How Sounds Are Faked For Nature Documentaries | Movies Insider — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00[cymbals softly ringing]
2. 0:05Narrator: Ah, the northern lights.
3. 0:07Beautiful to see...and hear?
4. 0:10[wind chimes gently ringing]
5. 0:12The thing is,
6. 0:12the northern lights don't actually make a sound.
7. 0:15Yet when you watch this clip,
8. 0:17you don't think twice about it.
9. 0:20In fact, if you start to really look, and listen,
10. 0:24closely to everything from "Planet Earth"
11. 0:26to "Our Planet," you'll notice sounds
12. 0:28that would either be impossible to capture...
13. 0:31[Slinky shaking]
14. 0:33or ones that are straight-up made up.
15. 0:35[leather squishing]
16. 0:38Nature documentaries are full of unnatural sounds,
17. 0:41and they're created in postproduction
18. 0:43by someone like Richard Hinton,
19. 0:45whose job as a nature doc Foley artist
20. 0:47is a study in the subtle art of exaggeration.
21. 0:51So, why even create sounds for nature docs?
22. 0:54[lips smacking]
23. 0:56Well, shooting in the wild makes it almost impossible
24. 0:59to capture real sound.
25. 1:01Take this aerial shot of a dolphin pod in "Our Planet."
26. 1:04It was filmed high up in the air by a drone,
27. 1:06so while the dolphins are splashing up and down,
28. 1:09all the camera picks up are loud blades.
29. 1:12Nature docs also frequently utilize macro lenses,
30. 1:15meaning they might actually be shooting a subject matter
31. 1:18that's across a valley,
32. 1:19or they'll capture objects normally too small
33. 1:22to have a registered noise to it.
34. 1:24That means that sometimes
35. 1:26Richard and his team at Films at 59
36. 1:28will actually have to fake sounds to give life to it.
37. 1:31Richard Hinton: You can fill a television screen
38. 1:33with a shot of a spider walking across a web,
39. 1:34and there's no sound there, obviously,
40. 1:35and that can feel a bit strange,
41. 1:37or there's a hole in the story.
42. 1:40[magnetic tape rustling]
43. 1:44Narrator: For "The Hunt," he needed to get the sound
44. 1:46of a spider shooting a web.
45. 1:48Hinton: I really like doing stuff like this,
46. 1:49because I get carte blanche to be a little creative.
47. 1:51Because there's no perceivable sound in nature,
48. 1:54it means I can kind of make something up.
49. 1:57Narrator: But while he can make something up,
50. 1:58he still needs to match the sound he's watching on screen.
51. 2:02For the web, he needed something really stretchy,
52. 2:05so he grabbed a Slinky and stretched it out
53. 2:07as far as possible.
54. 2:09[Slinky rattling]
55. 2:10Hinton: You get that wonderful cable under tension.
56. 2:15Narrator: Now, it sounded good
57. 2:16when he just stretched it out
58. 2:18between his hands, like you see here,
59. 2:20but because the camera was so close,
60. 2:23he needed a really close sound.
61. 2:25So he applied proximity effect,
62. 2:27where the Foley artist will make a sound
63. 2:29as close to the mic as possible.
64. 2:31It's actually a risky move.
65. 2:33Hinton: The microphone is almost feeding back on itself
66. 2:35because you're too close to the mic
67. 2:37or you're overloading the mic.
68. 2:38Narrator: But he found the winning noise
69. 2:40only by shoving the Slinky right on top of the mic.
70. 2:43Hinton: That proximity just pulls you in really tight
71. 2:46to the action and what's going on on the screen,
72. 2:49and it just makes it sound more unworldly.
73. 2:53Narrator: He didn't just need the web blast.
74. 2:55He also had to capture a spider's tiny footsteps,
75. 2:59yet another thing in nature
76. 3:00that normally wouldn't have a sound,
77. 3:02at least that humans could hear.
78. 3:04He needed something more delicate
79. 3:06than most animal footsteps.
80. 3:08He started playing with a bunch of magnetic audio tape,
81. 3:11a classic Foley technique that can cover
82. 3:13many types of sounds.
83. 3:14Hinton: You could use this, but it sounds too clumpy.
84. 3:17It's not delicate enough. It's not precise enough.
85. 3:20If I wrap it around the reel,
86. 3:21I can use the reel as a sounding board.
87. 3:24[magnetic tape rustling]
88. 3:30And you can get individual footsteps.
89. 3:31Narrator: Close-ups also mean he will need
90. 3:33to exaggerate parts of a larger animal
91. 3:35you wouldn't normally hear a sound from.
92. 3:37For example, when working on Disney's "Bears,"
93. 3:40Richard needed to capture the sound
94. 3:42of a bear opening its eye and blinking.
95. 3:44Because a bear is covered in fur,
96. 3:46he first rubbed a piece of fur to capture the lid opening.
97. 3:50[fur rustling]
98. 3:52But Richard actually needed to create two sounds,
99. 3:55as he observed that moisture forms
100. 3:57when one opens their eyes.
101. 3:59For a wetter sound, he relied on his own mouth.
102. 4:02[mouth salivating]
103. 4:05It's when these two sounds are mixed together
104. 4:07that you really hear the lid opening.
105. 4:09[fur rustling] [mouth salivating]
106. 4:11The up-close-and-personal presentation of nature docs
107. 4:14is what brings Richard to create
108. 4:15some of the most innovative noises.
109. 4:18Thanks to amazing HD cameras,
110. 4:20time-lapse technology has changed
111. 4:22what a nature doc can capture,
112. 4:23and we can now witness the entire cycle of a plant growing.
