Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1541592
86 M PS E . O R G Foley department had to adapt the stage and create new techniques. Life of Pi required a completely different approach. Marko and George received only pencil drawings of the different animals that were going to be scurrying on and around a lifeboat, which were later added with CGI. A hyena, a spotted zebra, an orangutan, a rat, and of course, the principal animal character, Richard Parker, an infuriated Bengal tiger. The notes left many holes in the on-screen action. For example, one description read, "Tiger swipes at rat, attacking rat on the tarp, then finally traps it and eats it!" No moving images were provided. In a series of "wild" recordings, they recorded several varieties of rodent footsteps. Plastic nails glued to gloves gave the right sound and flexibility for performance. Also recorded were wild footstep sound effects for the zebra, orangutan, all the live-action animal characters, and the boy. Foley editors would later place them for temp playbacks to provide a sense of rhythm to the preliminary animatics. Throughout the process, the Foley team kept a video journal and photographic images documenting all the various setups, including all microphones, their distance/proximity from the artist, and the different surfaces used for the assorted parts of the lifeboat. This method made it easy for the Foley team to go back and recreate those sounds for the final Foley pass, once supervisor Eugene Gearty okayed the individual sounds. Each part of the 30-foot metal lifeboat was considered a different environment. The tiger moved around the boat, making footsteps on various surfaces, including the boat rim, boat floor with and without wooden pallets, and boat benches, each requiring a distinct difference in sound quality. For instance, wooden pallets covered the floor of the metal boat. The team captured the reflection of sound off the boat walls and floor by placing a metal dumpster on its side with one microphone facing outward and Marko the rain maker for Life of PI, 2012. Marko inside the metallic cement mixer for Life of PI.