Have you ever wondered what goes on behind the microphones at a recording session for a radio drama? Well here is an insiders look from one of the industries best, Mark Drury, on what the Foley recording involved for Sir Malcolm and the Missing Prince.
Well, you’ve got 53 scenes with some challenging action and settings…it ain’t a Whit’s End or Barclay’s show! Even with 2 of us working on it together (with me doing some stuff on my own), the time commitment will probably end up being around 80-85 hours for the foley. That might be about 15-20% longer than if I was doing this at Focus – in a true foley room with all surfaces and props readily available – but foley is always a very time-consuming process, especially when you have to get very unique sounds like crawling through weeds, jumping on/off wagons, horse dismounts (did that with a real saddle on a stand), building a dam in a stream (used a real stream), jumping on/off a rolling ladder, getting in/out of a boat and rowing, etc, etc, etc. Can’t just get that stuff off of sound fx CD’s and make it sound in-scene or timed correctly.
Foley is the art of recording the natural, everyday sounds that would occur in a soundtrack for a movie or audio recording. Basic sounds would be cloth movements, foot steps, doors opening, body movements, etc. It is the sound that provides a real life aspect in a fictional environment. You may not notice when it’s there, but when it’s not, you would certainly feel a difference. Foley recording involves long days of much physical activity, scrutinizing the performance to ensure accuracy, and a lot of editing. For a high quality, realistic sounding audio drama like Sir Malcolm and the Missing Prince, much of the recording would be done at various locations outside the studio in order to capture the most realistic sounds.
Our producers and sound designers have put an incredible amount of effort into making this audio drama the very best that it can be in a relatively short amount of time. There has been a great number of long days and nights put into the creation of Lamplighter’s first audio drama. We can’t wait for you to hear it!
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