How Sounds are Faked for Nature Documentaries
We are looking at a split screen; to the left, we see a man with medium-length brown hair, dressed in a black short-sleeve shirt over a long-sleeve black and white-striped shirt, paired with black pants; his shirt is a graphic tee with white letters that read ‘films@59′; he has on dark gloves, and around his neck is a light, cloth scarf. He stands in a room that seems to be a workshop or studio, cluttered with shelves filled with various objects, equipment, and a black curtain. A microphone stands in front of him. In his hands, he holds a set of cymbals, which he claps together, making noise.
On the right side of the screen, we see a landscape with a body of water and dark land under a sky filled with green aurora lights. The overall lighting gives the scene an eerie and surreal quality. The sound from the cymbals in the scene on the left is timed with the beautiful scene of the Aurora lights, but a woman’s voice says, ‘Ah, the Northern Lights beautiful to see, and here, the thing is, the Northern Lights don’t actually make a sound; yet when you watch this clip, you don’t think twice about it.’ The video then shows an orangutan with a stoic face, followed by a small spider on a green leaf, next a bright red sea anemone or mushroom-like plant, then the tail of a whale as it is deep underwater, as the voice-over continues, ‘In fact, if you start to really look and listen closely to everything from planet earth, to our planet, you’ll notice sounds that would either be impossible to capture, or ones that are straight up made up. Nature documentaries are full of unnatural sounds, and they are created in post-production by someone like Richard Hinton, whose job as a nature doc folie artist is a study in the subtle art of exaggeration.’
The camera shifts back and shows the man described at the start of this description, now sitting cross-legged in the studio, with his hands in front of him, the caption reads, ‘Richard Hinton, Foley Artist, Films at 59′; the scene changes, and Richard is seen in a recording studio filling a large black tub with a hose and seaweed. He is shown from the chest up as he stands near two large monitors, and states, ‘you can fill a television screen with a shot of a spider walking across a web, and there’s no sound there obviously, and that can feel a bit strange, or there’s a hole in the story. For The Hunt, he needed to get the sound of a spider shooting a web.’
He stands in the studio, holding a white reel that resembles a film reel as he is standing. ‘I really like doing stuff like this, because I get carte blanche to be a little creative; because there’s no perceivable sound in nature. It means I can kind of make something up.’ The narrator then states, ‘but while he can make something up, he still needs to match the sound he is watching on screen. For the web, he needed something really stretchy. So, he grabbed a Slinky and stretched it out as far as possible.’ Richard is shown holding a stretched out Slinky and says, ‘You get that wonderful cable in detention.’
Back to a medium shot of Richard in the studio, the narrator continues: ‘But because the camera was so close, he needed a really close sound; so, he applied proximity effect, where the Foley artist will make a sound as close to the mic as possible. It’s actually a risky move; the microphone is almost feeding back on itself, because you’re too close to the mic, or you’re overloading the mic.’ Richard comes into view again, in a small frame, speaking from the neck up, with headphones on. He goes on to tell about a spider. The narrator adds, but he found the winning noise only by shoving the slinky right on top of the mic.’
Next, a variety of underwater creatures, are shown, and sounds are made by Richard to sound like the animals swimming, The narrator explains that for ‘something larger, like a whale, seen in this shot, he will both make his movements larger, and go deeper into the water.
The video then shows a large studio monitor with what looks like editing software as well as someone using it. The narrator finishes by saying, ‘There’s always extra editing that goes on after Richard is done recording. Richard will later apply an EQ, which filters out harsher frequency and adds depth, making it at least feel like it is really recorded under the ocean. Listen to this before, and after. The video cuts out, and a list of credits is shown.