Noisefloor Creative Producer, Katie Waters has been promoted to in-house Foley Artist.
Waters has a long history with Noisefloor; starting as an intern, freelancing as a Foley Artist in 2011, and later in 2014 joining the team as their full-time Studio Manager. Most recently in her role as Noisefloor’s creative producer, Waters was able to periodically perform Foley on any projects when needed, thus landing her dream job!
Waters was first introduced to Foley in a film sound class at Columbia College Chicago, where she learned the importance of Foley and how to perform, record and edit, while becoming an explorer and librarian for sounds that exist all around her just waiting to be discovered. Now, with the new fully equipped Foley stage at Noisefloor, our avid listener is able to conjure up the perfect sounds with endless amounts of organized props, Foley pits and the library that lives in her brain to reference and create the perfect sounds for any project she works on.
So, what is Foley exactly?
Foley is the process of recording custom sound effects in sync to picture. The sounds are performed by a Foley Artist while recording is usually done by the Foley mixer. Typically the sounds being recorded are characters’ footsteps, props (anything a character touches) and the sounds of their clothes as they move. Foley is part of the sound effects team, so there are times when the Foley team may need to add other textures that are not character related to help out with a specific sound effect.
“Our Foley stage is equipped with various surface pits and other surfaces that the hoarder I am can’t get rid of because they just sound too darn good,” Waters enthusiastically describes. “The surface pits are smooth concrete, rough concrete and currently the others have small rock, medium rock, sand, and grass. You have a film in the desert? We got your footsteps covered. You have footsteps on a rocky trail? We got you. You have a film on a sunny beach? Again, we got you! And the nice thing is we can rotate anything out of the pits, which I look forward to doing for puddle footsteps with water.”
Another aspect of the Foley stage that Waters is excited to use is the built-in kitchen. Waters will be able to create sounds for any sort of kitchen or bathroom scenes and more. The stage has multiple microphone setups and mic PreAmps making it easy and proficient to move around in the space and work efficiently for clients.
Waters goes on to tell us some of her favorite sounds to make. “My sister gave me some old dining chairs, and they eventually broke down, but one I kept because they were sooo creaky and I just love adding sounds to any creaky chair scenes. It adds such a nice texture to when people sit down or can also be used to create door and floor creaks. I also love body falls, like in a fight scene when someone falls to the ground. There is something magical when you can find all the pieces to the puzzle,” Waters continues. “If I am not performing, I am preparing or spotting, as we call it, for the next project and figuring out what props we need to bring in to record. If I have time to edit as well I love making sure everything is in sync.”
In addition to the new Foley stage and Water’s promotion, Noisefloor continues to grow in personnel too. Joseph Vnuck, Skyler Gram and Noelle Daniels have been welcomed to the team as location mixers and audio assistants.
