Foley, ADR, Walla

Do any of those word seem unfamiliar to you?

Since Eddie needed some help with some of those for school, I figured I'd explain to everyone a little bit about those.

When you watch movies, the sounds you hear, whether it's the dialog, the noise in the background, people talking in the background, and the sound effects, are usually not the sounds that have been recording on the set. Why? Sounds in the open are uncontrollable, which may lead to a lot of unwanted noise you cannot get rid of once everything is taped.

So what needs to be done?

Things have to be recorded in a studio.

Foley is all the sound effects in the movies recreated in studios, or foley stages. Footsteps, glass breaking, doors closing, and laser beams sounds are all example of those.

ADR stands for Automated Dialog Replacement. Sometimes when actors are on set, what they said on tape did not come out clearly. Maybe the wind blew on the mics present on the set, or their clothes brushed against the lavalier [mic placed on clothes] and created noise that ruined part of the dialog. They have to go in a studio and have to re-speak the lines that need to fixed. Imagine looking at you talking and having to dub over yourself. Not an easy task for everyone.

Walla is all the background talking. For scenes where a lot of people are present, it is usually in studios that the background talking is created. It is way too risky to record out in the open people talking and chit chat. The studio provides a controlled environment and everything comes out much cleaner.

Hope you learned something today!