Imaginary Worlds - Making the Sounds of Make-Believe

Episode Date: September 27, 2023

John Roesch is a legend in the field of foley sound effects. He mastered the art of creating bespoke sound effects using props or just his body on films like Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., Back to the Future, Frozen, Toy Story, The Matrix, The Dark Knight, Inception, and much of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And John was at the forefront of a revolution in foley sound effects starting with his work on classic Lucas and Spielberg films. We talk about the art of acting with props, the challenge of building upon sounds in an established universe like Star Wars, how they found the sound of Thor’s hammer, the grind of playing Batman’s body double in a video game, and the famous sci-fi film he wished he had worked on. Today's episode is brought to you by HelloFresh. Go to HelloFresh.com/50imaginary and use the code 50imaginary for 50% off plus 15% off the next 2 months. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Go to Kraken.com and see what crypto can be. Non-investment advice. Crypto trading involves risk of loss. See Kraken.com slash legal slash ca dash pru dash disclaimer for info on Kraken's undertaking to register in Canada. You're listening to Imaginary Worlds, a show about how we create them and why we suspend our disbelief. I'm Eric Malinsky. John Roche retired this year.

His name may not ring a bell, but you definitely know the movies that he worked on. Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., Back to the Future, The Little Mermaid, Terminator 2, Independence Day, The Matrix, The Dark Knight, Inception, Frozen, and so many more movies and TV shows and video games. John Roche is a Foley artist. He creates sound effects using everyday objects. And at the end of his career, he was the lead Foley artist at Skywalker Sound. So he worked on a lot of Star Wars, Pixar, and Marvel projects. The fact that John is retired is a big deal. There aren't a lot of people out there that do what he did full time. My saying is, my mantra is,

there are more astronauts in the world than there are working professional Foley artists. But the key is working professional Foley artists. To my mind, I'd ask somebody who's working five days a week, maybe 48 weeks out of the year. Custom sound effects are a bespoke art form, and they become more and more important as blockbuster movies have become more fantastical. as blockbuster movies have become more fantastical. The more we see things on screen that don't exist in the real world, the more filmmakers need to figure out what those things are going to sound like.

And the funny thing is, the special effects we see on screen might cost millions of dollars, but the sounds that we hear to bring those effects to life might cost $5 at a hardware store or grocery store, or it could be something they found at a junkyard. Like when John and his team figured out the sound of Thor's hammer. Well, the grabbing, handling of Thor's hammer is something that Shelley, Shelley Scott and I would sometimes go on forays for props. And there's a place in Petaluma called Moselle's. And it's this huge junkyard, if you will. And we went up there one day and she's walking around.

Almost as she pulls something out and goes, this is it, Thor's hammer. And boy, slide that thing in the ground. It sounded perfect. And what it is, I couldn't even tell you. It's like some type of shackle that's used on a ship I'm guessing but the sound of Thor's hammer is a combination of several sound effects digital and practical sounds digital sounds are typically used for more otherworldly elements you know something that's alien or magical. On Blockbuster Movies, a supervising sound editor or sound designer

will oversee the Foley and the digital sound effects departments, deciding which team takes care of which sounds. Like on the Avengers movies, Infinity War and Endgame. They'll ride herd over the entire project. And from that, they'll understand like, okay, the Infinity stone is being put in here. It's in a closeup. Let's have fully help with that. Versus, you know, the gauntlets coming up, it's in a medium shot. Maybe it's, you know, just a little bit, but

there's, you know, so much else going on. We'll never hear that. You know, the budgets are only so much. So you have to triage in a sense, What is going to be heard? What's important to focus on? Now, if it turns out we finish early, we might go back and revisit things. Or if we're not sure, we might early on within the first day, do some testing and send it off to the various people, maybe just a supervisor,

it could be a supervisor and director, et cetera, to get some feedback like, okay, how should these characters sound? or how should this particular prop be? An excellent film has moments and an excellent sound job has peaks and valleys. It breathes like wine versus something that's just all one note. But if something has peaks and valleys, so we, the audience, our ears can rest and we get involved in the storyline, et cetera. That's, to me, typically the best. I've always been a fan of Foley art, and not that I notice Foley sounds. When they're doing their job right, you should just be wrapped