113. 4:27Hinton: The beauty, from my point of view as a Foley artist,
114. 4:30because it is such a stylized shot,
115. 4:32I don't have to think too carefully
116. 4:34about being true to nature.
117. 4:36It gives me a certain level of creative freedom.
118. 4:39Narrator: Like with the spider web,
119. 4:41Richard needed a stretchy sound
120. 4:42for this shot from "Planet Earth II,"
121. 4:45where mushrooms and other fungi spring from the ground.
122. 4:48But he wanted a sound more organic than a Slinky.
123. 4:51He first went for a mushy effect with a wet newspaper,
124. 4:55but he needed more control.
125. 4:56[newspaper squishing]
126. 4:58Through this trial and error,
127. 4:59he found leather strips and scuba gear
128. 5:01were the only things both stretchy and controllable enough.
129. 5:05[strips stretching]
130. 5:08To add a little sweetener,
131. 5:09Richard played around with a wet leather shammy.
132. 5:11[shammy squishing]
133. 5:12Hinton: And this is a particularly useful lad too
134. 5:15if you're showing the decay of the fungus
135. 5:17as well as the growth,
136. 5:18because usually they kind of melt into a sticky,
137. 5:21kind of wet, moist, oozy kind of substance.
138. 5:24[shammy squishing] [strips stretching]
139. 5:29Narrator: Now, there are certain things in nature docs
140. 5:31that you wouldn't hear even if you got up close to it,
141. 5:34because they are simply a visual phenomenon,
142. 5:37like the northern lights we mentioned earlier.
143. 5:40[cymbals softly ringing]
144. 5:44For some animal movements there is a real sound,
145. 5:47but it's not very pleasant to listen to,
146. 5:49so he needs to create something better,
147. 5:51like he did for these underwater shots in "Our Planet."
148. 5:55Hinton: You don't really hear much sound underwater.
149. 5:56Although sound travels very well,
150. 5:57it's very [hisses and crackles].
151. 6:00It would become very tiresome to listen to
152. 6:03after about two minutes.
153. 6:04Your ears would get really tired,
154. 6:05and you'd probably turn it off.
155. 6:06So we embellish a little bit.
156. 6:08Narrator: Unsurprisingly, he uses real water,
157. 6:10but it's how his hands interact with the water
158. 6:12that makes the difference.
159. 6:14Hinton: The smaller the animal,
160. 6:15the more delicate you can be.
161. 6:17Narrator: When it gets to more medium-size fish,
162. 6:19like this large shoal of mackerel in "Our Planet,"
163. 6:21he'll also dump that clump of magnetic tape into the tank
164. 6:25for an extra layer of sound.
165. 6:27[water splashing]
166. 6:32Hinton: What you can do is
167. 6:33you can focus on the moving shoal
168. 6:36and really focus on those tight turns
169. 6:38and those sharp movements.
170. 6:39[water splashing]
171. 6:44Narrator: If there's more than one type of aquatic animal
172. 6:46in the shot, Richard will differentiate
173. 6:48by doing one take with the magnetic tape and one without.
174. 6:52[water splashing]
175. 6:56For something larger, like a whale, seen in this shot,
176. 6:59he'll both make his movements larger
177. 7:01and go deeper into the water.
178. 7:03[water intensely splashing]
179. 7:06There is always extra editing that goes on
180. 7:08after Richard is done recording.
181. 7:10Richard will later apply an EQ,
182. 7:12which filters out harsher frequency and adds depth,
183. 7:15making it at least feel like
184. 7:17it is really recorded under the ocean.
185. 7:19Listen to this before...
186. 7:21[water crisply splashing]
187. 7:23and after.
188. 7:25[muffled water splashing]
189. 7:30Lava makes a surprisingly soft sound,
190. 7:33and when Richard had to exaggerate it
191. 7:35for this scene in "Planet Earth II,"
192. 7:36he wanted it to have more impact.
193. 7:39Hinton: You kind of hear the interaction
194. 7:40of what it's setting fire to
195. 7:42more than the sound of the lava creeping.
196. 7:44Narrator: Now, just the fire crackling
197. 7:46doesn't give much of a sense of the massive scale
198. 7:48of a lava flow.
199. 7:50He needed a low-end rumble.
200. 7:51He uses smaller rocks when making glaciers
201. 7:54to capture the debris
202. 7:55but went for a much larger one here.
203. 7:57Hinton: For this, I put some gloves on
204. 7:58because there's a real danger of losing a fingernail.
205. 8:01[boulder rumbling]
206. 8:08It's a very bass-y sound.
207. 8:09Narrator: While Richard has a lot of freedom
208. 8:11on nature shows and movies,
209. 8:13there's one area he really can't embellish or exaggerate.
210. 8:17Hinton: There's a lot of science around
211. 8:19animal vocalizations these days.
212. 8:21There's a whole range of alarm calls
213. 8:24and distress calls and greeting calls,
214. 8:26so we rely very heavily on accurate library recordings
215. 8:31to make sure that we're getting it correct.
216. 8:33Narrator: But Richard will be brought in
217. 8:34for the vocals you might not think about,
218. 8:36such as eating, breathing, or panting.
219. 8:39For "Our Planet," Richard was asked to make
220. 8:41a very specific lip-smacking sound from an orangutan,
221. 8:46as the actual footage contained crew members
222. 8:48talking in the background.
223. 8:50[lips smacking]
224. 8:59Hinton: And it gets quite painful
225. 9:00if you're doing that for five minutes,
226. 9:02but, you know, Foley is a contact sport,
227. 9:04and we suffer for our art.
228. 9:05[water bubbling]