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ley "This is definitely a job you learn through hands-on. You can read all the books, and take all the classes in school, but to actually learn the technique, train your ears, and observe the protocol of how a session runs... so much of that is learned in the actual environment," says Chris Navarro, ADR mixer at Audio Head in Hollywood. Both ADR and Foley take tremendous skill learned through years of handson experience. In fact, audio post is still an industry that greatly relies on masters of the art passing their knowledge on to their apprentices. And Foley is certainly one field of audio post that is an art. "There's a reason why we're called Foley artists," says freelance Foley artist Brooke Lowrey. Eric Milano and Marko Costanzo, Foley artists in New York City, go one step further, saying that Foley is more like a performperform ing art. This month we look at the art and techniques employed by these audio post pros. Survivor Brooke Lowrey is a freelance Foley artist who co-owns Mint Mix (www. mintmix.net) in Venice, CA, with her husband. Lowrey moved to Los Angeles seven years ago, and began her Foley career as an intern. By ceaselessly offering her help to other Foley artists on their sessions, Lowrey got rare, hands-on traintrain These long-used sound Techniques help add believabiliTy believabili To any projecT. by jennifer Walden ing in the art of Foley. She says, "I basically bugged other Foley artists, offering to help if they needed someone to double on footsteps or things like that. I got introduced to a number of Foley artists and they all kind of trained me, which is amazing." As a freelance Foley artist, Lowrey notes that a number of her Foley gigs come from LinkedIn. "People just contact me through that site," she says. "LinkedIn has been great." Starting this month, Lowrey will be busy creating Foley for a stop-motion animation children's TV show. Lowrey was a Foley artist on Survivor for the past two seasons. She shared a nomination for a 2013 Primetime Emmy for the Survivor episode: "Create a Little Chaos," in the category for "Outstanding Sound Editing for Nonfiction ProgramProgram ming." Survivor, now on Season 27, is currently airing on CBS, Wednesday nights. Lowrey met the show's mixer, Terrance Dwyer, during her internship. When the original Foley artist for Survivor decided to leave the show, Dwyer contacted LowLow rey for the position. "Terry [Dwyer] also used to mix Fear Factor when it was on TV," Lowrey says. "He always prefers to have Foley included because it sounds better than cutting in footsteps from sound effects libraries. It just sounds more realistic." And reality TV shows should sound realistic, right? Lowrey points out that doing Foley for reality TV shows is not the norm, but that's what sets Survivor apart from other shows. During production, the focus is on capturing the dialog as cleanly and clearly as possible. This is especially true for a reality TV show, where the interactions are ad lib. "An actor in a reality show doesn't want to come back into the studio and re-record their lines," she explains. "So the main objective during pro production is to make sure they get the dialog." www.postmagazine.com Post • November 2013 25