Once I’ve done my initial dialogue pass on a new film I like to watch it through again and start marking in notes of all the sounds I’ll need to add in. I always try to record these sounds myself and not rely on library fx where possible.
One of my first foley recording sessions I ever did involved stretching cables around my house, finding and recording all the materials I’d need (I didn’t have a portable recorder at the time). The final session involved saucepans, ketchup, radiators, a leather belt, a wok and blowing a hair dryer through a straw in to water.
One recording in particular stood out and I still find myself returning to it. I’ve warped it in to many of my films since then. If I’ve reached a point where my sound design style might be vaguely recognisable then this might be the reason.
It’s a recording of myself rubbing the palm of my hand along the walls and bottom of my bath tub under the water. I placed my contact mic on the bottom of the tub and began rubbing. The initial intention was just to get the movement of the actor moving around in the bath. But the sound of your but rubbing along the plastic tub under water proved to be more interesting than I thought.
As with a lot of contact mic recordings, the results sounded other worldly.
I find it shocking that the first example has no processing at all! The recording is very dynamic and has a broad band of frequencies. You can even hear an echo which is interesting. The low attenuation of water and hard reflections from the waters surface means shallow waters can be a very reverberant world.
The processed versions are slightly pitched down and time stretched out with some transient shaping and reverb.
Sounds to me like a huge sea beast or the groaning creak of an old old wooden ship.
Home recording > library fx
Jason Pinches 