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ADR AND FOLEY Foley artist Brooke Lowrey got her hands dirty while working on the popular Survivor TV series. 26 Without footsteps, and other sound effects from the production tracks, the show sounds surreal. That's where Foley comes in. Lowrey performs all the footsteps, body touches, hugs, hand slaps, and other noticeably absent sounds, like terra cotta pots being smashed. In one challenge Lowrey mentions, the contestants were throwing objects at clay pots, making the pots explode. "My most favorite Foley on the show was breaking these terra cotta flower pots," she recalls. "I was wielding this huge log over my head and bashing these terra cotta pots. That was really fun. You're getting paid to break stuff, which is the best thing ever, obviously." The contestant challenges on Survivor provide a lot of opportunity for interesting Foley moments. During one episode, the contestants had a Fear Factor-type challenge where they ate bugs and other gross things while blindfolded. "I was eating chocolate covered almonds, and bananas, and apples, and all kinds of different things to make crunchy or mushy-smushy gross sounds," Lowrey says. "It was really fun to experiment with different foods and textures to get it sounding perfect." Foley artists have to be very creative. Recording the actual sound of something isn't always the best way to go. Often the actual sound of the prop doesn't translate well in the recording process. "You have to think on your toes, and not get stuck in the mind set that, well, it's the right prop," Lowrey says. "If it doesn't sound right, then you have to find something else." Creating footsteps is a major part of what a Foley artist covers, and it's a job that Lowrey enjoys the most.To her, creating footsteps is an art. She says, "There is a reason why we're called Foley artists. It's kind of like a dance." To do a footstep correct, Lowrey notes, you need to get the step right, the gait of the person correct, and how hard they're stepping. She Post • November 2013 adds, "You have to be able to step lightly or really hard, and that's a difficult thing to do well. Some of it is learned, and some of it is just talent. Some things you just can't be taught." Her favorite surface for footsteps? "I love the sound of gravel," she says. Lowrey covered every footstep in the episodes of Survivor that she worked on. Doing the footsteps for 20 contestants, who are often running, can be physically demanding, especially since Lowrey was pregnant at the time. "I was running for every single person," she explains. " That would have been tough even if I had not been pregnant." Lowrey recalls that her first season on Survivor — Season 25 — had mud in almost every episode. Since there wasn't a huge mud pit on the Foley stage, it was challenging to create realistic mud sounds from the plastic container of mud she was using. She says, "If I used my bare hands, there was too much slap sound, so I had to put on gloves. Sometimes there would be rocks in the mud accidentally and they'd hit or scrape against the plastic tub. There was a fine line between what sounded realistic and what did not.That was definitely a challenge, but it was so fun. I'd leave those sessions just completely covered in mud." Lowrey performed the Foley for Survivor on the Foley stage at Mixers, Inc. (http://mixers.tv) in Hollywood. For a typical TV show, that's not a reality show, Lowrey notes that it was common to have two Foley artists. But that practice has been changing over the years. "Now, you're not always offered a second Foley artist in the budget," Lowrey explains. "You can ask for that, but it's not going to be right up there, and you usually aren't going to get it." Another result of a tighter budget, Lowrey finds, is that engineers try to do the Foley themselves. So, there is less Foley in general being asked for. "This is a horrible idea," says www.postmagazine.com Lowrey. "Cutting in hard effects is a difficult thing when you're trying to cover all the Foley. With Foley, you do a cloth pass, and that's almost impossible to cover by cutting in hard effects." The cloth pass covers all the cloth movement throughout the film, or show. Foley covers many other sound elements, like footsteps, hand touches, patting or clapping, silverware and cup put-downs, and numerous other sound effects that should be heard in a scene. Using library sound effects to cover these things in the scene is a tedious job that Lowrey has done in the past. "I can tell you, it's not fun," she notes. "You have to find the sounds, sync them up, and treat them to make them really feel like they're coming from the scene. To have a Foley artist come in and do it, perfectly to sync, is much easier, and it sounds better. It's more realistic." Lowrey feels that not enough people in the biz really understand what a Foley artist is, or what they do. Foley, she explains, is 50 percent of the sound design. "I would like to see that acknowledgment," she says. "I would like to see audio post in general taught more in schools, and Foley needs to be part of the curriculum so people aren't clueless about it." ADR is another facet of the audio post process that is often overlooked, notes Lowrey. "The audio is 50 percent of the movie, literally, there is audio and there is video. Audio shouldn't be an afterthought." Jane Got a Gun Chris Navarro is the ADR mixer at Audio Head (http://audioheadpost.com), located on The Lot in Hollywood. He's been at Audio Head since they opened in 2010. Navarro started his career as an ADR recordist in 2001, working along side veteran ADR mixer, Eric Thompson (The Fast and the Furious, Apocalypto, The Expendables). As an ADR recordist, Navarro was responsible for working the Pro Tools system, making sure everything was being recorded to the hard disk, and labeling tracks and files. "The ADR recordist is your most important wingman," says Navarro. "If the recordist is rock solid, then the mixer can devote all of his or her attention to dealing with the clients in the room, making sure things are moving at the right pace, and things sound good. The ADR recordist has a very key role." Navarro is currently recording the ADR for Jane Got a Gun, a film starring Ewan McGregor and Natalie Portman, which will open in theaters next year. Navarro set up the ADR stage at Audio Head to run as effi-