June 10, 2024 • 25 mins
Introducing John, a 59 year old man from Quorn... where is Quorn, erm somewhere in regional South Australia?
He's bordering on becoming a hoarder of items that make certain noises, his obsessed with footsteps, and has a connection to Steven Spielberg.Â
What is John concealing?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
You have made a remarkable decision to stuff your ear
holes full of me art, Simone.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
In return, I have a treat for you.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
I'm going to introduce you to someone with a bizarre job,
a strange hobby, or they might just be a downright
weirdo wh who knows, But I will get to the
bottom of it. This is concealed with me arts, Simone. Okay,
no Moore tiptoeing around. Let's get noisy roll the type glat.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
My name's John. I live in corn In, South Australia,
fifty nine years old. This is actually sending a bit
like a dating program. Now, yes I'm single, but anyway
back to it. In my out of work hours, I
just enjoy being outdoors because I'm indoors a lot for
my job, so I do a bit of walking. I
like camping and watching a bit of motorsport. Really but
(01:00):
I'm concealing a part of my life which isn't really
a secret. It's been shown right across the world. You're
probably familiar with a lot of my work, even if
you don't know it.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Oh mysterious, Oh hello John, how are you.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Going very well? Thank you and you I.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Love me to meet you. In your I'm going to
call this the bunker. I feel like you're in a
bunker at the moment. No daylight, Yes, I see no daylight.
I hear him in my own bunker here at the studio.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
But all right, we've never met before.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
I don't know anything about you, but apparently I may
be familiar with your work, perhaps correct.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Okay, all right, so you're sitting in front of me.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
You've just got to love your T shirt on. You've
got your glasses on a little bit scruffy there, hmm. Okay, okay,
So tell me a bit about living in Corn, because
I've never heard of that.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Corn is just a little town about four hours north
of Adelaide. It's situated in the Flinders Ranges. So it's
a pretty little towns rounded by mountains and it's a
beautiful community.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
And what brings you to Corn?
Speaker 1 (02:05):
I know, I'm very stuck on this Corn thing, but
I think it's really interesting because imagine just saying I
live in Corn.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
That's fun.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Yeah. Well, I guess I'm not a big fan of
big cities. And my work I can I can sent
and receive stuff over the internet, so it doesn't really
matter where I work.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
From Okay, so you can work remotely? All right?
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Okay, so you hate if you had bad Wi Fi there,
I hope you hooked up to the NBN or something.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Yes, yes, similar to that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
So you like walking, like camping, like motorsports, all things
we don't have in common.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Okay, so I really threw me off there.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
What I'm going to do is ask you three questions,
and from the answer to those three questions, I'm going
to try and decide or discover what it is that.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
You are concealing from me here today. Are you ready? John?
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Okay? Far away?
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
If someone walked through your house, what would they assume
about you?
Speaker 3 (02:58):
That I am a collector of weird things? Almost horder like?
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Okay, No, I love things. I love things. Do you
find value in possessions? Do they hold sentimental value to you?
Speaker 3 (03:13):
It depends what they are. They need to they need
to do something. I don't like things that don't do anything.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Ah okay, ah, okay, don't like things, don't like people,
and don't like things that don't do anything. All right, Okay,
now these are all very important things. Okay, So they
assume you're a bit of a hoarder.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Hmm. Okay.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Maybe you're into antiques. Oh, that could be nice. Maybe,
but their own tanks don't do much. Maybe you're into
a specific type of antiques. Maybe you're really into music boxes. Oh,
wouldn't that be fascinating? Okay, anyway, that's the first question.
Second question, if you could follow something for the rest
of your life, whether it be a trend, a social
media account, or something else, what would it be.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
I would be following other people's footsteps.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Store okay, s talker, all right, I'm putting that down.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Doesn't like people, don't like things that don't do things,
but also likes to follow people. Interesting. Interesting there, okay, okay.
And number three, if you could describe your life in
five words, what would they be.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
I'm heard but not seen.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Okay, head but not seen.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Oh it's like one of those limericks, you know, black white,
red all over. I'm a newspaper but you're not that.
Or you could be all right under the sea.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
All right.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
I feel like I feel like I know this one.
I feel like I know this one. And I've said
this before and got it completely wrong. Okay, you like
things that do things, you follow on people's footsteps. You
can just work from home and do your things like
you have lots of objects and you know what you need,
lots of objects for foley and sound effects and things
(04:56):
like that. And because I find this very interesting, I
love this. So I've had a feeling that perhaps you
may be a foley artist, which is like a sound
effects artist.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Is this right?
Speaker 3 (05:11):
I'm a foley artist. My job is recreating sounds like
footsteps and people getting patted and all the clothes, rustles
and things like that. It's a bit of a crazy job.
I've worked with some great people over the years. Steven
Spielberg probably one of my highlights doing a movie called
The Adventures of Tintin. But there's also been some amazing
Australian films, a lot of fun to do, the Great Gatsby,
(05:34):
Happy Feet, Wolf Creek, but also one of my favorite
Izi films, and great Girls, which is The Girls that
made Kath and Kimderella.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Yeah. I love this stuff. I love this.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Oh, goold the Stars? It a line any better for
me here today? John Ah, I feel like we were
tested to meet each other. Even though I don't like
camping or motor sports.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Are walking?