up in the moment. What I do notice is when digital sound effects sound too fake. That breaks my suspension of disbelief, and I wish they had gone with Foley sounds instead to make the special effects feel more grounded. I wanted to talk with John about the skills you need to be a Foley artist and how he created some of his most memorable sounds. He said that a lot of it is just trial and error, playing with objects and just going with his gut instincts, But there's also a performance aspect as well. Several years ago, I did an episode about hand-drawn animation, and there's an old saying that an animator is an actor with a pencil. So I asked John,

are Foley artists actors with props? Absolutely. Foley artists are actors with props, and they're only limited by their imagination, frankly. You know, where Foley arose from was kind of two areas. I mean, you did have, back in the days, let's say, of Legend of the Lone Ranger, you had what they called sound stylings. Sometimes the credit would be typically a gentleman, a man, or maybe two, that would have some effects, if you will, and they would watch, follow the script and do their effects during that time. It's an ambush, men. Start out and find cover, quick. And in the 60s, Foley was pretty much filling the holes in the dike to some degrees it wasn't as important in a sense I'm not taking anything away from anybody that did it back then but it it really didn't

come into its own until somewhat in the 70s certainly the 80s and the 90s when I say coming its own Foley artists are using props you know in a way that it's art, if I can say that. And again, as I say, that really kind of went to its own, oh gosh, with so much starting with E.T., but certainly Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, et cetera, because those films is, you know, we went hog wild. Well, tell me about working on Back to the Future, because I read that you had a lot of fun coming up with the noises for the DeLorean. Like, what was that like in terms of, like, trial and error and experimentation?

Yeah, well, with the DeLorean, the head tech at the studio at the time, this guy named Ed Bannon, a fabulous guy, he took an old car door mounted on wheels. And so we can move it around easy on the stage. And we kind of use that as the touching, handling. I mean, of course, if you see a picture of it, like it's this old ratty looking thing versus, you know, the DeLorean being typically clean stainless steel. But moreover that too, you know, when you come back evidently from the future, it's very cold. So, you know, the Goldwing door opens and we see Einstein, you know, he's come back to the future. A couple of things are happening. There's ice kind of flying off, a little bit of steam maybe.

So, okay, well, how do we do that? So I thought, well, I'll take an old school manual ice tray, put that on the side of the door. And when the door starts coming up, just pull the lever in the ice tray so we hear the cracking of the ice. I'm sorry, you little devil. Then I take some type of air supply and put that inside the door for a little whoosh up. Again, putting all those things together just feels right. Well, I mean, Steven Spielberg, I mean, I know you've worked on a lot of his movies, either him as a director or a producer, and I assume he's

pretty hands-on. I mean, in terms of picking the right sound effects, I know you sort of helped develop the sound of E.T. Is that something that you worked with him directly on? With me directly, no. And most foliarists, no. Certainly, though, he was aware of sound and its importance. I suspect, putting words in his mouth, he just didn't really have the time to get that granular. So what he would do, he, Stephen, would tell Chuck Campbell, supervisor sound editor on, let's say ET, I want to make sure that ET sounds funny because we're afraid the first time you see him, it's going to scare the kids. They're going to hide underneath the seats and that's the end of the picture. Seriously, I'm boiling it down, but that's pretty much what it came to. So he said to us, Chuck

said, John Rowe, who was my partner at the time, and said, well, make him sound funny. I thought when I saw him and when he was walking, he reminded me of a duck out of water. You know, it's kind of the ungainly kind of back and forth. So I used my hands for his feet. And then for his body movement, moving back and forth, Joan said, let me go home and cook a huge bunch of jello up. Which she didn't. She brought it in and I took one of my T-shirts, took some gaffer's tape, duct tape, taped up the neck opening and the arm openings, turned it upside down, held it open. She dumped all this jello in there.

