Back To The Future - Foley Task

 

Evaluation

The task was to create the foley for the opening sequence to the movie, Back To The Future.

The process began where once watching the clip a couple of times as a reference point, we wrote down what sound was heard throughout in order to know what sounds we needed to record. Each of us within the classroom gave ourselves tasked with the sound effects that needed to be recorded while also trying to solve what could be used to replicate those sounds, especially if some objects (like the robot arm for example) wasn't in someone's home but probably only certain work spaces elsewhere. For my sound effects I recorded, I did some; clicks for the numerous switches and buttons, squeaky/creaky noises for when the book shelve fell over and objects/boxes falling over for the falling book shelves' objects such as boxes, paper and various other objects. I recorded them using my phone at home as for one, I did have a proper microphone but it didn't reach far enough to capture the audio and it was easier to record at home as I knew I had the objects needed for those sound effects. The sounds didn't take long to record. Once we all as a group got the majority of the audio, I started editing the foley in using Adobe Premiere Pro where I muted the original audio from the movie and layered on each of the recorded sound effects. Only a handful of sound effects required some tweaking in Adobe Audition as it could have not been possible in Premiere, so for example, the clocks were layered and adjusted to create a more combined effect of the clocks ticking away. I then exported it and it was then complete.

I was overall pleased with the end result as I think most of the foley sounded similar to the original audio which is what was wanted. Despite being a tiny bit tedious when editing it altogether, I still had fun compiling all of the clips together as it was different to what I usually do which is just adding audio generally rather than sound effects to create foley. It was also enjoyable to record the sounds as most of it was just throwing things about and trying out different sounds within my house to match the sound in-scene.

For what I could improve is that, I noticed after finishing it that only some minor sounds such as the door closing was missing and if I could go back on it, I would've added it in and to make sure to fully check it before exporting. I also think I could've improved on is the clock layering which is heard throughout the entirety of the scene as I felt that more unique clock ticks could've been added to add more depth and volume to the amount of clocks shown on-screen, so for example, I could have edited the volumes and timings of the ticks within Audition in order to create something similar to the original.