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Month: February 2025

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Creative Sound Project E1

Foley tutorial with Ed Baxter *

Tutorial

I had some time to think about what sort of sounds I wanted to explore sonically during this tutorial with Ed Baxter on foley, we hired out the foley studio in UAL and learnt the ins and outs, specifically on the process of creating noise for visual cues. Getting used to using the studio, I had a go at being the sound technician for it which was a good experience. We tried to make fire noises as a group, using only two bed sheets and some plastic wrappers. We also attempted to make the sound of someone getting hit with a hammer using a watermelon. and a blunt object.

The ‘fire noise’

We teamed up and attempted to make a synthetic fire noise using two bed sheets for the hum of the fire, different crackly plastics for the sticks burning along with other small fabrics for the randomised movement of the fire. The difficulty with this task was getting it to sound natural, as humans we try to create patterns within our day to day life so it was hard to break from that mould.

This task turned out to be a lot more challenging than originally expected, finding the right rhythm was difficult but it put things into perspective when making foley. We ended up with a some what good attempt at fire noise after a few tries. I have had technical difficulties accessing the files for this recording process currently.

The world of foley

Looking deeper into the world of foley, various artist such as Ron Geeson (1943) who has been involved in films such as Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971) and Ghost Story (1974). He’s known for his scoring of films in a unique electro grove way, incorporating motions of jazz and classical and his incredible work of foley. He work in foley was seen as a new start to cinema at the time, with his films been credited for their audio accomplishments.

 Kate Hopkins (1982) share the views on the creative tough of foley. They believe that creating foley isn’t about making the sound realistic, but actually trying to match a sound to the thought of the image, thus making the process a more individual and creative process. Kate has done Foley for many nature documentaries such as Frozen Planet (2022) and Our Planet (2019), showing the power of good foley in real time.

Looking into my own work, I want to take inspiration from people in the field. I listened to a podcast with Ruth Sulivan (1914) and it was interesting to hear her say that making sound effects is like being a composer, because you need a timeline to portray a feeling. This made me reflect on the possible creativity I have over my own sound FX.

It’s obvious now that sound effects are there to attract atmosphere, not to show reality. It’s not important to reproduce sounds not as they are heard but how they are imagined. Going into my own work I now realise that I need to think about the detail and demeanour of actor or objects to best portray synthetic sounds.

The importance of Foley in radiophonic artwork

Foley plays a huge part in the world of radiophonic art as it adds an often surreal layer of sound that can change the listener perception. The correct use of foley can shape narratives without the use of the voice, it can be an effective tool for story telling without speaking a single word, which is a powerful tool in radiophonic artwork.

References

Geeson, R. (2025). Ron Geesin – Home. [online] Rongeesin.com. Available at: https://www.rongeesin.com [Accessed 8 Apr. 2025].

Clifton Web Design (2019). Kate Hopkins – Wounded Buffalo Sound Studios. [online] Woundedbuffalo.co.uk. Available at: https://woundedbuffalo.co.uk/people/kate-hopkins/ [Accessed 8 Apr. 2025].

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Creative Sound Project E1

Creative sound project introductions *

Introduction with Ed Baxter

In this introduction lecture we went over the unit and what we would be studying. Ed talked about himself, he is the co founder of Resonance FM and Resonance Radio Extra. Resonance FM is the UK only 24/7 online digital broadcasting platform that focuses on sound art and experimental music.

Resonance Extra

https://extra.resonance.fm/about

Resonance extra focus on experimental sounds, radio art and other contemporary music forms. It’s interesting to see a platform where up and coming sound artists can showcase their work, plus it provides a hub for artists to review each other works.

Ed went on to talk about how time management is import on this course, and also good if your looking to go into radio. “Even when in a band you need all your band mates to come in on time.”

(Resonance FM)(Resonance Radio Extra)

Quotes from ED

“Gestures in performance are the guitarist sticking his tongue out when playing his riff, the drummer rocking his head back and forth when counting his cue in. We dot exactly understand these gestures as the audience.”

“Pictures are more clear on radio as one of the senses (visual) is removed, we all see something different in our individual minds eye, everyone is blind listening to the radio.”

It was informative to learn about the creativity and aesthetic quality that comes with working in radio. I took some good notes into preparing for the hand in on the assignment brief, it was interesting to hear some examples from Ed time working in radio.

Could I see myself working in radio?

Sounds in radio

  • Instruments
  • Static
  • Poetry
  • Singing
  • Phones
  • Voice overs
  • Silence
  • Animals
  • Music
  • Films
  • Books
  • Live ands

How do I as an artist making my own radio make sense of these sounds how does this speak to the internal monologue of the listener?

John Cages “Radio Music” (1957)

This piece by John Cage, pioneered radio art ay the time of its realise. He uses chance and probability in his piece with different frequencies that played on the radio. This was groundbreaking at the time as no one had attempted to try realising contemporary musical forms on the radio. This speaks to the internal dialogue of this listener in an attempted to confuse or evoke a feeling of the listener.

Group work

We need a leader of a group, we all need to agree to create a goal of a radio station show, who is a readable leader. We decided to choose Zain as a group leader, this was an interesting experience as we didn’t know who to choose.

We talked about some possibilities of what sort of work we could produce. Chance music, as seen in John Cages radio art. We want a story line, maybe chance through a script with no clear aim. I really the idea of not having a clear goal when listening to our piece, it would be nice to leave the interpretation to the listener.

We could talk about the constant information we are fed through phone, radio tv and social media but eventually stumbled upon probability and chance as the main focus of our art.

Rules of the radio

Avoid profanity on radio

Do not make personal comments on personal figures

Avoid anything you think is offensive