I haven't talked much about my specific classes so far. A lot of that had to do with the first term classes not being so fun. And term 2, well, these classes are more fun, but I've been slammed with work! Apparently the 2nd term is the hardest other than the last one (or something like that). It's only been two weeks, but I've put in a lot of 10 and 12 hour days.
Luckily, I'm enjoying this a lot more than first term. Those classes were things like Electronics, Audio Physics, and Pro Tools 101. Now I have Music Editing, Film Background Editing, Foley, Special Effects, Dialogue, etc. I'm in the middle of Foley right now. I'd guess most of you are familiar with this film credit, but just in case...Foley is the art of recording sounds to be used in the movies. All I'm doing right now is syncing foot noises with footsteps. Sounds boring, huh? Honestly, for me, it hasn't been just yet! Many of you might know I really like boots...well part of that is because I LOVE the sound they make. I don't think I'm meant to always do sounds for feet, but I can certainly find some joy in it.
Anyway, aside from the classes, I have these awesome stories from one of my teachers today. Bob has worked on tons of movie films and is leaving us for L.A. for a week to work on an Owen Wilson movie ("Drillbit Taylor") due next year. He's actually given us some footage of Drillbit with raw audio to use for a small "real world" style project! I've got a project involving a movie with a big name actor that isn't even out yet!!
Today, Bob talked to us about Foley, but he seemed to think Foley was too boring for 3 hours. That's fine (most people would agree). He did answer a few questions and tell some good stories. My two favorites involved big movies. First of all, he knows the guy who was the Supervising Sound Editor for Spider-Man 3. So Bob just saw the movie and decided to call his friend up because he saw a credit that said "Dog Puppeteer" and wanted to know what that meant. Mr. Sound Guy (Kevin O'Connell...nominated for at least 17 Oscars Bob says, but hasn't won) told him that was when the dogs chasing Sandman over the fence...one jumped on the fence and was done as a dog puppet. While this is nothing too interesting, I have to say I'm just floored that MY teacher just randomly called up THE guy who worked on sound for the current box-office record holder. Wow. Talk about degrees of separation. But Bob's worked on lots of movies, so of course he knows lots of people. And we study people like Gary Rysdtrom who did the sound on Toy Story and many others. That's just soooo cool sometimes.
The other super fun story Bob told was actually Foley related. He did most of the sound for Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. He said he was frustrated by one of the swordfights because he wanted a good "ssshhhttiinggg!" kind of sound, but when they fought, it was just a "clank". He ended up hanging the swords from the ceiling and hit them that way to get the sound. And it turned out pretty good (go pull out your DVD's and check ;). After that, he had a friend doing a swordfight in another movie and he called and asked how Bob did it. Bob said that from that point on, most sword fights included that kind of sound...all the way up to stuff like Pirates. He was very complimentary to the swordfighting in Pirates, by the way.
But wow...it's just so cool! ok, so maybe some of you don't care how a sword in some old movie sounded...but I've always liked behind-the-scenes things...from sound to effects to design...it's all fun. Happy sigh...I'm going to miss Bob while he's working on his latest movie. I mean, we were supposed to have a few extra classes with him, but they were cancelled. Oh well...any time I have him, I'll make the most of it...I love asking him about movie-making stories!
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Wow. That's pretty fun. The only noteworthy story I have from my post-Truman education is my Finance professor for my MBA was a post-op transvestite. S/he was probably one of my favorite profs at the school.
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