Many phone-sex “fantasy-makers” have them as well. For example… a vibrator, inside oneself, makes almost no sound. You want your caller to hear the vibe? An electric toothbrush or “pocket rocket” mini-vibe sits on my table. The sound of a hot wet hungry orifice (you know the one) is not always readily available, but, pinching my cheek and pulling out, with my mouth open provides a GREAT simulacrum. A belt, fastened at both ends to form a () shape.When the ends are pulled, the doubled belt snaps itself for the sound of a school strap or tawse.
On my “Foley Table” I have the electric toothbrush, also a nice large lolipop (a Jaw-breaker on a stick) to provide the slurpy sounds of oral sex. A pair of toy handcuffs (police issue don’t make as much sound) for restraints clicking shut and a flat paddle and leather covered stuffed pillow for paddling sounds. Since I use a head-set, I can slap the inside of my lower arm for spankings. I have chains and a door-latch for the sound of a collar being snapped shut. A squeeze bottle of water and a bowl with water in it sounds exactly like someone using the bathroom (I get all kinds of calls!)
I do get thrown a challenge now and then. Once a caller wanted really really REALLY wet sounds! He wanted to know I was really REALLY wet for him! The lolipop failed. The cheek trick didn’t work. Just about then, my Golden Retriever went in to lap from her bowl! I stuck the reciever down next to her “Lap! LAP! SCHLUPP! SCHLURPP!”
I got the headset back on just as he hit a screaming hot climax! Ya gotta be inventive if ya want to stay at the top of the game!
Well okay then! (Actually, that was rather interesting. Foley work for sex lines was certainly in the category of, “things I didn’t know I didn’t know.”)
Another childhood illusion shattered. (Yes, I *did *have an interesting childhood.)
I’ve always been fascinated by Foley artists. And the recording industry in general, but seeing some of the ways that movie sounds were actually made has always surprised me with the inventiveness of the people doing the work. And, like WhyNot this is truly one of the things I didn’t know I didn’t know.
I haven’t decided if I’m more or less content with the knowledge.
Artificial sound is also used on-stage. Actors learn, when throwing a punch or a slap, to slap their own opposite hand to make a noise, doing it in such a way that, even though it’s in plain sight, the audience doesn’t notice the trick. Alternatively, the actor receiving the punch can take it on his own hand, or either one can slap his leg. Tricksy actorses! It’s called “giving [or taking] a nap”.
Basically the ‘Foley’ thing is because I want to give the caller the best experience over the phone. To me, phone sex is the one sort of work where the caller is happy, the company is happy, the fantasy-maker is happy and nobody gets hurt. It’s a GREAT line of work.
Sadly, nowadays, it does NOT pay well. I started in 1988. Rate of pay was 5 minute call $4. ten minute call $5. Fifteen minute call $6. 20 minutes was $7.25 and 30 minutes $9.25.
Today… the pay is the same. And the calls have dwindled from twenty or thirty a day to one or two. IF I am lucky. In fact I just turned in my invoice for a 2-week stint. $53.20. So no it doesn’t pay like it used to. The Internet has siphoned off a LOT of callers. Free stuff is everywhere and fewer and fewer people are going with non-camera girls. NteFlrt has RUINED the business with girls who can set their own prices. Some will do calls for $1 a minute. Other girls for less than THAT. I’ve seen $0.50/minute girls.
Why do I stay? Because, quite frankly… I LOVE the work! I love my callers (what few are left) and I love what I do. In my case it is NOT about the money. A $200/month job. It’s about the love.
I dunno, it seems to me that a dollar or even fifty cents a minute is a pretty good pay rate, if you can get it on a regular basis. All the more so if you can get multiple paying customers at once, which doesn’t seem outside the realm of possibility. The real problem isn’t the rate; it’s how sporadic it is (especially since this means you need to structure the rest of your time around an unpredictable job).
It’s not just Knapps (a knapp is what the actor does to generate the fake slap sound when he or she is fake hit) in live theatre that is foley work. Sound Designers frequently do their own foley work, taking microphones out to various locations or bringing items into a recording studio for playback over hidden speakers onstage. For instance, the quiet sound of birds in the background of a scene in the woods is sometimes just downloaded from a sound effects disc, but often can be actual birds in a nearby park with a portable recording mic. A recent horror-themed Richard III performance I worked on included a lot of sounds of blood squirting, chainsaws and drills running, and then going through bodies, that kind of thing…
The famous sound of blaster guns firing from the Star Wars movies was generated by the sound of high voltage electric wires getting hit with branches - considering that lasers don’t actually make noise, it’s a pretty notable sound since pretty much every sci-fi weapon since has sounded similar…
Yeah, I recorded a commuter train arriving and departing at a suburban station for my wife’s play “Next Train”. (Having only one good mike, I panned it in post, myself. I also had to make two mirror sets of tracks, because no one who knew how the theater sound system worked was available until performance night, and I’m not a sound guy, so I didn’t know whether stereo left was stage left or house left.)
As I said, I’m not a sound guy, and this was several years ago, so it’s passed out of my head. If I ever need to do it again, well, I still have the masters.
Unless that particular venue was highly unusual, stereo left is house left is stage right. The sound console faces the same way the audience does, and on pro sound consoles the main faders have the stereo left master on the left side of the main faders, and stereo right on the right side. So audio engineers left/right reference is the same as the audience’s.
I’ll try to remember that, though I think I’ll check ahead of time in half-assed church conversions, anyway.
(When I was a kid, decent home stereo component systems included a reverse-stereo switch on the pre-amp, so I suppose I have an almost inborn mistrust.)
That’s a thought about the console location. As it happens, whenever I’ve worked in a professional venue, I’ve been a performer, with tech absolutely none of my business, and whenever I’ve done tech, it’s been in a school auditorium with all consoles and/or boards in the wings, so it’s not instinctive for me to think of the tech crew as sharing the audience’s perspective.
