The foley artist Gary Hecker creates Sounds (in this case galloping horses) on the Foley Sound stage of the Todd-Ao studios in Santa Monica, California, July 3, 2012.
Don Kelsen | Los Angeles Times | Getty pictures
In a small studio that is hidden within which Sony Pictures Lot, Gary Hecker makes art with sound.
His canvases are some of the largest blockbusters from Hollywood – from Zack Snyder's “Justice League” and Quentin Tarantinos “It was once in Hollywood” to Hollywoods Disney and Marvel's Spider-Man-Flicks and the “Master and Commander” awarded with the Oscar.
Hecker is a foley artist who commissioned Maestro to create the everyday sound effects that occur in one scene: squeaky doors, fluctuation compound, the blows of leather plenty and even the “Thwip” by Spider-Man's belt band.
“Foley is a key element in this magic trick that we do to convince the audience to believe in the film they see,” said Rodger Pardee, professor at Loyola Marymount University. “Foley is not for explosions or jet engines. It is for the footsteps of someone who runs through a forest or climbing, or swinging a superhero, something like that. Foley gives them the details. It is the sound structure that anchored the sound mix.”
Since Hollywood deals with the rampant growth of artificial intelligence skills – and how or whether they should be used – Foley artists remain a staled and deeply human part of the moviemaking process.
The performative nature of the craft makes it difficult for the studios to meet the skills of the artists with AI. However, there are only a few people who work full -time as a foley artist, and there is currently no college program for foley. Those who want to break into the field must receive apprenticeships with already established industry veterans.
The art of making noise
An overcrowded collection of kitchen items used on the foley stage in the Sony Pictures Studios.
Sarah Whitten | CNBC
Jack Foley, created by Jack Foley at the end of the 1920s, was created in Hollywood when the industry switched from silent films to “Talkies”. Early recording devices were unable to record a dialogue and ambient noise, so that noise had to be added after the film was recorded.
Foley discovered that the execution of the sound effects live and synchronously with the finished product generated a more authentic sound landscape and contributed to letting the audience immerse yourself in the film.
Artists still use many of the same techniques that were employed almost 100 years ago.
“We make the film from top to bottom,” said Hecker. “We offer everything that moves on this screen.”
More than 50 pairs of shoes are aligned on the shelves in Hecker's studio. Some are robust and produce thick stupid blows, while others create the sharp click clack from high heels. There are even a number of spores that were made by a blacksmith in the 19th century that Hecker used in Tarantino's “Django Unchained”.
“The true art of foley is to master the sound,” said Hecker. “I'm a 200 pound type. When I do Arnold Schwarzenegger, I have to dig deeply, but when I make a little Geisha girl from 'memoirs of a Geisha', a 90-pound girl in this small wooden shoes, I have to keep this performance.”
His sound laboratory has a provisional kitchen area with cups, bottles, bowls, cloches and spray bottles with different sizes and materials. Rakes, shovels and pug in abundance stand next to a bunch of stones, and in the corner there is a worn-out hypocrite-Haubhoitzer.
He even has a supply of swords, weapons, signs, armor and chains as well as a specially built metal tower to create unique, rich metallic sounds.
The floor has a collection of foley pits -wooden areas, concrete, stone, gravel -.
Hecker's collection of props is more than 45 years. He had his training on “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back” and has more than 400 film titles, including “The Running Man”, “Three Amigos”, “Bill & Teds Awarded Adventure”, “Home Alone” and “300.”.
The HodgePodge floor in Gary Heckers Foley Studio on the Sony Pictures Lot in Culver City, California.
Sarah Whitten
Hecker's partner in Sound is Jeff Gross, a mixer who transforms the crashes, rattling and comes into a resonant symphony.
Hecker and Gross's partnership began in the middle of the Covid pandemic, while working on the sound effects for the video game “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III”. Since then they have worked on both “Rebel Moon” films “Venom: The Last Dance” and “Mufasa: The Lion King”. Last year, the two were nominated for a golden role, one of the most valued awards in the sound editing world, for “Mufasa: The Lion King” and won for their work on “Rebel Moon – Part 2: The Scarger”.
