After 44 years, a prolific Hollywood actor reveals his filmmaking secrets

John Roche owns over 150 pairs of shoes.

“Not as much as former Philippine First Lady Imelda Marcos, but I did my best,” Roche joked. inverse. “But it’s not always easy to find heels in my size.”

But Roche, a veteran Foley artist, doesn’t need to walk far in those high heels. His job requires creating live sound effects synchronized with moving images — everything from footsteps, to the creaking of the floor, to the explosion of a gunshot, or the whistle of the wind are created by Foley artists. It’s an invisible art form, and Roche has been contributing to it for 44 years, creating sounds for classic films like Back to the future And any. T. extra floor, And also the icon Michael Jackson excitement Video song. “You’re creating a psychoacoustic environment,” says Roche. To do this, “steps always come first.” Hence 150 shoes.

But after more than four decades of creating sounds we take for granted, Roach is hanging up his heels on his latest job on a David Fincher song. the killer. It’s a career capper for Roach, who described his last job at Foley at Skywalker Sound as “bittersweet.”

“Foley’s really good, especially when it comes to the steps, not only does he feel good, but he feels good too He is right. He lives. It has a soul. “If we do our job right, you don’t know what we did,” Roche says.

In film, sound is divided into three categories: music, dialogue, and sound effects, the latter of which is then divided into hard and soft effects. “A gunshot may have a strong impact, but the sound of picking up a rifle with a scope, putting a cartridge in it, and adjusting the scope will have subtle effects,” Roche explains, taking an example from the killer. Foley artists, whose work is named after famous American sound effects artist Jack Donovan Foley, are responsible for creating soft sound effects, which can be anything from the rustle of a skirt to the sound of a lighter. Simply put, a Foley artist’s work consists of these three main categories: walking, props, and movement.

“Normally, we watch the movie and do all the steps first. This can take several days. Then we do all the props, followed by the action,” Roche explains. A foley artist’s work takes place on a foley stage, which includes a pit, where different types of flooring can be used to create sound. Footsteps in a variety of locations. Typically filled to the brim with props of all descriptions and sometimes outfitted with water tanks for watery sound effects, foley stages can be tailored to the specific needs of any film. But it is an art form that is being negatively affected by rapidly changing technology… and may soon become A footnote in the history of cinema.

“Technology has affected the number of (foley artists) — and not necessarily for the better,” says Roach.

inverse Talk to Roesch about his work the killerMajor changes in the industry, and highlights of his 44-year career.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

How did you first get into Foley?

I was going to the American Film Institute as a director fellow, and I was doing a lot of assistant directing work. A film director named Desi Markowski asked me to help her with the sound for her film. I was tasked with taking the effects on these rolls of celluloid film and breaking them up into smaller rolls. One day, she asked me, “Do you wear sneakers, John?” When I said that, she and her husband took me into this big room with all this pebbles on the floor and a screen on the wall. They said to me: Do you see that man on the screen? “He’s going to start running, and we want you to run for him.” I ran straight across the room. They stopped me because I needed to run on the 4D cement slab.

Shortly thereafter, I found out that the manager of the apartment building I was living in was a foley artist when I almost hit her with my car. It was Joan Rowe, who I later went to work on any. T. The floor is extra with! She told me they were looking to hire someone where she worked. I went on a Friday and never stopped.

How do people tend to respond when you tell them you work at Foley?

I mean, there are more astronauts in the world than full-time professional Foley artists, so people aren’t always sure what that involves. People have asked me if I’m a urologist because there’s something called a Foley catheter.

Do you have an example of a must-have item for a foley artist?

A rag, typically used to wipe down your car once it’s been washed, can be used for all kinds of fun things. For example, if you want to make a bone breaking sound, you can wrap a piece of cloth around a celery and break it.

Can you walk me through the art of creating steps? (Pardon the pun.)

Steps always come first because when you start with the feet, you create a psychoacoustic environment. to the killer, Foley artist Shelley Rhoden followed in Michael Fassbender’s footsteps. He’s playing an assassin, so he’ll be wearing shoes that don’t make much noise because he needs to be stealthy.

You can use shoes to make a character look big, in control, or like he’s about to save the day. I own over 150 pairs of them, which is not as many as former Philippine First Lady Imelda Marcos, but I did my best. However, it’s not always easy to find heels in my size.

You famously acted in Michael Jackson’s footsteps in the “Thriller” music video. How was the experience?

In any dance scene, rhythm is key. Many dancers have moments when their feet touch the ground and they are out of rhythm. I didn’t have that problem with Michael because the guy was amazing. I didn’t have to know the routine itself, but I had to break it down into parts and trick out the desired sound depending on whether he was standing on his tip-toes or stepping to the side. I was performing with headphones, which we call “cans” in the industry. And if at any point I couldn’t see his feet, I just moved to the beat.

What was it like performing for David Fincher’s Foley?

David Fincher is closely involved in all aspects of the pictures he works on. He’s amazing at giving detailed notes to the supervising sound editor, so the information comes back to us afterwards. Maybe he wants it to look claustrophobic, like the walls on Fassbender, or maybe the hitman is wearing something unusual, so the DNA doesn’t get anywhere. We’ve carefully thought about all of these elements and the sounds involved.

Sometimes, I imagine you have to create sounds you’ve never heard yourself before. What are the most unusual sounds you have created?

Yes, each film presents a unique set of challenges. What does a vampire sound like when a stake passes through his heart and turns to dust? What kind of noise can a moving figure make that acts on particles inside a human body? These are the types of questions we ask ourselves.

When I was working on any. T. The floor is extra, Steven Spielberg told supervising audio editor Charles (Chuck) L. Campbell to make ET “sound funny.” What does it mean? Joan Rowe and I would work on it together, and sometimes she would go and buy this pre-packaged liver at the deli. I picked one up one day, and when I moved it, it made a funny sound. So, we thought we could use that. Then, one day, we headed out to lunch, and someone asked for jelly. He rocked back and forth, and I started laughing. Joan came home and made a big pot of it. I brought it the next day. I took one of my shirts and taped the armholes and neckhole with tape. Then I turned it upside down, so the waist was open. I dumped all the jelly in there, and I was shaking it in front of the microphone every time ET moved. The liver also appeared. We were trying to make this thing look like it wasn’t quite real.

How has the foley industry changed since you began your career?

When I first started, a friend’s team at MGM included three foley artists, a projector player, a recordist, a mixer, a prop man, and sometimes they had a boom operator. Nowadays, you usually only have one foley artist and one mixer. Technology has impacted headcount – and not necessarily for the better. I’m not just saying this to sound like an old man sitting in a rocking chair. I know from working with Shelley and Scott at Skywalker Sound that three minds are much better than two. And let’s face it, if we’re taking a photo with men and women, women tend to do women’s steps better than men.

There’s also this terrible pressure to make each film cost less, so sometimes they decide to cut the Foley budget, which translates into less time for us to perform and impacts what can be achieved. In television, some places in Los Angeles don’t use foley artists anymore. They cut everything from the library and said they were “cutting the foley effects,” which is not possible because foley involves creating custom sound effects for that specific moment on screen.

the killer It’s streaming on Netflix now.