Sometimes the best tool you have to make a sound effect is the one you’re born with (not THAT tool, sheesh…) – Your Voice. Since today is Friday the 13th I thought I’d take stab at featuring one of the most famous examples of using voice for sound effects rather than dialogue.
So the story goes that composer Harry Manfredini liked the idea of the score of Jaws signaling when the shark is near and since the original killer was Mrs. Vorhees (Spoilers) not Jason and wasn’t onscreen until the end of the movie he wanted something similar. When he tried different bits of strings he felt it was missing something and being inspired by Mrs. Vorhees repeating the line “Kill her mommy” over and over he grabbed a mic and mimicked the staccato strings with a harsh whisper Ki Ki Ki Ma Ma Ma (Kill Kill Kill Mom Mom Mom). After it was recorded he layered several versions of it on top of one another and slapped on some heavy reverb. It’s become completely intertwined with the character of Jason appearing in every Friday the 13th movie, and even shows like The Simpsons. It’s certainly not the only time this kind of device has been used in a horror movie. One of my favorite franchises The Evil Dead uses a very similar tactic. Director Sam Raimi recorded himself giving a guttural growl/yell, applied similar reverb effects as well as layering and used it as the “voice” of the unseen evil force that constantly chases the main character.
If you want to try recreating this obviously record the harshest, creepiest whisper you can. Most computers nowadays come with basic audio or video editing software. If you import your file into any of those programs and look under effects you’ll find one title “Reverb”. Slap that on and play around with what it does to your voice. Try other effects too warp your voice into something completely new.
That about axes things for now, but I’ll return from the grave next week with more.
The Easter Egg Hunt is a harsh taskmaster. It’s hours of grueling, body-punishing competition against the most unforgiving of opponents – your siblings or various family members. The Easter Bunny or “Zombie Jesus? They’re not there to help you. They’re the one’s who hid the damn chocolate eggs in the first place. For most little boys and girls Easter is the first time in their lives that they realize that when the eggs fall where they may, when the peeps are down – all you have is yourself to rely on. Yourself, and your handy wicker basket. During the hunt it has been said that the wicker Easter basket is your only friend. It is certainly the only thing that keeps you tethered to reality with its thin wicker fingers gripping tightly together on your sanity and providing a place to store all of your goodies.
Wicker itself is a useful tool for making Easter baskets, sure, but also chairs, other types of baskets (picnic & Laundry) and entire men – if the title of the film The Wicker Man is to be believed. It’s used to construct so many items/tools that of course its depicted on screen from time to time. The thing about wicker is its unmistakable sound. The interwoven stands rub together to make a lovely homespun groaning sound. It’s not a loud sound but like most of the small common sounds in life if it weren’t there on screen we’d miss it. Any movies depicting the horrors of an Easter egg hunt, the pleasures of a sunny picnic in the park or whatever happens in The Wicker Man that doesn’t involve bees will be sure to have that wickery sound somewhere in the mix.
I’ll end this week by reminding everyone looking for eggs this weekend to keep one ear out for that sound – It’ll be a light in the darkest tunnel of your life and that if I can survive (albeit with many scars both mental and physical) then you can too.
For now the hunt is on, but more to come next week.
Welcome to Foley Fridays “Karaoke”. Much like you going out with friends to sing sloppily otop hit pop songs once a month my friends and I will take a scene from a movie, remove all of the dialogue/sound effects (foley) and sloppily record our own live. No editing or mixing involved! No bouncing ball required!
Robocop is THE movie of the 80’s. Before you get too upset I’m not saying it was the best film of the 80’s – it’s just the one that best encapsulates everything the 80’s was about: the music, the fashion, the politics and the excess – everything is celebrated while simultaneously being satirized. It’s safe to say I love Robocop.
There is one person I know, however, that loves it more than me and that’s Kire Paputts who said yes to doing this with me before I’d even got the words out of my mouth. It shouldn’t be a surprise that Mr. Paputts is a member of Made By Other People and that we met while in film school at Ryerson University. He’s a pretty fantastic director who has garnered a lot of press for his film Animal Control and is just about to finish another, Rainbow Connection. When he’s not doing that he’s playing with his aptly named band The Dildoniks in a Uhaul truck somewhere.
With both of us being disturbingly enamored with the movie the hardest part was picking a scene to do. We settled on the one above. I tried everything I could to avoid smashing actual glass in my apartment but in the end we got glass everywhere. Originally I had planned to bang two bricks together to make the firing of the gun – but Kire thought hitting a plastic case with a hammer would sound better – and it did. One thing we didn’t get on video was us using a drill to make the mechanical whirring of Robo’s joints as he moved – but enough about that, at this point you’ve read three paragraphs – just play the fucking thing (and if you already did play it again!). Your move, creep.
Its undeniably spring and this week’s sound could be inspired by any number of spring related activities. Was it inspired by the wringing out a rag used to clean a car with in the hot spring sun or the wringing our of a wet article of clothing to be put on the line to dry in the hot spring sun? More likely it was inspired by the copious amounts of sweat I had to wring out of a handkerchief due to this unnatural (but welcomed) hot spring sun.
The actual action of wringing something out isn’t something you see on screen a lot. In fact most films try to skip the mundane tasks we do throughout the day and get to the heart of the story. That isn’t to say a scene can’t feature characters having a discussion while wiping down something with a wet cloth – but its not likely to happen. Something that is likely to happen is hearing the sound during a quiet moment in an action movie when the buxom babe of a love interest is cleaning the wounds of a hulking action star. Quietly dipping a cloth into some water, wringing it out before dabbing the “only a flesh wound” of the hero. They could also be in a jungle or hot locale so this female love interest is going to have to dip a cloth into some water, wring it out and dab her own body with it to cool down – and heat us up in the process. Odd that it’s mostly women on film that do the wringing (I’m kidding – it’s not odd, just typical of Hollywood).
When you see a man do some wringing its most likely for comedy sake. If a character is soaked either from having fallen/been pushed into a body of water then they will simply stand motionless for a moment, adjust their shirt – maybe their tie – and wring one very small portion of their wardrobe out before continuing on their way. Its possible a character has sweat a cartoonish amount and is now drenched. They could grab an edge of their shirt, wring it out and a literal flood of water would pour forth like the levees of the shirt have finally broken. Comedy!
That’s all for now – I’ll wring you later with more next week
It was a slow afternoon and while on the web I stumbled across this little gem. Apparently Jake Kaufman at Big Lion Music wasn’t too happy with the chip sounds in they’re favorite games they played as kids and decided to recreate real world sounds for them. We’ve got a realistic sounding donkey Kong. Mega Man and even Tetris. It’s really well done and a good example of how the smallest (or biggest) sound can completely change what we’re viewing. So take a look.
