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www.postmagazine.com 35 POST NOVEMBER 2017 FOLEY oley is more than just footsteps and cloth rustles, more than simply filling in a scene with sounds for the M&E. When performed well, with thoughtful artistry, it can be a valuable sto- rytelling tool. For instance, hearing grit as a bottle slides across a table suggests it's a dirty situation. Subtle Foley sounds can add depth to the story beyond what comes through the camera lens. These talented Foley teams share examples of how they used Foley to tell a deeper story for the films Three Christs and Wonderstruck, and for the upcoming TV series Knightfall. KNIGHTFALL Foley artists Zane Bruce and Lindsay Pepper and Foley mixer/editor Antony Zeller at Technicolor Sound in Hollywood, CA (http://www.technicolor. com/en/solutions-services/entertainment-ser- vices/sound) worked on History Channel's upcom- ing series Knightfall, which chronicles the final days of the Knights Templar. Typically, a sound supervisor will cue a show, noting what Foley elements are needed where. But for Knightfall, supervising sound editor Edmond J. Coblentz Jr. took a different approach by only giving the Foley team notes and allowing them to execute their own plan. "Edmond heard what we were doing and he liked it, so we added to it, doing sword hits and other sounds that are generally covered by hard effects. We did those because Edmond liked the way they sounded; the Foley sounded more human," says Zeller. Knightfall's abundant battles combined with expansive Foley coverage caused a few sore mus- cles but the Foley team was excited by the oppor- tunity to use their creativity to design multilay- ered sounds. For example, when a Templar walks through the castle, you don't just hear his feet. There's also a layer of heavy cloth for his tunic, a layer of chain mail and even a layer of sword rat- tles. That's four layers for just a guy walking down a hall. Imagine the amount of layers they created for the massive battle scenes. Fortunately, the team had no limit to their track count, with some sessions having upwards of 28 tracks (compared to 16 tracks for a typical show). In preparation for Knightfall, Bruce and Pepper purchased replicas of Templar shields and swords that were equal in weight and size to actual Templar armaments. They also had plates of armor and chain mail. "It was probably 60 pounds of gear. Luckily, we didn't have to put it all on at once because we could record the Foley in lay- ers," says Bruce. "We'd go through one scene multiple times to layer up the sounds and this show wasn't your typi- cal walk-along-and-then-fight. There were so many elements layered on top of each other. Tony [Zeller] would mix all of those layers together to make it sound like one piece," adds Pepper. Through their Foley work, they helped to signify each character's position of power. For example, they used a heavier cloth for the main Templar Knight Landry [Tom Cullen]. His chain mail sounds brighter. His sword sounds weightier. "Landry sounds like a man of authority. Although all the Templars wore the same clothing, we toned down the other Templars so they felt softer by compari- son. We made Landry a lot bigger, more dangerous and scarier," says Bruce. The team also handled the Foley for the horses, including the horses' armor. "We covered the horses' footsteps, the bridles and tackle, the reins, the ar- mor and chain mail. The horses sound heavy, strong. Even the footsteps for the horses sound heavy," notes Bruce, who (like most Foley artists) relies on coconuts to create horse hooves. But Bruce's co- conuts are cooler than most. To make them sound weightier, Bruce covered the inside with a layer of tar. "We're able to get some nice low-end, and if we can bury the microphone in the dirt pit and do the footsteps of the horse right next to the mic, we get that thundering sound. It feels like the hooves are in your heart, like a heartbeat." To differentiate between the Templars' chain mail and their horses' chain mail, Zeller experi- ments with mic placement in his dual-mic setup. He uses a Neumann KMR 81 shotgun mic to close- mic Bruce and Pepper, and an omnidirectional Sennheiser MKH 20 to capture a distant perspec- tive, which helps add depth to a sound. He can quickly alter a sound by changing the blend of the two mics. "Pulling one fader up and the other down is easier and more immediate than trying to change the sound with EQ," says Zeller. Bruce and Pepper performed multiple layers of sounds to create the horse-drawn wagons. First, they dragged a wheel across a cobblestone surface to get the sound of movement. Next, they recorded a layer of hinge creaks and squeaks. Then they rattled old wooden army trunks against a wooden chair to create the jostling body of the wagon. The wagon's yolk was created by bang- ing a four-by-four piece of wood between two wooden chairs and rattling a heavy chain. They also did layers for the horses' hooves, the bridles and reins, and the horses' chain mail. "Part of what makes Foley an art is that we aren't record- ing a wagon. It's not just capturing one sound. We have to break the wagon down in our minds and decide how we're going to create all of these different elements and fit them together to make the illusion that all of this is just the sound of that wagon," says Pepper. If a prop needed to feel weightier to make the sound more believable, Zeller would beef it up with the dbx-120 — a vintage outboard processor that adds sub-harmonics to a sound. "If we're trying to do a drawbridge sound, or a cart that's being dragged because it has a broken wheel, I can use the dbx to add a bunch of low-end to make it feel like Zane [Bruce] is actually dragging a wagon and not a small, wooden board across concrete," says Zeller. The scope of the Foley on Knightfall is impres- sive. Bruce and Pepper performed sounds that would typically be cut with hard effects, like sword shings, whooshes, and impacts, shield hits and slides, body falls, bone crunches and blood gushes. F A dual-mic set up with a Neumann KMR 81 and Sennheiser MKH 20 added depth. Foley for Knightfall was completed at Technicolor Sound.