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (05:59):
I love what you do. Oh, I love sounds.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Ah, yes, I'm very impressed you've done well.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Oh yeah, I got it right.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
John is a Foley artist, and I'm feeling fabulous.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
That's ill to say because I got it right and
you got it wrong. Isn't that good? Yes? Thank you? Okay,
So we're here with John and I was correct.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
John is a Foley artist and for layman terms, for
all the people listening home, John makes sounds, sounds that
you see on screen on TV movies, everywhere and anywhere.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
If it needs a sound, you put it in. Is
that correct, John?
Speaker 3 (06:47):
That's pretty much it. That's what I do. Yep.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
So can you explain if there's a difference between foley
and sound effects and what it is.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Yeah. So, foley is anything that's performed live. So when
I'm recording on watching the actual vision on a big screen,
have a microphone in my room. And if there's a lady,
you know, walking along, got the high heels on down
a concrete footstep for a concrete path, that'll be me.
I have to slap on the pair of high heels
(07:15):
and walk like a lady down the path, which should help.
I always have trouble with you'd be good at it,
you'd be excellent.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
There you go, Well, if you need an intern one day,
if it's the extra you're walking, count me in. Maybe
one day you'll need to do Foley on a drag
Queen film and I can go, well, you can know
to call me up. It's all about who you know,
isn't it.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
I've done a few already with drag Queens in.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
So well I'm your Gael all right. So essentially Folly
has performed live sound effects. Would you say, is can
he pulled from a database or just an audio file
or something.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
This is where there's a bit of confusion. People think
that recording doing folly is I'm going to go to
the kitchen recorder record putting a spoon in a draw
and then they'll go and cut it and put it in,
And that's not truly what it is. That you're just
recording a sound effect and editing it in, so you're
not performing it live. So there's a big difference, especially
with walking or placing something down, because there's the sound
(08:11):
of a cup going on the table so many different ways.
If you watch someone slam a cup down or they
gently put it down and give a little slide and
it depends on the mood of the person that at
the time of the movie.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
So is there a bit of a pushback or are
you battling against sound effects these days? Or are you
still quite prized for what you do because you know
in this day of AI and you know, we've got
a full database. We'll just pick from there. It's cheaper.
Is that something that you have to kind of battle
at the moment?
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Not yet. There's been a few people try to do
automated Foley programs and they're quite clever. They can see,
you know, from the vision that a footstep lands, and
they'll find a footstep to match it. But it still
doesn't work the same. It hasn't got the feel of
someone actually performing it because there's still grabbing it from
a library and it doesn't quite work.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Has working as a folly artist ruined watching things for you?
Because I imagine that not every sound that you create
is actually doing the action. For example, if someone's stabbed,
I don't think you're sabbing a real human being. You
must be using something else to do that. So when
you watch things, do you just picture all the wrong
(09:24):
things that the sounds are coming from?
Speaker 3 (09:26):
I actually hardly go to the movies, I gotta say,
but when I do, I generally are watching and listening
to the soundtrack. Yes, it is hard to be involved
in the movie. It has to be a very good
film for me to forget about the sound and actually
just watch it. But yeah, you're like, you're right. You
don't bring in a work experience person to just stab
(09:49):
them to make the noise with it, although there's been
a few I've been tempted with, but the we'll just
use a bit of a celery or a a chicken
or something like that, just to you know, make a
bit of a crunchy, stabby sound.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
I totally get it, because you know, I know a
little bit about here and makeup, and I can't watch
films anymore. People hate to watch them with me because
I will literally be sitting in the cinema and I'll
be next to my friend and I'll go.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Wig, Wig, that's a wig. Look it's a wig. You
can see it. Look at the wig. Oh, it's a wig,
And they're like, stop it. I didn't even think.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
I was like, there's a wig, and it's a bad
one too, So I totally understand it all different folly
artists would have different ways they create sounds and different
objects they use for certain sounds. Is there some particular
items or things or techniques that you do that are
like industry secret that you're like, I'm never telling anyone
(10:45):
how I make the sound.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Of x y z ed.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Possibly, but I can't tell you.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Something goes, Oh, we'll go to John because John does
the best rattling knees. Oh, John's rattling knees are the
absolute best, So we'll go to John.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
I'm fifty nine years old on my knees actually do rattle.
But no, Look, I've got some props, and a lot
of stuff comes down to the props that you gather,
and so I've got some really favorite props which are
my go to ones for making some things. And one
of them is just a rusty old hinge, which I
(11:21):
pretty much use in every single film that comes across you.
Kind of I'll always find a place for it because
it's like a bit of a mark, you know. It's
like the Wilhelm scream for some films, Like there's something
that's got to get hinge in here somehow. So that's
how it works.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Do you just go out leave your house and go
and listen to things to go oh that, could you
pick up something and go oh that?
