Lesson Four - SFX; Foley and Recorded

Foley

At ARTC there are three different parts to the Foley team: Foley Master, Foley Artist, and Foley Mixer.

Foley Master: The Foley Master will be coordinating the Foley Team. They usually do this as either an artist or a mixer, but I did work one show (non-ARTC) where there was just one person calling all the SFX cues and that person was a blend of the Sound Designer and the Foley Master.

The Sound Designer will create a Sound Design. The Sound Design is a single sheet of paper with all of the SFX cues listed in order by line number. It will have each SFX cue assigned. It should look like this:

The Elephant's Child
Line #	Description	Assigned to	Notes
Line 109	Boing	Foley
Line 133	Fly Buzz	Actor
Line 135	Slap	Actor or Foley
Line 143	Snap	Foley	Celery, Carrot, or apple slice?

The Foley Master will create a Foley Script based on the Sound Design. You start by printing out a clean copy of the script from the ARTC script archive. Make sure you’ve got the most up to date version of the script possible.

At the top of the Title Page, write Foley in big letters. On the Title Page find a large blank space. Put the words “Prop List” at the top of the Blank Space. As you determine what props will be used by Foley in this script, list them here.

Go through the Foley Designated script and mark each cue with a F, R, M, or A to denote if it is Foley, Recorded, Musician, or Actor. Then  highlight the Foley designated cues with yellow highlighter. You will use yellow highlighter because yellow does not prevent you from being able to read the words if you have to make a black and white copy or scan of the Foley Script later. It is likely that you will need to make a scan or copy.

Then it’s time to make a visit to your prop room! Currently ARTC has the Foley Closet. Take your Script Design with you and find props to use for all the Foley designated cues. List the props on the front of your script under the words, “Prop List.”

Trying out a sound:

If you are unsure which props will make the best sound for the cue, gather a couple of choices and hold a tryout. You will tell the director you need to have a tryout. During the rehearsal, the director will give you time. Describe to the people at the rehearsal what the sound cue is and how many options you have for it. Then have them close their eyes and clearly say “option one” and perform their first choice, repeat with the corresponding option numbers until you have exhausted all your options. Instruct them to open their eyes. They will give their opinions on what options sounded best and the director will make the final call for which option to use.

Now either the Director, the Sound Designer, or the Foley Master will assign the Foley Actors and the Foley Mixer. The Director will delegate who will assign the Foley crew. Once The Foley Crew is assigned, The Foley Master will decide on the Foley Setup.

For Most Shows the Foley Setup includes a six foot folding table, 3 shotgun mics, one floor mic, and an under table floor surface. The first shotgun mic (1) will be pointed at one half of the surface of the folding table. The second (2) will be pointed at the other half of the surface of the folding table. The Third (3) will be pointed off to stage left of the folding table. Usually it will be pointed at a the Foley Door since most scripts call for doors to open and close at some point. The Floor mic (4) will be on the floor pointed at and as close as it can get to the floor surface.

Diagram:

IRL Examples:

However for the shows we’ll be doing in this course there will only be a one person foley crew, which means that the Foley setup will be scaled down to this:

In the script which has already been highlighted, you should also note The First Initial (or agreed upon identifier if there’s multiple people with the same first initial on Foley Crew for the same show) of the person performing the specific cue and what # mic they’ll be performing it on.

NOTE: You should have one rehearsal of doing the Foley before you mark the script with the initial and mic # because things work better in practice than theory in Foley Life.

Example:

Foley Artist: The Foley Artist, follows the instructions of the Foley Master. They may want to have their own copy of the script depending on if they can see the main Foley script while performing. Usually the person performing SFX on mic 3 needs their own Foley script copy.

All Foley artists should have their scripts laid out like this while performing:

The page you’re reading off of should always be the left page. This way you’ll be able to see any big cues coming up and won’t get caught off guard and unable to perform your cue in a timely fashion.

I also find that notes in the script margins are very helpful. Notice in this example, on the left hand page there’s a note to get prepared to do a large cue on the right hand page. It is not the next cue coming up, but there is so little time directly before the large cue to get set up that it’s best to prepare in advance while the Foley has a bit of a break in the script.

There are several cues in the larger shows that require some physical skill. There have been times when some Foley artists have chosen to risk a bit of bodily harm to make the right sound. NEVER do anything that you are uncomfortable with since you assume all the risk and liability of your Foley performances. Please tell your Foley Master no if you feel unwilling or unsafe at any time. Be aware of what your fellow Foley actors are doing and make sure to get out of the way of any potentially harmful props or motions.

