Cabbage in a Murder Scene

A jar of salt,dry leaves,a variety of shoes and sandals,a sheet of iron,several bottles and mismatched items of cutlery,a bedsheet,a tub,a broken scooter,a bonnet and two live microphones.

A jar of salt,dry leaves,a variety of shoes and sandals,a sheet of iron,several bottles and mismatched items of cutlery,a bedsheet,a tub,a broken scooter,a bonnet and two live microphones. Packed with such articles,Karan Arjun Singhs recording studio resembles a junkyard. He evidently takes great pride in each of these items that have been collected over the years. Showing his guests around,he stoops to undo the latch,fixed on a low wooden cabinet. Do you hear this sound? he asks,We use this for the click of a pistol in a movie.

A foley artiste,Karans job is to create and record sounds that seem natural. Footsteps,doorbells,breaking of bottles,rustling of papers,a punch,a cup being placed on a table,or any other such sounds in a film are created in a foley artistes studio. This may seem like a simple job where the sounds corresponding to the scenes need to be recreated in a studio. But,it often calls for innovation on part of the artistes. Ram Gopal Varmas Rakhtacharitra had many murder scenes where people killed with swords or kattas. So we purchased meat,watermelon and cabbage in bulk and recorded the sounds that were created when we passed a katta through them. The meat gave the sound a fleshy quality,the juice of the watermelon gave it the sense of blood and the layered cabbage gave that of a body, explains Karan,who worked on the foley for Rockstar,Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara,Singham,Shaitan and Delhi Belly last year.

It is the creativity in the job that has kept Karnail Singh,Rajendra Gupta and Sajjan Chowdhry in the industry since 1979. Recently,while working on Don 2,the trio was asked by the sound engineer to keep the sounds of blows more real. Chowdhry sourced some big fruits and smashed them to create the effect.

Having worked with some of the biggest names in the industry over the years,from Mani Kaul and Yash Chopra to Karan Johar and now Sriram Raghavan for Agent Vinod,the trio,however,feels that the expertise of getting even the basic sounds right comes with experience. We have learnt that if the actor is placing a cup on a table,the sound should not only be in sync with the action but also the mood. The sound it makes can tell if the cup is kept in slow deliberation,in haste or anger, explains Karnail.

Given the technological advancements,several libraries are available today with pre-recorded sounds. However,foley artiste Sunil Sinha explains that nothing comes close to what they create. The use of library can make the sound seem monotonous,just like the sound of blowing wind in television shows,

says Sinha. This is why foley artistes rarely dispose off anything that enters their studios.

Karnail recollects the time when they had to create the sound of Jackie Shroffs footsteps on an iron bridge for his introduction scene in Vidhu Vinod Chopras Parinda in 1989. The trio arranged for a sheet of metal,which has since been used in many films. It came in handy when we recently re-did the foley for Parinda because Vinod Chopra was converting the stereo sound into Dolby, laugh Karnail and Chowdhry.

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For all the effort that goes into foley,the irony is that more often than not,the sounds go unnoticed. We layer these sounds according to priority. In a car crash,there may be a scream,screech ,explosion and the sound of tyres and other parts dissipating. We record all of these and layer them according to their priority and you may not even notice most of it, explains Karan. The thing about foley is,if it does not seem natural,then we havent done our job right.

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