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Oh that sounded good? Actually I do.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
It happens a lot. Absolutely. I'll be sitting at a
cafe and listening to some footsteps will suddenly just get
my attention. And the worst thing. Once I went to
a very good friend's funeral who was sitting in a
big church waiting for everything to happen. And I was
sitting there with my friend because we're all mates of
this fella and the reverberance sound inside this big old
(12:09):
church in Adelaide, and I've just heard this lady's footsteps
walking down And the first thing that came into my
mind was, Wow, those footsteps sound awesome. So I'm thinking that, John,
you're at a funeral. You can't be you can't be
linking your footsteps right now, but they did.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
I want to go up to that lady and go,
what shoesy wearing? I'd like to recreate this sound on
my own face, exactly right. I'm a size thirteen, ladies,
So if we could just do.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
That, please, Yes, that'd be perfect.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
What are kind of the most common sounds you would
have to create, you know, that's your bread and butter
in a film or TV.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
So obviously footsteps. Every single film has to have all
the footsteps replaced and then followed by really the cloth,
so all the clothes, and that could be whether someone's
wearing a sparkly coat with you know, little jingly bits
on it and jewelry and things, and that's probably probably
the main things. Nowadays there's a lot of mobile phones,
(13:04):
Like people have always got a mobile phone in the
hand and are always pushing the bloody thing, scriggling the
screen around the screen, So you always have to have
those sorts of noises in there.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
What is the weirdest noise you've had to perform for
one of your films or things?
Speaker 2 (13:21):
What's the strangest thing.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
So the strangest noise would have to be in one
of the Hobbit films. Actually there's a big character and
I can't even think of his name, but it was
played by Barry Humphries, the late Barry Humphreys, and he
was like this. He was made up as a giant
sort of ogre with these huge squishy feet and he
(13:48):
would walk around and it was bare feet. And we
wanted to have kind of big, weighty, but also really squishy, rubbery, fleshy,
and we try to different things and I ended up
with some fresh chickens which I got from the supermarket
and just had a fresh chicken in each hand and
(14:10):
was just using those as these big sloppy feet, just
plunking them on the ground and it sounded amazing, but yeah,
it's and it was all used.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
If only those chickens knew what they would become one day,
that's right. I thought I might just be not a
nice sandwich or something, and you had different plans sit
at your john.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
They had no idea those chickens.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
So you've worked in kids films, you worked in horror films.
Do the materials used to make the sounds so you
know those different genres differ much or do you just
still kind of pull from the same pool of things.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
There's the basic footsteppy things. But if you've got a
bit of a horror film or something creepy, you go
to we we call it like a Hollywood level film,
and there's Australian level films. All the Hollywood level ones
are big, upfront, loud, in your face, you know, like huge,
big footsteps, big creaky boots and everything's just huge. And
(15:11):
then we'll have some of the more subtle, kind of
straight of films that we make the sounds as realistic
as possible, so they sound like exactly how they should
on the day. The Hollywood stuff's way more fun to
do because everything's just loud and big and noisy, and
I love that stuff.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Yeah, So do they actually just differ stylistically. That's actually
quite a known difference between the two. Is Hollywood just
love bing bang bom bom bom boom, Yeah, And austrains
are like, no, I'm subtle. Are you talking about? Let's
trottle down under it?
Speaker 2 (15:44):
And it is.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
It is nice sometimes to do the subtle things. One
of a film I did a long time ago called
Little Women, and that we managed to go to a
props in the ABC because I did that and when
I was in Sydney and we got all the beautiful
dresses and all this jewelry and all these different things
for all the ladies dresses and just the different materials
(16:09):
and stuff, and actually sounded really nice. We had a
good time with that, and we all looked a bit
weird dressed up in the dresses. But there's something you
would have loved. I'm sure it was good fun.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Tell you put me on speed all babe, I'll come down.
I'll be a little woman. I'm a big woman currently,
but you know I'll try.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
I'll try anyway.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
So footsteps from giant chicken filets on the ground, high
heels in a church. You've worked on happy feet, which
must have the most footsteps that ever did exist?
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Ever?
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Tell me more about happy feet. How did you manage
to record a million digital penguins dancing on the ice?
Speaker 3 (16:49):
That was very difficult, So the actual normal penguins walking,
I wasn't too bad. So I actually set up a
bit of a bench, concrete bench, and I was able
to sit at with TV right in front of me,
and we had I was here. There's no snow I
could just keep in the studio, So I used wet sand.
(17:09):
It was just a coarse build of sand and we
just kept that wet and that just it just sounded
like snow. And we would change it around and mix
it up with different amounts of water depending on what
sort of snow it looked like. And we can add
squeaks to snow using corn flour. You know when you
squish a handful of corn flour has a little bit
of itp so more of a dry pottery snow, we
(17:31):
can add that if we want.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
To see you're a scientist as well.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
You have to be a scientist. You have to be
one of.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Everything, my goodness.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
And then I just use my little fingers just on
the end and that's just that's just the little flippers
going around. But ah, the actual penguins also have little
nails on them. So then I've got these little cotton
gloves where you know the I use them for dogs
and cats as well as claws. But you know the
(17:56):
little hair grabby things that kind of you put on
your hair and they kind of bunch up your hair together,
and it was like hair clamp thing. They made a
plastic So I just buyse and I cut all the
prongs off them and then sticky tape those to the
end of the cotton gloves because and it sounds like
little dog nails and.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
All you need to do is just get some super
glue and glue them to your fingers like I do.