Foley Mixer: The Foley Mixer runs a mini soundboard made just for the Foley SFX cues. This is helpful in shows where you have cues that make a lot of noise in the setup. The mixer can mute mics while large or noisy cues are getting setup. In this way Foley is only heard when they should be, rather than interrupting the show.

The Foley Mixer can also fade out or in mics to enhance the effect of a sound. The Foley Mixer also has a few effects that might help with enhancements, such as echo.

[I do not have a picture of the Foley Mixer yet, but we’ll see it live during rehearsal tonight, I will insert a picture of the mixer here along with a label of the pertinent parts and what they do]

The Foley Mixer should have their own copy of the Foley Script. If the Foley Mixer is going to be used with mutes, fades, or effects, there NEEDS TO BE MARGIN NOTES AHEAD OF TIME. The Foley team may also come up with silent gestures to make sure that everyone is ready to go. Often this includes much pointing at the script, mics and other Foley Crew members.

Recorded SFX

At ARTC the Recorded SFX are run through a laptop that is plugged into the Sound Board. The laptop is running a program called Show Cue Systems.

Show Cue Systems:

Anything I write to sum up how to use Show Cue Systems would be inferior to the instructions they have provided themselves in helpful YouTube Videos. We also occasionally teach classes on SCS on Discord.

Most of the videos can be found here:

https://www.showcuesystems.com/cms/scs-videos

However, The best introductory ones are :

https://www.showcuesystems.com/download/SCS11%20Tutorial%201/SCS11%20Tutorial%201.html

https://www.showcuesystems.com/download/SCS11%20Tutorial%202/SCS11%20Tutorial%202.html

And

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B02H1sjQcJY

Libraries:

Most of our recorded sound effects comes from the Library at the ARTC Studio in David’s possession. (2026 note: Copies can be made. The library fits comfortably on a 1T external hard drive) It’s housed on an external drive and it has so many pre recorded sounds the hardest part is narrowing down what you want the most often or knowing what terms to type into the search bar to get what you’re looking for.

It’s usually best to start very broadly. You can narrow down your selection by excluding certain terms later, but always start broad. After you have located which spectrum of SFX you’d like to tryout, there is an in program function that allows you to compare your top choices.

Put your top choices into the list and then narrow down from there. Once you know what sounds you want, Download them onto the computer which you’ll be running show cues from.

Follow the show cue systems instructions for how to load them into your script’s Cue List.

You can also use freesound.org.  “Freesound was started in 2005 at the Music Technology Group (MTG) of Universitat Pompeu Fabra. The initial aim of the project was to create an open database of sounds that could also be used for scientific research. However Freesound became bigger and bigger and turned into a wide and active community of users which grew well beyond any initial goals. Freesound currently hosts more than 4400 hours of audio and serves around 50000 sounds per day.

Freesound aims to create a huge collaborative database of audio snippets, samples, recordings, bleeps, ... released under Creative Commons licenses that allow their reuse. Freesound provides new and interesting ways of accessing these samples, allowing users to:

• browse the sounds in new ways using keywords, a "sounds-like" type of browsing and more
• upload and download sounds to and from the database, under the same creative commons license
• interact with fellow sound-artists!

We also aim to create an open database of sounds that can also be used for scientific research and be integrated in third party applications. Using the Freesound API researchers and developers can access Freesound content a retrieve meaningful sound information such as metadata, analysis files and the sounds themselves. See the developers section and the API documentation for more information. Freesound API usage is free for non-commercial use, but it can also be licensed for being used in commercial applications.”

Working with the Sound Board Operator:

Both the Recorded Effects Operator and the Sound Board Operator have overlapping territory over the volume, gain, and speaker designations of the Recorded SFX.

This makes a tech rehearsal and an on scene cue to cue absolutely essential to our audio performances. The Sound Board Operator and the Recorded SFX Operator must agree to the settings beforehand and then not make individual changes without notification to the other.

Personal NOTE: The first solo tech gig I did was running Show Cue Systems for a theatre performance. A pop up error screen that I had never seen before came up during the performance. It told me left click to correct. I hastily and stupidly right clicked. Right clicking starts the next cue, which, for me, was the tolling of a Big Ben Midnight in the middle of what was supposed to be a poignant silence.

Please learn from my mistakes. 1)DON’T PANIC. Read all instructions thoroughly and don’t rush into decisions in a stressed moment. 2) If something you’ve never seen before pops up in the middle of a performance, mute everything before you try to fix it. 3)If everything is going to hell in a handbasket silence is better than a cacophony of misplaced SFX. Trust your Actors and Foley crew to help cover if you get into trouble. 4) Don’t get stuck on a mistake. Fix it as best you can and then move forward.