Sound Effects
The Brief;
- To create a sound effect
- Use abstract means to create a sound
Walking Noise:
List of ideas:
- Leaves:
Put a sheet of new and straight aluminium foil on a pillow, and cover with a thin cotton sheet (e.g. kitchen towel or similar), then push on the surface using your hands to mimic the steps. You can overlay this with the sound of snapping twigs to add realism.
-Alessio Sapora
- Swamp/wet mud:
For something walking around in the swamps or wet mud, try: – A big heap of totally wet toilet-paper on your desk… – Mount the mic close up… – “walk” around on it with your fingers… splash away!! Then mix it with whatever Foley footsteps you want.
– Kim M. Jensen
One day I laid out a tarp in my iso booth and did a smash up session with lots of vegetables and melons. At one point, I filled up a bucket of sludge (I believe that would be called a sludgebucket) and abused the contents for a while. I use that stuff for muddy sludgey footsteps, not to mention parts of all kinds of hits, stabs etc. Could be just what you’re looking for. Word of advice though: Do not get rid of the results down the garbage disposal like I tried to do. Cost me $200 in plumbing cleanout :)
– Jamey Scott
I think a wet sponge or rag with the right timing (heel / toes) will do the job.
– Manuel Laval
The best way I found to get the sound I wanted was to fill a 4×2 plastic case with earth and water. We actually made the footsteps with our hands in it.
– Jerome Boiteau
- Grass:
For grassy footsteps I have used newspaper in a plastic grocery bag and softly tapped the bag. It worked out pretty well.
– Spencer Johnson
Old cassette tape – unravel a few tapes and put the tape on different surfaces (carpet, stone etc) and walk on it. Also just rotating it between your hands.
– Mark Estdale
I think a wet sponge or rag with the right timing (heel / toes) will do the job.
– Manuel Laval
The best way I found to get the sound I wanted was to fill a 4×2 plastic case with earth and water. We actually made the footsteps with our hands in it.
– Jerome Boiteau
There are different kinds of grass – green grass and dry grass. People have already mentioned cassette tape for grass but I feel that this sounds exclusively like dry grass. For green grass I use military camouflage. Sounds great and doesn’t compress losing its depth and texture.
– Chris Piggins
- Crops in a field:
Record a bamboo or similar plant (it’ll need to have somewhat dry leaves) being continuously stroked and shaken. Then layer these recordings and use them for the for sound of crops swaying in the wind. For added realism, add some wind ambience as well, and whenever there’s a stronger gust of wind, time the rattling of the bamboo with this to give the effect of the wind picking up in the crops.
– David Filskov
- Metal
Record yourself banging a boot or a heavy shoe against a heater. You can use a pair of boots to simulate a walking pattern.
– David Filskov
Making a walking on leaves sound effect:
Firstly following the source above I placed aluminium foil on top of a pillow, after this, to muffle the pure noise of the foil, I placed down one layer of kitchen towel on top of the foil as shown below
After completing this this the pillow looked like this;
I then with my palm of my hand pressed down onto the pillow whilst rolling my hand forward to create a similar effect to someone placing their foot down onto the floor as seen in the analysis picture below:
After I had gotten used to the motion of rolling my hand and making it seamless I recorded the sound below:
Following this I went into post production to create the sound I wanted and made it so that the audio was dubbed over a video of a picture of leaves:
I deleted the video taken of the sound effect so that I could include my own image to fit the sound effect perfectly:
Then I used the footprint sound and looped it so that it sounded like someone was walking:
The final video:
evaluate: +/-
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