Alisha L Animation (LAU): Extended Practise: Making Foley Sounds

Extended Practise
Making Foley Sounds

I worked on the Foley Sound effects for Aviation Aggravation and Kingdom of Masks.

As I had never recorded my own foley sound before, I had a lot that I needed to consider. I own a Blue Yeti Microphone, with multiple Pop-Filters and a foam sponge over, so I found that I could record high-quality sound without needing to rent a microphone. However, I was limited to recording within my room, as the microphone was plugged into my computer. This meant some of Foley had to be recorded and heavily edited on my phone.
To start the process, I used the notes I had made from the talk with Mike Wyled, a sound designer and made quick notes on potential things which could be heard in each scene, based upon his talk.
Here are the notes:

I started recording sounds on my phone, going down the list of Shots. Some interesting sounds I managed to re-create were the squeaks using my shower, Airplane ambience with the loud fans of my computer and shaking a t-shirt over the microphone to make the sound of Geoffrey ruffling out his feathers.
Some sounds, however I wasn't able to record, such as the plane ambience, the airport ambience, pigeon coos and other ambient sounds. This is when I made use of the BBC Sounds Library to find more sound effects to add into the track. Once I had a recording of the first foley sounds, I could then layer them in Sony Vegas, to create layered sounds. I followed Mike's advice of editing and manipulating footage within the software to create different effects.
I found that the foley sounded better upon recording it straight onto the timeline, with the video as reference. Here is the final foley track for Aviation Aggravation:

I followed the same process for Kingdom of Masks, however the sounds I recorded utilised paper to sound like leaves or running. Here is the foley track for this:

I think I did a good job of keeping both foley track subtle, as in both animations the music is more dominant in the Soundtrack

Unfortunately a lot of the foley I recorded didn't make it into the final tracks, because they didn't fit the animation well. As I was limited with what I could do from home, I think it's better replacing some of the sounds with pre-recorded sounds from the BBC Sounds Library and manipulating some sounds from Freesound.org.
I would be willing to try sound designing again in the future, with better equipment or ability to go outside. Due to the pandemic, it was hard being able to go out to record sounds, so I took that into consideration.

Alisha L Animation (LAU)