Don't be a worse job I do.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
But you know, hey, I hate the ruin and nail
and these ones are just they just come off easy
when I don't. The next thing, you see.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
I thought you were committed to your industry jumps, so
your sticky tape little plastic things to the gloves.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Yep, that's right. There's a lot of editing involved with
that sort of stuff, because you've got one pass, like
one recorded pass of footsteps with your fingers, and then
on top of that you do it again with the nails,
so then you have to go and cut those it's
to the right point, and sometimes the nail lands before
the actual little flip apart, and sometimes I flip apart
and the nail and then of course they slide on
(19:00):
ice and skid along and do all that sort of thing.
But by far the hardest part was there all the
tap dancing. We got the original recordings from the motion
capture stage of the guy that did all the tap sequences.
And I'm trying to remember his name, but he is
a very famous tap dancer, and everything he did was
(19:22):
tapped on a white American oak slab. He couldn't obviously,
tap dance on snow, it just doesn't happen. So we
got all those and then what we did was record
I know, maybe two thousand different samples of tapping my
fingers and nails on various slushy snowy rocks, all the
(19:46):
surfaces that you would have seen, and happy feet. And
then we used a program called Drummergogu, which is a
drum replacement program, and we loaded all those samples in there.
It would look at the incoming sound from the tap
sound and go, okay, that sounds like this. We'll use
this kind of ice one and it'll put it there,
(20:06):
and the rhythm sounded right. Because when a tap dancer
creates a rhythm, it's like someone singing a song. It
has to be exactly the same rhythm. It couldn't go,
it couldn't change. There was a thousand hours of work
in that.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
It was insane, yeah, because it would have been impossible
just because what what did you normally do? The process
would be to watch the footsteps and then replicate them,
you know, in time as you watch them happen. But
you can't do that if someone's a little penguins tap
it on ice to a rhythm.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
That's a bit harder, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
No, it's impossible.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Now, whenever I watch Happy Feet, I will just picture
hu Jeh on fingering a box of sand and I
think that's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
I think that's nice.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Do you have to submit what you want the sounds
to be and get them approved before you record them
or do you do they just go to you and
you present it. They go cool, that's great. Is there
like a revision process?
Speaker 3 (20:54):
There is, depending on the movie. So the one we
did with Spielberg, which I did out of New Zealand,
who's the most interesting one because he would review each
week what everything had done. So he'd review the sound effects, editors,
the dialogue, the foley and everything, and it was all
done via video link because he wasn't in New Zealand
(21:17):
and he was actually on a boat somewhere in the
Caribbean on his big yacht. As you do live the line,
I know. So we would just sit back and he'd
just send us all the video of what he thought
was going on. So that was actually really interesting, and
it was it is a bit of a thrill because
I'm a big Spielberg fan. I love his films. So
(21:38):
when he comes back and he starts talking about the
foley part and saying, oh, you know, I really like
the way the dogtail sounds. So we want we want
to hear more of that, you know. And that's that's
little Snowy the dog. I don't know if you've seen it,
but you know if he's flapping his tail on it's
just hitting the back of a seat or something. Is like,
that's really cool.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
And of course how do you make a dogtail sound effect?
I must know now?
Speaker 3 (21:58):
It basically we just you is a little bit of
wrapped up cloth.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
All right.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
So to wrap this up, John, I've been given a
box of props put in front of me, and I
told you ready that I think I'm qualified for this industry. Yeah,
so I want you to give me some scenarios and
I'm going to try and recreate them using my box
of props in front of me. See if I can
be Oh wow, there's so many good things in here. Okay,
(22:26):
oh salary, oh hinge, I could do it all all right.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
So are you familiar with the Star Trek films?
Speaker 2 (22:34):
I mean they've got funny hands. I know that.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Do you remember the sound of the doors every time
I opened and close?
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Oh? The yes?
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Oh all right, I passed that though that I was
too good, John, give me another one.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
It's time to get violent now, so okay, this one
will be a nick crack like you've just twisted like
in an Arnold Swartz now when he grabs around the
head and just.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Oh yeah, a neck.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Break, an I can I do the dialogue as well,
Hey you stopping so mean to those little kids.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
That's a bit more of like a toe snapping off,
but it was pretty good.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
I'm such a good superhero. And they're running through the forests.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
And they slide past a tree. If you get all
those little bits of celery and bunch them together in
your hand and then you just twist them so they
slowly twisted around.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Oh, this could be gross.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
I'm excited it's going to be gross.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Oh oh, look there's another one who's still being really
mean to those kids.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Don't worry, I got this.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
That's wet. I don't even need scenarios, John, I can
just make them up myself.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Someone at the.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
Door, or Koby, little mouse, you're scraping at the door
trying to get in.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Yes, hey, you now that I've saved you from the kids.
