Foley for WTF Radio Skit

Earlier in the trimester, Ricardo and I got in contact with the producer of a sci-fi series called “Intergalactic Space Rangers”. They were seeking collaboration with people interested in composition, sound design and foley for three audio serious in production:

Intergalactic Space Rangers – 50’s style sci fi adventure based off of our television series in development.

Doorways and Dimensions – Twilight Zone/Tales from the Crypt type program

WTF RADIO– Comedy variety show with skits, spoofs and parodies.

More info: http://www.intergalacticspacerangers.com/about-us-3/

Ricardo asked me and a few other classmates to help him out with a small foley project they had assigned him. The brief was for a short Caveman skit featuring a Stone Age family talking and painting in a cave. Pre-recorded dialogue was provided as a basis for the type of sounds they wanted recorded. Here is the brief supplied to Ricardo:

SESSION PLAN

PROJECT GROUP MEMBERS: ·         Ricardo Rodriguez – Recording Engineer ·         Aaron Grierson – Foley Artist ·         Sarah Koppen – Assistant Engineer ·         Jackson Martin – Assistant Engineer ·         Alex Nagl – Assistant Engineer

SESSION DETAILS Create audio content for a caveman scene. Session format is to be 24bit 96kHz for use on radio. Sounds to be recorded: Footsteps on rock/cave floor. Brush strokes of frayed material on hard surface. Chalk strokes on hard surface. Clothing sounds, rough material on skin. Ambient cave sound. Hard reflections. Water dripping. Bat sounds. Wings and screech. (Depending on time/talent) May be more sounds depending on time frame.

MICROPHONE LIST: Close Mic of all elements will be an AKG C414 set on the Cardioid polar pattern, Hypercardioid if necessary. Room Mic of all elements will be an AKG C414 set on the Omnidirectional polar pattern. H6 Zoom Recorder to record ambience

SESSION TIMELINE: Recording Session, Thursday 18th of June: 12:00pm – Enter post production studio, begin setting up Pro Tools session according to specifications. 12:45pm – Have session and microphones ready for recording of takes. 1:30pm – Have at least the footsteps of entire track recorded. 2:15pm – Have completed rudimentary recordings of entire track. 2:45pm – Any other recordings needed to be recorded by this time, begin tearing down session. 3:00pm – Exit post production studio, returning everything to its original state. Mix Session, Friday 19th of June: 11:00pm – Enter Neve studio, begin setting up. 12:00pm – Have session ready to be mixed and edited. 1:00pm – Have rudimentary edits completed. 2:00pm – Have mix completed ready for sending to other collaborators. 2:30pm – Exit Neve studio, leaving returning everything to its original state.

PROJECT CONTINGENCIES: Studio unavailable, postpone or if necessary use alternative studio. Microphone choice not the best, switch to alternative. Microphone not available for use, switch to alternative. Desired sound is not achieved, change microphone placement or try different material/approach, change foley artist. Faulty equipment, inform supervisors and fine replacement.

ADVENTURE TIME: Recording Ambience

Before the post production studio session, Ricardo, Aaron and I set out on an adventure to capture ambient sounds with the H6 Zoom recorder. We recorded birds in trees and footsteps in the stairwell. We also scored a glove off the cafeteria ladies and flapped it about in the stairwell with aims to achieve a bat wing sound.

We created a loop of the birds as ambience throughout the dialog. The footsteps sounded a bit too reverberant to use as footsteps, so we ended up using it as of distant rocks falling in the cave. The ‘bat wings’ however sounded more than fapping than flapping so we decided to scrap it entirely.

FOLEY SESSION

While the boys set up mics and headphones, Ricardo and I prepared the Pro Tools session importing and editing the ambient recordings off the Zoom and plotting markers for each specific sound to be recorded. Jackson and Alex had a few complications with faulty studio equipment, but apart from that the session ran smoothly.

Sounds recorded:

Footsteps on rock.

Brush Strokes – Rubbed frayed rope on canvas

Chalk strokes – Scraped two large rocks together

Kids fighting – Aaron hitting himself

Water drips – Jackson did some weird thing with his mouth

Painting being torn – ripped paper

Bats screeching – Jackson, Alex and I attempted to do with mouth. We failed.

Fun times.

MIX SESSION

We mixed the session in the Neve the following day. This was more or less an opportunity to familiarize ourselves with the Neve. I’d only ever mixed in the box, so I found this session extremely helpful.

We started by sending all the tracks to the desk in the order they were recorded. After setting the faders to appropriate levels, we used the EQ’s on the desk to remove any extraneous sounds from each track. We then printed the Neve affected tracks onto new tracks and exported the stems for Ricardo to send to the client before the deadline. Here’s a link to the overall bounce:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxG9bjECs46FYWo0Tm1DWjIzaGs/view