And the Oscar goes to…low tech! With all the advances in sound and computer-generated imagery (CGI) in movies, you might be surprised to know there still is plenty of room for low-tech sound and sight. The same is true in stage productions.
At the Academy Awards, the Oscar for best sound editing always goes to a “Foley” artist (named for one of director Stanley Kubrick’s favorite guys, Jack Foley.) These are specialists who use simple objects, state-of-the-art recording equipment, and their imaginations, to help us suspend our disbelief at the movies by making sounds as convincing as can be.
The Day the Earth Stood Still is a 1951 science-fiction movie classic. How did the sound engineers produce the sound of the spaceship door opening? Simple: With a microphone inches away, they slowly unscrewed the lid of a glass jar.
A few recent examples: a shredded rope swiped back and forth on a microphone sounds like a horse’s tail swishing… tapping bamboo sticks inside a wooden box sounds like rats running…stomping on unspooled and useless VHS tape sounds like bushes rustling in the wind…pushing a door lock on or off sounds like chambering a round into a rifle…drawing a cello bow across a piece of steel – such as the drawer support in a cheap office desk – then waving the steel, sounds just like swords ringing out in a great battle…and celery breaking sounds like bones breaking.
As for visuals, in 1939
The Wizard of Oz was ahead of the rest, but what did it take to simulate a tornado in Kansas? Just a bolt of muslin, blown into a vortex by large fans on each side. Simple can be sublime.
Meredith Bean McMath,
award-winning stage director, shared a trick with First Light Facts: In a production of “Cinderella,” a community theater company used a fireplace on stage to help effect a dramatic transformation…Cinderella, dressed in rags and a cloak and being twirled by the Fairy Godmother, disappears behind the fireplace. Then a body-double in identical rags and cloak appears from the other side of the fireplace, and twirls. While the audience watches that, Cinderella quickly changes into a beautiful ball gown. When the body double disappears behind the fireplace, the transformed Cinderella reappears on the other side, in all her splendor. The two actors practiced their twirling until they could do it exactly alike, and the audience bought it every time.
Of course, no matter how much effort you put into special effects, it might not be appreciated, as this clip from 1983’s
The Dresser illustrates.