Then I gathered it up by the waist, if you want, shook that in front of Mike. And she also then stopped at the deli and picked up some liver, packaged liver. And she turned that upside down and moved it a certain way. And I had all these fun, squishy sounds. in a packaged liver and she turned that upside down and moved it a certain way and i had all these fun squishy sounds and so point being to answer your question you know stephen had told to chuck this is what i want and it filtered down to us and that's typically what happens so you're saying that's interesting that like around et to back to the future there was suddenly this kind of boom of of interest in foley and an interest in doing foley sounds on

much more stuff what was going on behind the scenes that led to this and an interest in doing Foley sounds on much more stuff. What was going on behind the scenes that led to this newfound interest in Foley among directors? I don't know that it was among directors per se. I think it was more along the lines of the films themselves were starting to open up more. It wasn't as much being done within the context of the studio system per se, quiet on the set, we're inside an interior, you know, they're shooting outside or whatever. Then the older generation sound editors, taking nothing away from them, they did incredible work. But to some degree, there was a, I'll say malaise, but that might not be the proper term. Maybe just, this is kind of the way we've done it. So let's continue to do that. Whereas there was a younger generation that was looking at that going, gee, I wonder if that's the way to do it. And of course, the greatest example of that is Ben Burtt on Star Wars. But getting back to what you're saying, specifically on the film Jaws, I think it was Verna Fields was the picture editor.

Now, this is back in the day, done at Universal, and reels would be assigned to editors. So in other words, it wasn't like as happened later, whereas, let's say, Chuck Campbell was kind of supervising the whole thing. Gordon Eckerd Jr., who was responsible for, I'm going to say, reel six, where the boat breaks down and Bruce, the shark, jumps on board, starts chopping everything. And Verna Fields said, look, I want this Foley to sound great. But it didn't. In fact, if you just listen to the scene from Jaws, based on the Foley sounds alone, you wouldn't know this is a terrifying moment when the shark is attacking the boat. At that time, Foley was within the context of the studio system. And again, not that they were complacent,

but there was kind of a way that they did it. Gordon, and I can say this because he's told me this, was not necessarily happy with that, thinking, I don't know that they're pushing hard enough, if I can say that, to really achieve what's possible. So he said to himself after that picture, the next thing I do, I'm going to do it outside of the studio system, which he did.

He actually got in touch with me and we went to a facility and the owner built a small Foley stage there. We started working there. And some of the techniques that were employed today, to some degree, were an outgrowth of that. And I'm not trying to take any credit, per se. Just that's just the reality. What you're hearing is not Foley sound recorded at the Skywalker Ranch for a movie about a superhero chef. That's the sound of me and my wife preparing a delicious meal from HelloFresh.

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because it travels from the farm to your door in less than a week. We had never made pork taquitos before, and it was really easy. Mmm. Mmm. Right? And those happy eating sounds,

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We've never smelled so good. Shop Old Spice Total Body Deodorant now. Well, you mentioned Ben Burtt earlier. So Ben Burtt, you know, people don't know, he was a legendary sound designer who created some of the most iconic sounds for Star Wars. The TIE Fighters, the lasers, lightsabers, droids. And, you know, you've worked on a lot of Star Wars projects.

And, I mean, everything in Star Wars has to sound a certain way, which is partially based on what Ben Burtt established. So is it a challenge to add new sounds to this very sort of specific kind of enclosed Sonic universe? It's funny that there's a two-edged sword in that. So I worked on Empire, and yes, he, Ben, and all the other people that work with him on that established certain sounds and things, as we all know, you know, the laser blast, blah, blah, blah. So there's not a lot of wiggle room with that. Now, all that being said, now you've got, let's say, Andor, which is within the Star Wars world, but really it's not Darth breathing heavy, walking around, you know, it's every man and every woman being oppressed. around, you know, it's every man, every woman being oppressed. So funny, that world is much grittier, much more based in reality, if you will.

You know, whereas Star Wars is more space fantasy, space opera. And I love it, you know, but that, let's say, Andor is really a commentary on fascism. Well, actually, I want to ask you about Andor. So like that, you know, that's a show about the early days of the rebellion against the empire. And is there, are there like specific sounds where something was happening on screen and you thought, okay, I'm going to go with this particular sound, because it very specifically fits like the darker themes of this show? Well, I guess two things, you know, the armaments there at one point, the rebels, if you will, I mean, they had literally had rifles that you and I would associate today, almost like an AK-47.

