WOODY: That is very encouraging. Let's shift gears a bit -- how do you determine what to cover within a scene?
MONIQUE: That comes from experience and budget and time. Usually when we start a film we'll start at the beginning and we'll work reel by reel. Let's say we'll start with a cloth pass. And that will be the first time that I've usually seen the film. I generally don't see what I'm working on until the time comes that we are recording [the session]. When I do the cloth pass, I like to wear headphones so I can listen to the production audio so I can hear what the film sounds like. Because a lot of times we are trying to sound like production so the foley can be used and not pop out in a bad way. The floor surfaces and shoes need to sound similar so if they replace the production dialogue in a scene with adr the foley matches up. So I'll do a cloth pass which involves me close mic'ing manipulation of cloth to emulate the characters' movements.
I'll have a variety of types of cloth depending on what the people are wearing. A denim shirt kind of does it all, it sounds like almost anything, but if someone is wearing a silk blouse, for example, I'll have a piece of silk handy. So we'll do a movement [cloth] pass, which is something I never noticed prior to doing Foley. Now I hear it being used all the time, even on television. It's just an interesting thing that you may not even be aware of on a conscious level until someone tells you about it and you're like, oh that's that rustling sound.
So we will start with that and then we'll do a footsteps pass where we will get all the characters' footsteps on the various floor surfaces. A good Foley stage has a cement surface, a wood floor, a dirt pit, a gravel pit, a way to make the sound of grass. We will do the footstep pass and then we will do a pass of props. You'll do a setup for basic hand props and then, depending on the time and the budget, you'll cover things that maybe the effects people will be covering as well, but since you have the time, you will be able to do that. But if you don't have the time and you think it is something the effects guys are going to cover anyhow, then you'll just skip that. You pick your battles.
WOODY: What are the tools of your trade?
MONIQUE: I've got about forty pairs of shoes. I've got a small portable kit that I bring with me. I have a foley purse with some stuff in it that rattles kind of cool. I've got a lot of metal things, some hinges and wood, glass, plastic and rubber items. Things are basically categorized into like materials. I have a backpack with various paper (photos, newspaper, cellophane, wax paper, etc.) I've got some different clothes that I carry with me (a leather jacket, nylon windbreaker). It's really great when you can find something that squeaks or creaks. It's invaluable stuff to me. I was at a yard sale and I was looking for a day planner to use as a Foley prop. So I'm at this yard sale and I'm opening and closing this day planner. I've got it held up to my ear and this guy looks at me, I guess the owner of the day planner, and he said, "it's only a buck.' And he thought I was trying to decide whether or not I wanted to spend the dollar on his planner for some other reason. It didn't sound good, so I didn't buy it.
My favorite props I think lately, are a couple of pillow cases filled with cornstarch, which I use for snow. The reason I put the cornstarch in the pillow cases is [that] it contains it so I don't leave the stage with a nice white powder covering everything. But cornstarch has a nice screech and creak to it that's really, really cool. The crunch sounds like snow. It also works really well for body falls in animation. If somebody falls in sand, it's got a lot of loft to it, and it's more of an interesting sound than just using sand, for example. A chamois has been a great friend of mine. When you get them wet, they make lots of cool dimensional gushes and mushes and things like that. And I've also gotten a lot of mileage out of a pinecone.
WOODY: Really? What do you use a pinecone for?
MONIQUE: I can step on a pinecone and the cracking of it can sound like ice breaking. If the pinecone is worn down a bit and I manipulate my fingers on it can sound like little bug legs. It can sound like all sorts of things. It's a secret favorite of mine. I remember telling an engineer I worked with, "don't tell anybody about the pinecone.' There are Foley secrets and with the exception of when I was training, I've almost always worked alone. I've gotten to have a partner a few times, but the downside to working alone is that there are some Foley secrets that I don't know -- that are only passed on if you've worked with someone who knows them. But I've developed some of my own, so I'll do those for now. (Laughs)