The kids are turned into mice.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
They're in the walls. Help, they're everywhere. There's thousands of them.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Now they're having a party whoo, something tells me you're
a bit better than this than me. So that was
John the Fowley Artist, but probably not for much longer.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Because I'm pretty good.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Watch out, John, you've been listening to an iHeart Australia
production concealed with Utsimon. Listen to more of what you
love on iHeart, and to check out the man behind
ten thousand tap dancing penguins, check us out on the socials.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
They did
Speaker 3 (25:07):
A y
You have made a remarkable decision to stuff your ear
holes full of me art, Simone.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
In return, I have a treat for you.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
I'm going to introduce you to someone with a bizarre job,
a strange hobby, or they might just be a downright
weirdo wh who knows, But I will get to the
bottom of it. This is concealed with me arts, Simone. Okay,
no Moore tiptoeing around. Let's get noisy roll the type glat.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
My name's John. I live in corn In, South Australia,
fifty nine years old. This is actually sending a bit
like a dating program. Now, yes I'm single, but anyway
back to it. In my out of work hours, I
just enjoy being outdoors because I'm indoors a lot for
my job, so I do a bit of walking. I
like camping and watching a bit of motorsport. Really but
(01:00):
I'm concealing a part of my life which isn't really
a secret. It's been shown right across the world. You're
probably familiar with a lot of my work, even if
you don't know it.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Oh mysterious, Oh hello John, how are you.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Going very well? Thank you and you I.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Love me to meet you. In your I'm going to
call this the bunker. I feel like you're in a
bunker at the moment. No daylight, Yes, I see no daylight.
I hear him in my own bunker here at the studio.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
But all right, we've never met before.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
I don't know anything about you, but apparently I may
be familiar with your work, perhaps correct.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Okay, all right, so you're sitting in front of me.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
You've just got to love your T shirt on. You've
got your glasses on a little bit scruffy there, hmm. Okay, okay,
So tell me a bit about living in Corn, because
I've never heard of that.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Corn is just a little town about four hours north
of Adelaide. It's situated in the Flinders Ranges. So it's
a pretty little towns rounded by mountains and it's a
beautiful community.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
And what brings you to Corn?
Speaker 1 (02:05):
I know, I'm very stuck on this Corn thing, but
I think it's really interesting because imagine just saying I
live in Corn.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
That's fun.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Yeah. Well, I guess I'm not a big fan of
big cities. And my work I can I can sent
and receive stuff over the internet, so it doesn't really
matter where I work.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
From Okay, so you can work remotely? All right?
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Okay, so you hate if you had bad Wi Fi there,
I hope you hooked up to the NBN or something.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Yes, yes, similar to that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
So you like walking, like camping, like motorsports, all things
we don't have in common.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Okay, so I really threw me off there.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
What I'm going to do is ask you three questions,
and from the answer to those three questions, I'm going
to try and decide or discover what it is that.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
You are concealing from me here today. Are you ready? John?
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Okay? Far away?
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
If someone walked through your house, what would they assume
about you?
Speaker 3 (02:58):
That I am a collector of weird things? Almost horder like?
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Okay, No, I love things. I love things. Do you
find value in possessions? Do they hold sentimental value to you?
Speaker 3 (03:13):
It depends what they are. They need to they need
to do something. I don't like things that don't do anything.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Ah okay, ah, okay, don't like things, don't like people,
and don't like things that don't do anything. All right, Okay,
now these are all very important things. Okay, So they
assume you're a bit of a hoarder.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Hmm. Okay.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Maybe you're into antiques. Oh, that could be nice. Maybe,
but their own tanks don't do much. Maybe you're into
a specific type of antiques. Maybe you're really into music boxes. Oh,
wouldn't that be fascinating? Okay, anyway, that's the first question.
Second question, if you could follow something for the rest
of your life, whether it be a trend, a social
media account, or something else, what would it be.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
I would be following other people's footsteps.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Store okay, s talker, all right, I'm putting that down.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Doesn't like people, don't like things that don't do things,
but also likes to follow people. Interesting. Interesting there, okay, okay.
And number three, if you could describe your life in
five words, what would they be.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
I'm heard but not seen.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Okay, head but not seen.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Oh it's like one of those limericks, you know, black white,
red all over. I'm a newspaper but you're not that.
Or you could be all right under the sea.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
All right.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
I feel like I feel like I know this one.
I feel like I know this one. And I've said
this before and got it completely wrong. Okay, you like
things that do things, you follow on people's footsteps. You
can just work from home and do your things like
you have lots of objects and you know what you need,
lots of objects for foley and sound effects and things
(04:56):
like that. And because I find this very interesting, I
love this. So I've had a feeling that perhaps you
may be a foley artist, which is like a sound
effects artist.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Is this right?
Speaker 3 (05:11):
I'm a foley artist. My job is recreating sounds like
footsteps and people getting patted and all the clothes, rustles
and things like that. It's a bit of a crazy job.
I've worked with some great people over the years. Steven
Spielberg probably one of my highlights doing a movie called
The Adventures of Tintin. But there's also been some amazing
Australian films, a lot of fun to do, the Great Gatsby,
(05:34):
Happy Feet, Wolf Creek, but also one of my favorite
Izi films, and great Girls, which is The Girls that
made Kath and Kimderella.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Yeah. I love this stuff. I love this.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Oh, goold the Stars? It a line any better for
me here today? John Ah, I feel like we were
tested to meet each other. Even though I don't like
camping or motor sports.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Are walking?
