Do You Hear the Sound of Coconuts?

In filmmaking, unless you're going for cinema verite, you're going to be doing something called foley.

"Foley" is basically the technique of adding sound effects to a movie... It's named for a guy called Jack Foley, who helped transition the movie industry from the silent era to include all the sounds required by talkies.

Watch any movie. It was a foley artist who added the sound of footsteps as your favorite character as walked down a hall. The rustle of clothes. Thunder. Sirens. Lightsaber noises. All created in the post-production sound edit.

So, what do coconuts have to do with anything?

Watch that classic Monty Python movie and you'll see the coconuts in action as King Arthur and his knights ride their low-budget "horses".

Yes, there are some talented folks out there in movieland that make up the world of foley artists. These people are so talented that, not only can they can use two coconut halves to sound like horses galloping, they can also use a watermelon to sound like just about anything.

Being independent filmmakers, we work on our own foley. But we ourselves don't use a lot of watermelons or coconuts.

Depending on the sound needed, we often start with getting together the props used on the actual film shoot. Marta's bell in Under Jakob's Ladder comes to mind. If you were on set, you may have noticed that this bell actually made no sound. All bell noises (from the actual bell) were added in post.

Our other foley sources? Well, times have changed and we have access to sound effects libraries. Certainly a great tool. (There's a great online library here called The Freesound Project.)

You might be surprised at what sound effects people have captured. The names of some of them are pretty intriguing in and of themselves. "Unusual Space Echo" is one. (No, unfortunately, we didn't get to use that one for Under Jakob's Ladder!)

Other effects are more mundane. We'll spare you the toilet flushes and the coughing and sneezing and other such sounds... (Except, by telling you this, we actually didn't spare you this information!)

The thing is, foley isn't always about matching the exact sound. Do you think anyone would notice if we used the "Eating an Apple" effect, when on screen the character was eating a PEAR? The thing is, if you can't hear the difference, does it matter if it's an apple or a pear?

So, that's the reason that if you bang together two coconuts to sound like horses' hoof beats... then you get the sound of horses' hoof beats.