So that was something we thought, well, we'll try to do something along those lines. Versus Andor has a pistol, which is very modern, if I could say modernistic. It does certain things, flips and all sorts of things. That we try to make, and again, when I say we make, really clean and really precise, because that's what it looked like when it was pulled out. The world itself was just so gritty, like the little robot that says hi to Andor, you know. He's back. I was coming to find you.

Here I am. Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. He's kind of a cool character. He's an interesting character. Again, the world to me, us, and I say us for sure, Shelly and Scott, can't overemphasize the importance of team, seemed very dustblown and dirty. And, you know, this is a community that's blue collar, you know, doing a lot of stuff. So the robot, when it rolled in Marva's apartment, we made sure it was rolling over grit because, again, we wanted to associate that world with being gritty and funky. So switching gears a little bit, I mean, I know you worked on a bunch

of Batman films and you also worked in the Batman video games like the Arkham games. Those games are really cinematic and I've played them all. Do you approach those games differently than the movies? Like the sound of Batman's cape in a game, is that the same foley sound that you do for a live-action Batman movie? We would typically use the same cape sound every time unless directed not to. And again, the marching orders we would get would be from the Super Saiyan Sound Editor, and that scenario would be Richard King. Like, okay, how is this going to sound? Is this a Batman that sounds the same or is it unique or is it tattered because he's been in combat? So that

would something would come down the line to us and we'd perform it that way. Now, all things being equal, if in fact we weren't given any direction, I would tend to try to emulate what had been established typically. I mean, because, you know, why why reinvent the wheel? Well, I mean, I know that I've read that you said that working on an animated film is really challenging because, I mean, you know, obviously nothing was filmed on location. You have to invent every sound. Are video games just as challenging or are they actually like more challenging in some ways? Video games are even more challenging only from the standpoint of, let's just say the cape. Okay, so the cape in the video game, we probably recorded.

Now, when I say we, back then it was Alison Moore. She was my partner in Mary Jo Lang. At least 500 variations of the cape. Wow. Now, why is that? Well, the way the video game engine works is, and again, I'm layman, so I can't really speak specifically. Once something's happening where the cape is starting to flap, it will pull randomly from this whole bucket of cape sounds to try to give it life.

That's what we would do we do variation upon variation that's you know really taxing because typically if we're doing even an animation doing a scene we'll do the footsteps first then go back do the props and then if there's any unusual movement do that whereas now we're doing movement the cape we're doing it over and over and over again you know i mean that's that's really taxing and tiring on the body or let's say we're doing movement, the cape, and we're doing it over and over and over again. You know, I mean, that's really taxing and tiring on the body. Or let's say we're doing footsteps for Batman. Batman's just landing on cement. We might do 50 lands or more.

So they would have that. Decides, okay, let's grab that one. That's within that context. Again, the whole point being to give it life. What John is saying is so interesting to me because when I used to work in animation, one of the most important things that we learned is to make a character believable, you have to give them a clear sense of weight.

Like one of the first lessons that you learn in animation school is how to animate a bouncing ball, which is all about shifting weight and adjusting for gravity. I think Foley actually serves a similar purpose. Like in those Batman games, part of what sucked me into the games was that I felt the weight of Batman as I was moving him around, especially the weight of him in that suit. And a lot of that comes from the Foley sounds. Everything you see in the game is animated on a computer, but the sounds feel organic

to that world. And that's what made it feel real to me. Does everything on screen need to make a sound? No. Because I was going to ask you about that. I feel like every time I see a cat on screen, it has to meow. Every bird has to chirp. Every bicycle has a bell.

