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When The Jazz Singer shocked everybody in 1927 by being the first movie to have a sound track rival studios were left scrambling to find a way to put authentic sound on film.
Beyond opening theme music there was no score for the film and only dialog and a occasional song were recorded. The notable exception was Hitchcock's 1934 The Man Who Knew Too Much. Although there was no score for the film a large orchestral piece was used to great effect when after playing for a while it was abruptly stopped at a dramatic moment. One of the exceptions to this rule was King Kong which had an elaborate musical score and Disney's 1928 animation film, Steamboat Willie, for which was created an entire sound track with music and effects. While music was slowly being added to films, background sounds, doors opening and closing, people walking on concrete or gravel, or even the rustle of clothes, were being left out because the microphones simply weren't sensitive enough to pick up such small sounds clearly. Studios hit upon the idea of adding these sounds after the film was shot and the man they turned to make these sounds come alive was Jack Foley. Such was his impact that the people who specialize in adding such sound to film became know as Foley artists. Foley was a worker around Universal Studios when he was tapped to produce sound effects. He had a genius for finding the right thing to produce a convincing sound on the screen. A struck watermelon became the sound of someone being hit in the head. Crisp vegetables being snapped in half became the sound of bones breaking. It was said that Foley could mimic the walk of any actor sound wise. With the advent of computers sound effects took a great leap forward. Not only could a vast catalog of effects be kept at the studios finger tips, but sounds that were impossible for a Foley artist to produce came rolling out of computerized synthesizers. A movie like Star Wars or The Matrix would have been impossible without computers. But don't count the Foley artists out. They are still very much a part of the post production of a film. Working in a Foley studio, a small studio with a screen, they make their myriad sounds while watching each scene of a movie and for all the power of computers it still takes the intuitive sense of a Foley artist to come up with the right sound for what is taking place on screen. Go To Page: 1 2
The copyright of the article Sound in Cinematic Social Commentary is owned by Ken Nared. Permission to republish Sound in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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