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (05:59):
I love what you do. Oh, I love sounds.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Ah, yes, I'm very impressed you've done well.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Oh yeah, I got it right.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
John is a Foley artist, and I'm feeling fabulous.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
That's ill to say because I got it right and
you got it wrong. Isn't that good? Yes? Thank you? Okay,
So we're here with John and I was correct.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
John is a Foley artist and for layman terms, for
all the people listening home, John makes sounds, sounds that
you see on screen on TV movies, everywhere and anywhere.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
If it needs a sound, you put it in. Is
that correct, John?
Speaker 3 (06:47):
That's pretty much it. That's what I do. Yep.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
So can you explain if there's a difference between foley
and sound effects and what it is.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Yeah. So, foley is anything that's performed live. So when
I'm recording on watching the actual vision on a big screen,
have a microphone in my room. And if there's a lady,
you know, walking along, got the high heels on down
a concrete footstep for a concrete path, that'll be me.
I have to slap on the pair of high heels
(07:15):
and walk like a lady down the path, which should help.
I always have trouble with you'd be good at it,
you'd be excellent.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
There you go, Well, if you need an intern one day,
if it's the extra you're walking, count me in. Maybe
one day you'll need to do Foley on a drag
Queen film and I can go, well, you can know
to call me up. It's all about who you know,
isn't it.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
I've done a few already with drag Queens in.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
So well I'm your Gael all right. So essentially Folly
has performed live sound effects. Would you say, is can
he pulled from a database or just an audio file
or something.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
This is where there's a bit of confusion. People think
that recording doing folly is I'm going to go to
the kitchen recorder record putting a spoon in a draw
and then they'll go and cut it and put it in,
And that's not truly what it is. That you're just
recording a sound effect and editing it in, so you're
not performing it live. So there's a big difference, especially
with walking or placing something down, because there's the sound
(08:11):
of a cup going on the table so many different ways.
If you watch someone slam a cup down or they
gently put it down and give a little slide and
it depends on the mood of the person that at
the time of the movie.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
So is there a bit of a pushback or are
you battling against sound effects these days? Or are you
still quite prized for what you do because you know
in this day of AI and you know, we've got
a full database. We'll just pick from there. It's cheaper.
Is that something that you have to kind of battle
at the moment?
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Not yet. There's been a few people try to do
automated Foley programs and they're quite clever. They can see,
you know, from the vision that a footstep lands, and
they'll find a footstep to match it. But it still
doesn't work the same. It hasn't got the feel of
someone actually performing it because there's still grabbing it from
a library and it doesn't quite work.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Has working as a folly artist ruined watching things for you?
Because I imagine that not every sound that you create
is actually doing the action. For example, if someone's stabbed,
I don't think you're sabbing a real human being. You
must be using something else to do that. So when
you watch things, do you just picture all the wrong
(09:24):
things that the sounds are coming from?
Speaker 3 (09:26):
I actually hardly go to the movies, I gotta say,
but when I do, I generally are watching and listening
to the soundtrack. Yes, it is hard to be involved
in the movie. It has to be a very good
film for me to forget about the sound and actually
just watch it. But yeah, you're like, you're right. You
don't bring in a work experience person to just stab
(09:49):
them to make the noise with it, although there's been
a few I've been tempted with, but the we'll just
use a bit of a celery or a a chicken
or something like that, just to you know, make a
bit of a crunchy, stabby sound.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
I totally get it, because you know, I know a
little bit about here and makeup, and I can't watch
films anymore. People hate to watch them with me because
I will literally be sitting in the cinema and I'll
be next to my friend and I'll go.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Wig, Wig, that's a wig. Look it's a wig. You
can see it. Look at the wig. Oh, it's a wig,
And they're like, stop it. I didn't even think.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
I was like, there's a wig, and it's a bad
one too, So I totally understand it all different folly
artists would have different ways they create sounds and different
objects they use for certain sounds. Is there some particular
items or things or techniques that you do that are
like industry secret that you're like, I'm never telling anyone
(10:45):
how I make the sound.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Of x y z ed.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Possibly, but I can't tell you.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Something goes, Oh, we'll go to John because John does
the best rattling knees. Oh, John's rattling knees are the
absolute best, So we'll go to John.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
I'm fifty nine years old on my knees actually do rattle.
But no, Look, I've got some props, and a lot
of stuff comes down to the props that you gather,
and so I've got some really favorite props which are
my go to ones for making some things. And one
of them is just a rusty old hinge, which I
(11:21):
pretty much use in every single film that comes across you.
Kind of I'll always find a place for it because
it's like a bit of a mark, you know. It's
like the Wilhelm scream for some films, Like there's something
that's got to get hinge in here somehow. So that's
how it works.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Do you just go out leave your house and go
and listen to things to go oh that, could you
pick up something and go oh that?