Do you ever feel like when you watch maybe other cat on screen, it has to meow. Every bird has to chirp. Every bicycle has a bell. Do you ever feel like when you watch maybe other people work, not you, because you've got your own ideas about this, like you're talking about there's a rhythm to it, where you're like something is just overdone in terms of how many sound effects? Well, I think it's two-part, what you're asking me. One, as a professional, like anytime we're outside, we hear a hawk scream. That's a particularly ubiquitous sound that might not have anything to do with reality where we are in the location. As a professional, I don't particularly care for that.

As the moviegoer, if it's going to help enhance the storyline or keep me involved so I believe what I'm seeing, that's fine. But to really answer your question, I'm kind of see a dog, hear a dog. But to really answer your question, I'm kind of see a dog, hear a dog. Again, as I mentioned earlier, a good soundtrack, both music, dialogue, and effects has to breathe. Well, it's funny. When I said, does everything need to make a sound, you immediately said no. What were you thinking in that moment?

If it's going to take me out of what I'm seeing on camera or take me out of the experience that's happening dramatically i don't want to hear it if you know the character is just finished with a fight or something you know they're kind of breathing heavy for a second okay great but then we don't necessarily need to add a lot of extra afterwards like wait what is that where's that coming from i mean you know in other words just for me keep it real well it's funny because there's a bunch of other sound effects cliches that bother me. One is that, especially when you're watching some kind of Game of Thrones or Sword and Sandals type of epic,

somebody, whenever they take a sword out, it always has to make this sound. Even if it's coming from a leather holster, that always bugs me. I'm right there with you, but it's almost like, you know, if you've seen a revolver and the cylinder spins, you hear the zzzz, right? That's not really how they work. You have to hold the hammer back.

Anyway, that's something we're used to hearing. Or another example is when a horse is galloping, especially from, say, Foley, typically we do a three-beat gallop. But of course, that's not what's actually happening gallop-wise. It's actually four beats. That's actually what's happening in reality when a horse is running. So the question then is, what do we want to hear? Is the three beat going to create a level of excitement to where we don't really care? Or is it going to be something that's going to take us out of it thinking, wait a second, we're on a racetrack, we're looking at the feet, this isn't right.

So you feel like there's, it's interesting that you feel like there are moments that even if this isn't, that in fact, that obvious, a language of sound has been developed where because we've continually to expect to hear something, we need to kind of honor that because it would be almost more confusing for the audience to hear what something really sounds like. Unfortunately, that is true. When I say unfortunately, it's just sometimes, but yes, that is true. Are there sound effects cliches you try to avoid that you think are really hackneyed? Well, you hit one right on the head, which is a sword draw from a scabbard. Typically, if a foley artist is performing it, they will take a, oh gosh, not typically a real sword per se. It could be a machete because machete is very ringy.

And like you say, they, you know, just really overemphasize. But I mean, you know, that's not what a foil is going to sound like if it's coming out of for the through musketeers, you know. And yet sometimes you hear that. We'll hear more from John in a moment. This episode is brought to you by PC Optimum. If you like a curated playlist, why not try a curated grocery list? With Swap and Save, the new feature in the PC Optimum app, you'll get PC Optimum's best price for your grocery items.

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Like, let's say you were hiring somebody to be your assistant and you had a couple people apply. What would make somebody stand out versus somebody saying, you know what, they're not up to the job? Somebody that has a background in dramatics, specifically an actor or actress. Certainly if they're a student of film, that would be important too. Because for me, let's say your scenario, there's somebody came to me,

Sally, and she wants to be a Foley artist. And I thought, this is great. Sally's got all the prerequisites, so to speak. Yeah, great. As far as Sally's footsteps go,

she probably wouldn't have them really be at a level that I would think is really excellent for maybe five years. Really? It's like opera singers or something. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, again, I mean, because we're talking nuance, you know, it shouldn't be a little scuff there, a weight shift, you know, or the surface. Should there be a little bit of coffee grinds down, et cetera. Well, I was going to say that. So let's say Sally comes back five years later and you finally mastered it. How would that sound different than what you had done five years earlier? It would not be as mechanical.

