FOLEY FOLEY FOLEY

I've done a little sound design in my day. But I'm not sure if you know that my love is painting and radio. So of course, I had a blast doing the Christmas show at Wayside Theatre as a live radio play. It just sent rays of happity goodness down my spine. So I thought I would share with you some of my ideas for how I came about with the foley sound props.

You are all familiar with the various noises heard from the stage or off in the wings—no not talking about the actors or tech crew—the sound effects. Those shrills, winds and sirens are about to make their stage debut in this year’s holiday performance A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play on the Wayside Theatre stage. Everything from the traditional piano to those blustering winter winds will have equal time on the stage time with the actors of the “radio” studio.

So a little information about the sound effects: we are using a particular style of sound effects called Foley sound technique.A quick definition is the natural sounds of an environment are made using usual and unusual methods. One of my favorites would be the creaky door. A simple solution would be to have an actual creaky door or rusted hinge on stage but if you are on a budget, I suggest using other methods, perhaps a piece of resin wood with a screw stuck in it and a pair of vise grips to twist. You may have discovered this sound when breaking down and building theatre sets of the same wood. More traditional Foley sounds include footsteps through the snow made with shoe trees and corn flakes on a wooden tray.