I have always wondered how one becomes a Foley artist.. Is their like a school you go to?

I think a good start is to make some home movies with hammer-cocking sounds and disengaging saefties on glocks. Then your in

On a serious note, I'm guessing its alot of syncing sound recordings and computer stuff that goes beyond me.

my guess is having been a noisey kid who would pound on pots and pans with spoons like they were drums would be a good start.Going by that both my kids should be Multiple Oscar winners in the future.

J-

Having excellent eye / hand coordination in combination with an outstanding hearing, and the ability to kiss some Director/Producer ass would be a good start.

Just get yourself a pickle and a jar of mayonnaise.

Foley artists are  just specialized offshoots of the recording industry, former engineers/producers etc. You would go to schools for standard recording/engineering and go from there.

 

They don't share their tricks, have to pay your dues.

Not asking for tricks.. Just wanting to know how one gets started down that road..

A friend of mine studied to be a Foley artist.



He went to films school in Vancouver http://www.vfs.edu/



He never got to work in the movies, but he is currently working for Microsoft doing sound for their PC games division.  He's worked on Alan Wake, Fable III, and some others.



He said VFS was a great place to learn.

Who in the fuck would want a Foley catheter?

A good starting point is a digital recorder and decent microphone for recording...





I use sounds from http://www.freesound.org/ for different projects, most submitters will indicate what they used for recording.

 

1) Decide you're gay
2) Get a Blackberry
3) Meet some young dudes who think you're creepy
4) Send pics

Easy, right?  

I have met nurses that were artists with the damned things, but I think you have to be at least an LPN before they let you do it.

...if you don't know what that sound is, you ain't never seen a porno before.  

Read this book, go to craigslist and volunteer your time for student projects.  Experiment like crazy.  Or you can take the college route.  Try watching movies with the image off and only the sound on.  Try listeneing to every sound on the film.  Most movies have a 100 layers of sound.  (Collateral did)  

Also check out the film The Great Raid.  It has a special feature where you can activate different tracks of sound during the shootout at the end.  It's kind of neat.  On one your watching the shootout and only hearing secadas.  On another, you only hear Japs going "arrrrhhh" when they get hit.  Another is all gunfire, ect.

They say if nobody notices the Foley then you've done a good job.  On films where there is no Foley, you sure can tell it ain't there.  When it's there, you don't notice it.

I filmed a scene a few months ago where we had two guys in a restaurant talking.  There were no extras because of a snow storm so we filmed it with just two actors in the restaurant.  I added in people talking, fork clinking, plates clanking, steak frying in a pan, and a piano playing (but I crappened up an mp3 file to sound more like it was in the background rather than the soundtrack, this is called "worldizing" the music.).  It sounds pretty good as if there's a crowd of people in this restaurant.  

If you don't feel like doing the college route, experiment, experiment, experiment.  And horror movies are your best way to practice.  Take a good horror film, get rid of the sound, then put in every sound yourself to practice.  (just make a trip to the farmer's market for all your horror film Foley needs.)

There were some foley classes being taught when I went to FullSail. The job market for big hollywood films is probably dismal at best; I doubt they hire from outside the studio. If you just want to get involved buy a small field recorder and Final Cut and go to town. I don't know if I would drop everything and go to school to become a foley artist. VFS/FullSail/Gnomon type schools may be you're best bet.



 

Tell your buddy he did a good job in Fable 3... except for that British sounding guy. He sucks.

OJT







 

Go to film school and/or become a recording engineer.
I did a project in school with live overdubs.
My buddy Mike engineered the 16mm mag track mix-down.
When we needed the sound of a burning fuse, he scoured the effects library but didn't find anything appropriate so we used the sound of bacon frying in a pan and sped it up.

How's that for clever?

Just show up at the reunion with a few cases of beer.

You'll be family in no time.