped with timing. During the Review today Neil pointed out that I needed some ambient noise because the sounds sounded like they came from complete silence which is a little disconcerting. So I went to Soundsnap and added sounds that I thought would make sense to the setting. The first sound was grocery store ambience for the first scene, then sound of an extraction fan for the second scene in the industrial kitchen, and finally an industrial hum that might be found in a meat locker like the one the characters are in in the final scene. Overall, it was a great process and I'm excited to do more of it as time goes on.