By Kavishna Wijesinghe
Sanaa Kelley is known for her amazing foley skills on very popular productions like Thirteen Reasons Why (2020), The November Man (2014), Those Who Wish Me Dead (2021), and dozens of other movies. She became extremely popular through social media with her viral behind-the-scenes videos. Sanaa spoke to Junkyard Theory about her 25-plus-year career and more.
Origin
Sanaa was first inspired after seeing a foley artist playing with simple things just to record sounds for films. The enthusiasm led her to join one of the studios where she learnt her ABCs through many obstacles. She opened her own company in 2016, Reel Foley Sound, and possesses a remarkable reputation today.
The process of foley
Prior to initiation, the Sound Supervisor, who is in charge of the dialogue, foley, and background music of productions, watches the entire film with the client and takes important notes. Later, when Sanaa gets her turn, she checks the notes and starts with the cloth pass; an expression of sound of the costumes and the objects they interact with. She claims she makes sure to not sound too jerky or too sharp at this point.
As Sanaa explained, foley has a three-second rule, where they make a new region if a person won’t move for three seconds. Likewise, they usually have blank regions for each character of a production. Next, they do props dividing them up to categories after setting up mics to achieve good sound, reassuring the dialogues are clear.
“The beautiful thing about foley is that people are not supposed to hear it. That’s why it’s not well known. It’s just supposed to blend in beautifully; if you hear it, it’s a mistake,” she shared.
Sounds for genres
When Akash questioned the sounds for different films of various genres, she stated that the sounds they use are subjective to the genres. In romantic movies, breaking bones and car crashes are obviously less, but in other movies like Lisey’s Story on Apple TV, it is absolutely different. Additionally, she stated that the props she utilises to create various sound effects are rehashed depending on the sound being recreated.
Facing challenges
“The challenge is to bring it out to life as everyone has poured their hearts out to the production,” Sanaa said, adding that if they figure out how to break down a specific effect for a scene, they break it down and finish it in layers, and then condense it together, keeping the quality in a good level.
She also explained the influence of emotion on a scene. “If someone is happy, there’s a little upbeat to the sound. When someone is sad, there’s a little drag. That’s why it is important to listen to the production, because then you’re learning their personalities. You got to act with sound,” she explained.
Foley vs. sound effects
According to Sanaa, there is a fine line between foley and sound effects. Foley is the sound that is recreated naturally, but sound effects are pre-recorded digital versions of sound, which are usually stored in a bank. Sometimes they blend both foley and sound effects together for a more organic and natural output.
In Those Who Wish Me Dead, Lisey’s Story, and some scenes of The 100, there were very tough scenes that they left for sound effects, she mentioned. For instance, Sanaa recalled the car crash scene in Those Who Wish Me Dead, which was redone after Allan Murray, Sound Supervisor on films like Joker (2019), demanded that she recreate every sound from scratch.
Live action and animation
When questioned about animation vs. live action, Sanaa revealed that even though people treat both production styles the same today, live action has an actual production to match, whereas in animation, there is nothing as such. This in turn lends a sense of freedom to experiment with various props and sounds.
Sanaa said that Avatar: The Last Airbender was her absolute favourite animation to work on, as it was really well done, with much attention to detail.
Advice for foley enthusiasts
Sanaa encourages individuals interested in this niche to join audio schools to learn the process, but foley could be only learnt through practice, she said. Doing internships at music studios can give you the practical knowledge of staging a microphone, experience in mixing, and many more areas. Sanaa also invites enthusiasts to record themselves to Sanaa’s videos on her social media and see if their work matches with hers.
Junkyard Theory is Sri Lanka’s first and only film education platform that brings on veteran filmmakers from Hollywood as guest speakers. Their webinars, hosted by Akash Sunethkumara, have been recognised on industry sites such as “No Film School”, and the team now runs film courses for upcoming filmmakers in the country.
The full video with Sanaa Kelley is available on Junkyard Theory’s YouTube channel.
The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication.
