Q: Do you need a degree to be a Foley Artist?

You do not need a degree to become a Foley Artist. I don’t think there are any schools that offer that. You can get a degree in filmmaking and may have the opportunity there to work on student films, however.

Question 1

What is a Foley Artist and what do they do?

Alyson Dee Moore · Accepted Answer

A Foley Artist is someone who recreates sound effects in sync with the picture. A Foley Artist works on a Foley stage, which is a stage that’s comprised of different surfaces like dirt, wood, cement, sand, and gravel. It’s a sound stage, so it’s very quiet. While the picture is rolling, I mimic what they’re doing on camera. So if someone is running in the dirt in tennis shoes, I’ll have tennis shoes on and I’ll be running in place in front of a microphone and watching the picture.
It’s all synced sound. We don’t pull any sounds from a library. Everything we do is custom for that show. If I do a body fall on one day and the next day they ask for another body fall, I do another body fall. It’s from the old radio days of people doing sound effects. But it’s more visual than it is audio, which would be listening to a script versus seeing what’s happening.

Question 2

How much does a Foley Artist make a year?

Alyson Dee Moore · Accepted Answer

I think the minimum in the union is $440 a day. It can go up from there. Not a lot of people make that much more over that. There are a handful of people who make over $1,000 a day, but that’s very unusual. I guess you could potentially make that, but I think the days are over where they’re going to be paying that kind of money. I would say $450 is about your average eight-hour day. In the union, it’s any five days in a row. We could be Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and you don’t have any overtime on the weekend because that’s your schedule. It can get a little tricky.
We finally have a classification in the union. I don’t know if those numbers are there for the public, but that’s what the minimum is: about $440. It’s like an hourly rate, but it’s an eight-hour minimum. Again, it can vary. If you’re not in the union, they can pay you whatever they want. They can pay you $400. That’s why it’s better if you can get paid through the union. You want the union hours. I think there’s less being taken advantage of. A lot of people will just work until they get the show done. Maybe it takes them twelve hours but they’ll only get paid for eight. They’re working for free. I’m so against working for free.

Question 3

Is it hard to become a Foley Artist?

Jay Peck · Accepted Answer

It can be difficult to find the right situation that can offer the opportunity for someone to intern or apprentice. Once you have the opportunity to start performing Foley it takes a lot of hard work, practice, and concentration to develop a good touch in the recording process.

Question 4

What is the work lifestyle of a Foley Artist?

Gregg Barbanell · Accepted Answer

You’re standing all day, pushing car doors around, lifting heavy metal, getting up and down off the floor. And when you’re rolling, every muscle is fired and ready to react. Eight hours of that is enough! On top of that, there are no Assistants to clear up our mess&#8211;I wish we had them! It’s just two Foley Artists smashing glasses, concrete, everything, so there’s a ton of mess.
We’re now asked to do an awful lot in very little time&#8211;the number one challenge is the clock. We have to make a lot of decisions&#8211;do we have time to do this prop or these background feet?
If we can get overtime approval, then we will, but if we can’t, we have to do the best we can with the time we have. Time management is such an important part of what we do. Being creative takes time&#8211;you have to try this, try that&#8211;and it’s time-consuming.
Some shows give you lots of time. I did all of Breaking Bad and they gave us a tremendous amount of time, two and half days on average per episode, and you can tell. Everything is precision done and they used all of our Foley. But that’s a luxury.
[Now, at Universal,] we basically have eight hours to do everything. So you just can’t compare the shows because we had three times more time on Breaking Bad.
We used to have twenty days to do a film. These days you’re lucky if you get ten. Obviously, bigger A pictures give you more time, but the majority have a rapid turnaround.
I don’t buy the traditional feature/television hierarchy that some Foley Artists subscribe to. It’s a fallacy that you have to be doing feature films to be considered a quality Foley Artist.
I sleep to maintain work/life balance!

Question 5

How do you become a Foley Artist?

Jay Peck · Accepted Answer

There is no specific way or class that I know of teaching Foley. I think the best way is to find a facility that has a Foley studio and apprentice under someone that has thorough experience working in the field and the need for assistance.

Question 6

What skills does a Foley Artist need?

Gregg Barbanell · Accepted Answer

If you think you might be good at it, switch on your TV at home and turn the sound off. Put on a pair of firm shoes and stand on a wood or tile floor (not carpet). Then, you literally stand there and as people are walking around, see if you can match their steps.
Props are a little easier, but what really separates the cream from the milk is footsteps. If you find that you can synch footsteps perfectly, stop when they stop, catch that weird hitch in their walk, most people can’t do that and that’s a brilliant start.
Then you have to layer in the subtleties, the softness, the emotion, the ability to stop and shuffle and get that twist of the foot and knowing that when you start to walk your pressure starts slowly and then as you gain speed, you start to hit a little bit harder…these are all things that you learn over time. If you want to see if you’ve got what it takes, experiment with the television.
[Like musicians] anyone can learn to play, but that doesn’t mean you’re great. It’s something inherent, built-in, and it’ll take years to find out.
It’s a team effort. You want to be open to suggestions and collaborations so when someone asks you to try something a different way, you have to be ready for that. You need to be collaborative in that way.

Question 7

Do you need a degree to be a Foley Artist?

Jay Peck · Accepted Answer

You do not need a degree to become a Foley Artist. I don&#8217;t think there are any schools that offer that. You can get a degree in filmmaking and may have the opportunity there to work on student films, however.

Question 8

What is the single biggest suggestion you would give to someone wanting to get into this career?

Gregg Barbanell · Accepted Answer

“Turn on the television, mute the volume, put on some firm shoes and practice synching your footsteps to the picture. If you can do that after a few tries, you might have something.”

Question 9

Anything else that you think people who are interested in Foley should know about?

Alyson Dee Moore · Accepted Answer

There are a couple of small things you can watch. My partner and I did one of us doing Foley sound for the weather, which was fun. There’s another one that the BBC just did on me which is kind of interesting. They’re not very long. They’re like three minutes long. I don’t know if you saw the one … it’s the two British Foley Artists doing Foley for a show with a boat and a fishing dock. It’s so beautifully done. It’s probably, I think, one of the best things done about Foley. It’s really a fun thing to watch.
Don’t be afraid to get a job in something that you think you have no interest in, because you never know where that’s going to lead. Our now-retired Mixer, her Recordist was a Security Guard at Warner Brothers. He met her and asked if he could sit in and watch, and then he became a Recordist.
That’s not a normal path. Warner Brothers have a really great tour and they’re hiring Tour Guides all the time. It’s different from being a Tour Guide at Universal, just because that’s more of a theme park. Warner is a really good tour because it’s a working studio. I say be a Tour Guide. Just get in. You’re around people, and sometimes they go to the Foley stage. You just never know where the opportunity is going to be.

Question 10

What’s the #1 mistake people make when trying to get into this career?

Gregg Barbanell · Accepted Answer

“Younger people come in and dramatically undercut their rate to get the gig. That really upsets people and it undervalues you. Find out what people are getting and ask for the same thing. Sure, drop it by twenty bucks, but don’t do anything silly by cutting it in half. That gets everyone in hot water.”

Question 11

What is the question people should ask about this career but rarely do?

Gregg Barbanell · Accepted Answer

“Is this for me? You have to ask yourself that question. But if it is, if you love it, jump right in!”

Question 12

If you could describe in one word what makes you successful, what would it be?

Gregg Barbanell · Accepted Answer

“Tenacity. Just keep plugging away. I wouldn’t sit idly — poke around and find out what people have got coming up.”

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