Collectively as a class we created a series of Foley sound effect material applicable to a wide range of potential projects. We were instructed to crush a watermelon, simulate fire and scream. In doing so, we primarily learned the beginnings of how to operate, and communicate from, the studio control room.
Crushing, squishing and breaking the watermelon in various ways was meant to metonymically represent bloody, gruesome injuries. A major factor in effectively and succinctly communicating to the performers from the control room, was ensuring level checks were carried out consistently, and that the microphones were not moved after the fact. Despite how obvious it may seem, in truth it was a communication issue; the more people mingle around the issue of practically making progress in recording, the more explicitly directive studio communication must be.
The watermelon was first stabbed with a wooden stake, then smashed with a brick and finally slowly crushed with a log. Many experimental takes were recorded of varying intensities of attack and volume. A chief challenge was balancing the input preamp levels to ensure they were loud enough without clipping or distorting when the performers invariably changed the dynamics of their action. I came to somewhat preempt a rise in volume as the hits progressed, and adjusted accordingly.
In performing myself as part of the ‘fire ensemble’, the hinterland where practical recording capture meets the sheer faith of the psychoacoustic became apparent to me in a way I had not experienced before. We shook sheets for the whipping, rising and falling wind the draws the fire, and crushed uncooked noodles and tinfoil as the crackling of the fire. Using a stereo pair of AKG C451 B’s, microphone placement, and our placement in relation to them, was key in determining the realism of the sound. For instance, the brighter, crackling elements needed to be closer, and the flapping sheets further away. It was also significantly important to maintaining the illusion of wind, by flapping with irregularity and coordinating our group’s movement to rise and fall, so as not to sound like “laundry”. As Daniel R. Wilson notes (Knock Knock: 200 Years of Sound Effects, 2023, 07:40), ‘what sound effects can, and must do, is reproduce noises not as they necessarily are, but rather as they are usually noticed by the ordinary person’. The acousmatic perception of a sound decouples it from its origins, and is no longer source bonded. This is the most important, illuminative aspect I learned while performing and recording sound effects; to suggest the fundamental elements that constitute a perceived sound is powerful enough to trick the imagination, in essence, into realising the whole.
Bibliography:
Knock Knock: 200 Years of Sound Effects (2023) BBC Radio 4, 4 February