It would have more life to it. Because that's the key to anything excellent Foley-wise. It has to live and breathe on its own. To capture that is like lightning in a bottle. And that really mostly only comes from experience. Now, some people are gifted. They have a lot of innate talent and can channel it pretty quickly. That's not typical, I think. That takes, I think, a long time. So, I mean, you've worked on a huge amount of sci-fi fantasy movies. You're talking about how like, you know, let's say somebody's there, you're talking about like footsteps and things like that, and how you have

to get so much better at just doing something that subtle. Are there extra skills too you need to develop when working on sci-fi fantasy, video games, animation, things that, you know, don't exist in the real world? Are there just even more skills you really need to build up to be able to do those believably? Let's replace skills with experimentation. So like The Rocketeer, fun film, which guy finds a rocket pack and puts it on and flies around. Saw it as a kid, yeah. Again, Chuck Campbell, Superbond sound editor,

he said, let's have fun with this. And I was allowed to do all the jet pack flying as far as the sound of the rocket. So I took a little special microphone and I blew over it, listening to it with headphones so I could help get Doppler, et cetera. Now, mind you, that wasn't the only effect, but that was the main effect. I imagine, with experience too. I mean, you know, you've had to experiment with so many things given how many fantastical stuff you've had to create. You probably in your mind have a library of like, you get something, you know, you would get a new project last few years, but you have all those decades of experience to be like, well, I know

I've tried a million different things. And it's probably you even have a quicker shortcut in your head as to, well, let's go in this direction first. I would say that's true. Drawing from experience, gosh, looking at this, but then the proof's in the pudding. So once we lay it down and play it back, go, okay, that's not quite right, but maybe that will then lead us to the next thing. Experimentation is key along with imagination because the one rule of Foley, there are no rules. It's whatever we perform that you, the audience believe that's right.

You worked at so many different projects. Was there ever any type of project that you thought, you know, I always wish I had gotten to work on this. Well, no blade runner. The original, I only did a section for the director's extended cut.

I would love to have worked on the original. So let's say you were able to work on Blade Runner and you got this plum position where you got to do a lot of sounds. Are there any particular kinds of sounds that you thought, oh, I'm almost envious of who got to do those sounds? Oh, definitely. Oh, no question. There was some great stuff in there. You know, the scene where, I think it was James Hong, says, I just do eyes. Just eyes.

Genetic design. Just eyes. One of the replicants reaches into like an absolute zero container of liquid. And just the sound of that was just incredible. And just the sound of that was just incredible. Or the machine at the beginning of the picture that is trying to determine is it a replicant or a real person. And we see this device kind of moving in and out. Almost like a little bellows.

I mean, there's just so much really rich stuff in that film. Oh my gosh, it'd be great. I mean, there's just so much really rich stuff in that film. Oh my gosh, it'd be great. Blade Runner was based on a novel called Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? And lately, the studios have been dreaming of electronic writers and actors. AI was one of the main issues which caused the strikes in Hollywood. And John says the studios are also looking towards AI for sound effects,

maybe even replacing Foley effects with AI. John is a little worried about the future of the field. Is the job of Foley, which again is live sound effects, custom sound effects, that's what Foley is, is it going to be supplanted? And the answer is murky. You know, like if you get to pick up the Magic 8-Ball, it's just, you know, cloudy, unknown. Because unfortunately, the producers,

and I get it, it's a business, you know, you have to keep costs down, but it's been this terrible push to the bottom of less and less money available for post-production. It's just insane. The one thing I don't think a machine will ever get, although I could be wrong, is at its very core, excellent Foley has soul. Excellent Foley has soul. I don't think a machine is ever going to achieve that. And the soul is in just the subtlety of the human being creating that movement, doing that acting. Absolutely. No question about it. That to me is a difference between good Foley and excellent Foley.

That is it for this week. Thank you for listening and special thanks to John Roche. My assistant producer is Stephanie Billman. If you like the show, please mention us on social media. Or leave a nice review wherever you get your podcasts. That helps people discover imaginary worlds. The best way to support the show is to donate on Patreon. At different levels, you get either free imaginary world stickers, a mug, a t-shirt, and a link to a Dropbox account, which has the full-length interviews of every guest in every episode. You can also get access to an ad-free version

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