Made By Other People.

Pepper Grinder.

I like pepper. It has its own flavor and helps to bring out other flavors in what its ground onto. I say ground onto because, being the pepper snob I am, I feel that freshly ground pepper is not something we can just trade like my dignity or a common soul – simply nothing but freshly ground will do.

That’s why I instantly connect with any character onscreen that responds in the affirmative when a server asks them if they’d like freshly ground pepper. The only real problem is that it doesn’t happen enough. To keep a good pace in most movies means to skip the boring mundane stuff, which in turn means we don’t often get to hear that pepper mill a workin’.  However the odd time it’ll be used as a device to show how stuck up a character or restaurant is or even played for comedy – i.e. an annoying waiter keeps interrupting important conversation with unimportant tasks like grinding pepper. I take issue with this because it belittles all us pepper lovers out there. When will it be our time?

The pepper mill/grinder can be used to create other completely different pieces of foley. Take a listen and imagine the long claws of a horrible monster scraping against a door or bones being raked slowly and methodically together for the sick, twisted pleasure of a psycho killer. With added effects like reverb etc you can transform this sound into many different ones – some may not even be applicable to the horror genre. That’s just the power of pepper.

Another Friday successfully seasoned, the second Foley Fridays Karoke on its way next week!