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Oh that sounded good? Actually I do.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
It happens a lot. Absolutely. I'll be sitting at a
cafe and listening to some footsteps will suddenly just get
my attention. And the worst thing. Once I went to
a very good friend's funeral who was sitting in a
big church waiting for everything to happen. And I was
sitting there with my friend because we're all mates of
this fella and the reverberance sound inside this big old
(12:09):
church in Adelaide, and I've just heard this lady's footsteps
walking down And the first thing that came into my
mind was, Wow, those footsteps sound awesome. So I'm thinking that, John,
you're at a funeral. You can't be you can't be
linking your footsteps right now, but they did.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
I want to go up to that lady and go,
what shoesy wearing? I'd like to recreate this sound on
my own face, exactly right. I'm a size thirteen, ladies,
So if we could just do.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
That, please, Yes, that'd be perfect.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
What are kind of the most common sounds you would
have to create, you know, that's your bread and butter
in a film or TV.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
So obviously footsteps. Every single film has to have all
the footsteps replaced and then followed by really the cloth,
so all the clothes, and that could be whether someone's
wearing a sparkly coat with you know, little jingly bits
on it and jewelry and things, and that's probably probably
the main things. Nowadays there's a lot of mobile phones,
(13:04):
Like people have always got a mobile phone in the
hand and are always pushing the bloody thing, scriggling the
screen around the screen, So you always have to have
those sorts of noises in there.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
What is the weirdest noise you've had to perform for
one of your films or things?
Speaker 2 (13:21):
What's the strangest thing.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
So the strangest noise would have to be in one
of the Hobbit films. Actually there's a big character and
I can't even think of his name, but it was
played by Barry Humphries, the late Barry Humphreys, and he
was like this. He was made up as a giant
sort of ogre with these huge squishy feet and he
(13:48):
would walk around and it was bare feet. And we
wanted to have kind of big, weighty, but also really squishy, rubbery, fleshy,
and we try to different things and I ended up
with some fresh chickens which I got from the supermarket
and just had a fresh chicken in each hand and
(14:10):
was just using those as these big sloppy feet, just
plunking them on the ground and it sounded amazing, but yeah,
it's and it was all used.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
If only those chickens knew what they would become one day,
that's right. I thought I might just be not a
nice sandwich or something, and you had different plans sit
at your john.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
They had no idea those chickens.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
So you've worked in kids films, you worked in horror films.
Do the materials used to make the sounds so you
know those different genres differ much or do you just
still kind of pull from the same pool of things.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
There's the basic footsteppy things. But if you've got a
bit of a horror film or something creepy, you go
to we we call it like a Hollywood level film,
and there's Australian level films. All the Hollywood level ones
are big, upfront, loud, in your face, you know, like huge,
big footsteps, big creaky boots and everything's just huge. And
(15:11):
then we'll have some of the more subtle, kind of
straight of films that we make the sounds as realistic
as possible, so they sound like exactly how they should
on the day. The Hollywood stuff's way more fun to
do because everything's just loud and big and noisy, and
I love that stuff.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Yeah, So do they actually just differ stylistically. That's actually
quite a known difference between the two. Is Hollywood just
love bing bang bom bom bom boom, Yeah, And austrains
are like, no, I'm subtle. Are you talking about? Let's
trottle down under it?
Speaker 2 (15:44):
And it is.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
It is nice sometimes to do the subtle things. One
of a film I did a long time ago called
Little Women, and that we managed to go to a
props in the ABC because I did that and when
I was in Sydney and we got all the beautiful
dresses and all this jewelry and all these different things
for all the ladies dresses and just the different materials
(16:09):
and stuff, and actually sounded really nice. We had a
good time with that, and we all looked a bit
weird dressed up in the dresses. But there's something you
would have loved. I'm sure it was good fun.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Tell you put me on speed all babe, I'll come down.
I'll be a little woman. I'm a big woman currently,
but you know I'll try.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
I'll try anyway.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
So footsteps from giant chicken filets on the ground, high
heels in a church. You've worked on happy feet, which
must have the most footsteps that ever did exist?
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Ever?
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Tell me more about happy feet. How did you manage
to record a million digital penguins dancing on the ice?
Speaker 3 (16:49):
That was very difficult, So the actual normal penguins walking,
I wasn't too bad. So I actually set up a
bit of a bench, concrete bench, and I was able
to sit at with TV right in front of me,
and we had I was here. There's no snow I
could just keep in the studio, So I used wet sand.
(17:09):
It was just a coarse build of sand and we
just kept that wet and that just it just sounded
like snow. And we would change it around and mix
it up with different amounts of water depending on what
sort of snow it looked like. And we can add
squeaks to snow using corn flour. You know when you
squish a handful of corn flour has a little bit
of itp so more of a dry pottery snow, we
(17:31):
can add that if we want.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
To see you're a scientist as well.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
You have to be a scientist. You have to be
one of.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Everything, my goodness.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
And then I just use my little fingers just on
the end and that's just that's just the little flippers
going around. But ah, the actual penguins also have little
nails on them. So then I've got these little cotton
gloves where you know the I use them for dogs
and cats as well as claws. But you know the
(17:56):
little hair grabby things that kind of you put on
your hair and they kind of bunch up your hair together,
and it was like hair clamp thing. They made a
plastic So I just buyse and I cut all the
prongs off them and then sticky tape those to the
end of the cotton gloves because and it sounds like
little dog nails and.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
All you need to do is just get some super
glue and glue them to your fingers like I do.