“Everything to get a sound”
Hecker and gross tap around a film and usually spend 18 to 20 days per project, depending on the film's sound budget. Films with larger budget have more time, while smaller or independent functions often become much less.
While the Hecker and Gross day team runs out of the Sony Lot, they work with all Hollywood main studios. These companies offer six to eight roles, each contained about 15 minutes of the film. Hecker and big then go roles of reel and add all steps, props and ambient noise.
The steps come first. With the performance of every actor, Hecker stamps at speed, trotting and side steps, often accompanied by a few coffee matters to create the sound of the shoes and to create the illusion of walking outside. Then he starts in the prop noises.
In order to create the metallic scratch of a wastewater cover against an asphalted road, Hecker picks up the Haubitzesscheel against a concrete slab. Gross then adds the recorded sound via computer resonance to give it a more realistic quality.
Hecker even developed techniques to reproduce the sound of explosions and to cross the limits of what Soundkünstler Studio film projects can offer.
Jeff Gross's mixed studio at the Sony Pictures Lot in Culver City, California.
Gary Hecker
Large that sits in a sound cabin while Hecker works the microphone can often not see what his partner uses to imitate what is on the screen.
“You just have to get into your head and go: 'Yes, that sounds like that,” he said. “And then I get up and look at the stage and I am like: 'Use a shopping cart and a toothbrush?'”
And Hecker's skills are not just in physical performance. For decades he gave Hollywood's gorillas, aliens, dragons, monsters, horses and even lions.
He snorted, hidden and grunted to bring the dragon from “Shrek” to life, the aliens from the “Independence Day”, “Zombies in” Dawn of the Dead “, the huge gorilla in” Mighty Joe Young “and finally a pride of Lions from” Mufasa: The Lion King “.
The foley artist Gary Hecker carries out vocalizations for Disney's “Mufasa: The Lion King”.
Gary Hecker
“It was really cool to breathe, purr and make the efforts,” said Hecker about “Mufasa: The Lion King”. “The actors make the voices of the character and tell the story, but these lions move throughout the film, and there is nothing. So everything had to be processed and listed individually. So I would do that, and then Jeff would help me sound like a huge, strong lion.”
A human touch
Hollywood is on a crossroads. The new AI technology offers Studios the opportunity to shorten the budgets of ballooning, but copyright and the desire to keep human art in films has led to tensions.
The strikes for dual authors and actors in 2023 were partially extended because negotiations with studios were negotiated on rights, payment and applications for AI in filmmaking and television.
According to “The Brutalist”, these conversations were inflamed again, which achieved a best actor victory for Adrian Brody, although his performance has been changed with the help of AI-language-generating technology-and in the middle of the fear that President Donald Trump's white house could reset the protection of the copyright.
Adrian Brody in “The Brutalist”
Source: A24
When it comes to foley sound, Hecker and big are not too concerned that AI programs take their work away.
“The actors' performances between movement and detail cannot be able to do that,” said Hecker. “And an artist is expressing himself by a slight touch, a heavy hand, a heavy hand, emotions, things that will not be able to reproduce, act and perform from AI.
Pardee of Loyola Marymount found that companies are already working on software programs to create foley sound, but “the results are lacking very subtle, specific variations.”
Independent studios and productions may choose these programs in the future, but Pordee does not expect the main studios to follow the example.
Where Hecker and Gross Panials are in the shrinking number of film publications from Hollywood.
“We usually try to work on 10 to 11, but the industry is definitely changing,” said Hecker. “They are currently making fewer films.”
Part of the decline comes from the production restrictions of the Pandemie era and the workforce, but also from the fusion of prominent Hollywood studios. The managers have also become more budget -conscious and have lowered the number of characteristics outside the typical blockbuster franchise tariff.
And streaming will not absorb the gap. Hecker noted that streaming content does not have the same sound budget as feature films, and so the creators often turn to smaller foley houses.
In the meantime, Hecker, who has received the nickname “Wrecker”, is known for bringing his human body on the line for foley.
“I would do anything to get a sound,” he said. “When a man is beaten against a car against a door, you have to physically see the same intensity as you see on the screen. If you don't, it just doesn't sound right.”
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