OddTodd.com mentions on his site this woman, URL=http://us.imdb.com/Name?Lang,+Mary+Jo]Mary Jo Lang was mentioned in the credits of Lethal Weapon 4 as a “foley mixer”. Apparantly she did this job on many movies (link). Anybody know what it is?
Foley Artists do the sound effects so I guess the foley mixer mixes the sound effects (blends them in with the rest of the movie sound track).
Well a foley stage is where they record many of the sound effects. Things like footsteps, breaking dishes, etc etc are recorded and overdubbed into the film. I would imagine that a foley mixer is another term for ‘sound effects audio engineer’. Like any audio engineer, each person is unique and has a certain style of production. I would that Mary Jo Lang has a style and a consistency thats sought after, thus, her inclusion in many movies.
“Foleys” are natural sound effects added to the film after the fact. Things you can’t really record well on location. Things like footsteps, hits, knife slashes, bones breaking… things like that. The foley artists watch the film being projected on a screen, and use the sounds of different props to get the proper sound. For example, the sound of someone getting hit is often actually a slab of meat being hit in front of the microphone. For footsteps, they actually record themselves walking in time to the person walking on the screen.
Once the sounds are recorded, the Foley Mixer takes the sounds, and literally mixes them into the soundtrack (non-musical soundtrack, that is, of course) of the film. He/she will mix them to the proper level and stereo position; for instance, if you see someone walking from one side of the screen to the other, the foley mixer will mix the footstep foleys to the proper volume level, and have them follow the person walking across the screen, going from one set of speakers to the other.
From this site.
Foley - Taking its name from Jack Foley, the Hollywood sound effects person generally regarded as the “father” of these effects, Foley effects are sounds that are created by recording human movement in sync with the picture. Different from the environmental backgrounds and hard effects that comprise edited sound effects, Foley effects are sounds like footsteps, prop movement, cloth rustling, etc. The players involved in this process are the Foley Mixer, who records the sounds, and the Foley Walkers who create those sounds. After the Foley Effects are recorded, the Foley Editor will make any slight timing adjustments necessary to ensure that they are exactly in sync with the final picture.
Cecil Adams on Foley artists: http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_012.html
Dang, everyone beat me to it!
Apparently, there’s also a type of catheter called a foley. This is only amusing because my good friend’s nickname is Foley (for no reason) and i mentioned this nickname to a nurse friend who thought it was quite a gross nickname.
Good to know that a Foley Artist is named after a guy’s last name, and not the catheter…
Excellent! Thank you all. It looks like I have learned something today.
Don’t know why my link didn’t work, though.