Don't be a worse job I do.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
But you know, hey, I hate the ruin and nail
and these ones are just they just come off easy
when I don't. The next thing, you see.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
I thought you were committed to your industry jumps, so
your sticky tape little plastic things to the gloves.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Yep, that's right. There's a lot of editing involved with
that sort of stuff, because you've got one pass, like
one recorded pass of footsteps with your fingers, and then
on top of that you do it again with the nails,
so then you have to go and cut those it's
to the right point, and sometimes the nail lands before
the actual little flip apart, and sometimes I flip apart
and the nail and then of course they slide on
(19:00):
ice and skid along and do all that sort of thing.
But by far the hardest part was there all the
tap dancing. We got the original recordings from the motion
capture stage of the guy that did all the tap sequences.
And I'm trying to remember his name, but he is
a very famous tap dancer, and everything he did was
(19:22):
tapped on a white American oak slab. He couldn't obviously,
tap dance on snow, it just doesn't happen. So we
got all those and then what we did was record
I know, maybe two thousand different samples of tapping my
fingers and nails on various slushy snowy rocks, all the
(19:46):
surfaces that you would have seen, and happy feet. And
then we used a program called Drummergogu, which is a
drum replacement program, and we loaded all those samples in there.
It would look at the incoming sound from the tap
sound and go, okay, that sounds like this. We'll use
this kind of ice one and it'll put it there,
(20:06):
and the rhythm sounded right. Because when a tap dancer
creates a rhythm, it's like someone singing a song. It
has to be exactly the same rhythm. It couldn't go,
it couldn't change. There was a thousand hours of work
in that.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
It was insane, yeah, because it would have been impossible
just because what what did you normally do? The process
would be to watch the footsteps and then replicate them,
you know, in time as you watch them happen. But
you can't do that if someone's a little penguins tap
it on ice to a rhythm.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
That's a bit harder, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
No, it's impossible.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Now, whenever I watch Happy Feet, I will just picture
hu Jeh on fingering a box of sand and I
think that's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
I think that's nice.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Do you have to submit what you want the sounds
to be and get them approved before you record them
or do you do they just go to you and
you present it. They go cool, that's great. Is there
like a revision process?
Speaker 3 (20:54):
There is, depending on the movie. So the one we
did with Spielberg, which I did out of New Zealand,
who's the most interesting one because he would review each
week what everything had done. So he'd review the sound effects, editors,
the dialogue, the foley and everything, and it was all
done via video link because he wasn't in New Zealand
(21:17):
and he was actually on a boat somewhere in the
Caribbean on his big yacht. As you do live the line,
I know. So we would just sit back and he'd
just send us all the video of what he thought
was going on. So that was actually really interesting, and
it was it is a bit of a thrill because
I'm a big Spielberg fan. I love his films. So
(21:38):
when he comes back and he starts talking about the
foley part and saying, oh, you know, I really like
the way the dogtail sounds. So we want we want
to hear more of that, you know. And that's that's
little Snowy the dog. I don't know if you've seen it,
but you know if he's flapping his tail on it's
just hitting the back of a seat or something. Is like,
that's really cool.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
And of course how do you make a dogtail sound effect?
I must know now?
Speaker 3 (21:58):
It basically we just you is a little bit of
wrapped up cloth.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
All right.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
So to wrap this up, John, I've been given a
box of props put in front of me, and I
told you ready that I think I'm qualified for this industry. Yeah,
so I want you to give me some scenarios and
I'm going to try and recreate them using my box
of props in front of me. See if I can
be Oh wow, there's so many good things in here. Okay,
(22:26):
oh salary, oh hinge, I could do it all all right.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
So are you familiar with the Star Trek films?
Speaker 2 (22:34):
I mean they've got funny hands. I know that.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Do you remember the sound of the doors every time
I opened and close?
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Oh? The yes?
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Oh all right, I passed that though that I was
too good, John, give me another one.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
It's time to get violent now, so okay, this one
will be a nick crack like you've just twisted like
in an Arnold Swartz now when he grabs around the
head and just.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Oh yeah, a neck.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Break, an I can I do the dialogue as well,
Hey you stopping so mean to those little kids.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
That's a bit more of like a toe snapping off,
but it was pretty good.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
I'm such a good superhero. And they're running through the forests.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
And they slide past a tree. If you get all
those little bits of celery and bunch them together in
your hand and then you just twist them so they
slowly twisted around.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Oh, this could be gross.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
I'm excited it's going to be gross.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Oh oh, look there's another one who's still being really
mean to those kids.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Don't worry, I got this.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
That's wet. I don't even need scenarios, John, I can
just make them up myself.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Someone at the.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
Door, or Koby, little mouse, you're scraping at the door
trying to get in.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Yes, hey, you now that I've saved you from the kids.
The kids are turned into mice.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
They're in the walls. Help, they're everywhere. There's thousands of them.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Now they're having a party whoo, something tells me you're
a bit better than this than me. So that was
John the Fowley Artist, but probably not for much longer.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Because I'm pretty good.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Watch out, John, you've been listening to an iHeart Australia
production concealed with Utsimon. Listen to more of what you
love on iHeart, and to check out the man behind
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