In the dead of the night, GV Prakash is trespassing. In Watchman (2019), the actor jumps up a wall, on to a metal gate and begins to climb down. He slips, and falls on a heap of leaves.
The entire scene looks comical — this isn’t a commentary on the movie, but because we’re watching the scene at Sound Post’s studio in Kodambakkam, without any sound effect, save for GV’s dramatic heaves and sighs. And just like that, all the ominosity of the thriller flick is gone.
Foley mixing engineer SP Narayan strips down the body of sound layer by layer, to reinstate the importance of live sound effects. “Foley is any sound effect that the characters make in a movie: it could be footsteps, shuffling of bags, clink of jewellery, punches thrown…” he says. Sitting next to him are his team members, foley artist Vijay Kumar, who actually makes the sound effects and Sarath Kumar, who designs and supervises the foley.
CHENNAI : TAMILNADU : 22/04/2019 : FOR METROPLUS : Foley artists produce sound effects for their visuals used in movies at Viraat Studio,Kodambakkam. Photo: K. Pichumani/ The Hindu
The trio’s previous project, Vishwaksen Naidu’s Falaknuma Das , a remake of the Malayalam movie Angamaly Diaries, has just hit the theatres. Together, the 26-year-olds have worked on movies such as Kaala , Kabali , Vikram Vedha , Vivegam , Arjun Reddy and Rangasthalam .
Messy magic
From the inside, the recording room looks like an unorganised storehouse of all things left orphaned; Kon Marie’s battleground.
Old suitcases, goggles, shoes — heels and flats, a rusting metal frame, wooden boards, bottles, chains, a skateboard, a table fan, boxing gloves, trays of sand, and books are strewn across the room. A second glance around throws up even more items. A heavy fragrance of neem has set in, owing to a bundle of leaves and the fact that the closed room has no air-conditioning — its hum may disturb the recording.
CHENNAI : TAMILNADU : 22/04/2019 : FOR METROPLUS : Foley artists produce sound effects for their visuals used in movies at Viraat Studio,Kodambakkam. Photo: K. Pichumani/ The Hindu
Each and every item in here has been used to produce a sound effect. As an example, Vijay Kumar replays the scene from Watchman . “When the actor falls, he will make an impact. It is difficult to capture that sound on set, so instead we replicate that sound here using boxing gloves,” says Vijay, strapping on a pair of gloves and banging his fists on a wooden board. “That was a full-body fall. For lighter impacts, I would cover my fists with cloth instead of gloves,” he explains.
Next, he spreads sand, leaves and twigs on the board, and wears a pair of shoes to walk on it. On screen, this matches with GV Prakash rising up, rustling leaves and walking towards the house. “Inside the house, the footsteps are on cement, so the clacking of the shoes becomes more prominent,” he says.
- Squeezing a moist paper or cloth: blood splashing
- Clamping a suitcase shut: putting a bike on stand
- Drumming fingers on a board:
- a running dog
- Drumming coconut shells: trotting of a horse
The sound is also key in contributing to character development, adds Narayan. He plays scenes from Ahammed Khabeer’s June , a 2019 coming-of-age Malayalam movie. On the studio’s screen, we see the students enter a classroom as the bell rings. “They are so many students in this scene, and each one who is visibly in focus gets his/her own sound effect: the way they move, adjust their bags, bang the tables and so on. This student from the Government school is wearing slippers, so his footsteps will be different to that of girls from the convent school, who wear boots,” he explains, showing how foley adds details to cinema. In yet another scene, a field worker walks barefoot. Even though his feet aren’t visible in the scene, this has registered in the audience’s mind because of the sound his footsteps make.
Digital versus real
In June , when the female protagonist applies beetroot juice to make her lips red, Vijay imitates the sound using a moist paper. “You can also use wet paper to make sounds of slurping and chewing,” says Vijay, proceeding to crumple the paper some more and making swallowing sounds. Noticing our stares, he adds, “I know it looks silly right now, but pair it with the right visual and you’ll see.”
CHENNAI : TAMILNADU : 22/04/2019 : FOR METROPLUS : Foley artists produce sound effects for their visuals used in movies at Viraat Studio,Kodambakkam. Photo: K. Pichumani/ The Hindu
He’s right. These are sounds that there is no stock collection for: “Even for generic ambience sounds, most libraries don’t have ones that fit the Indian context, so we need to reproduce them here,” says Narayan.
“Digital sound will never replace foley,” states 41-year-old Babu, a veteran foley artist who has been working as one since he was 14. “Our work goes unnoticed because the chief sound editor or director takes the credit,” he says. But in his 27 years of work, he still remembers Hey Ram as the one movie that he was appreciated for. “Actors usually don’t interact with us; they hardly visit us. But Kamal Haasan involves himself in every department. He was with us when we worked on Thevar Magan and Aalavandhan ,” he says. “In Hey Ram , there was a particular sequence where I had to create the sound of anklets worn by Rani Mukherjee. As foley artistes, we produce sounds using our hands. But we weren’t getting the right sound for that sequence. Kamal sir noticed this and suggested that we wear the anklets, take a few steps and then record it.”
Having worked in movies such as Baba,Ayogya and the upcoming Trisha-starrer Paramapadham Vilayattu , he says, “What I like about foley is that, you’re literally creating new sounds for the film. As long as I live, I intend to continue this profession.”
