Artefact 3 - ADR & Foley Project

Overview

 

This Automatic Dialogue Replacement & Foley project that I put together has been paramount in allowing me to prove my varied skillset when becoming a Producer/Remixer. Some examples of skills I have honed and sharpened would be my editing & syncing abilities, recording techniques, understanding of sound design, understanding spatial awareness, collaborating with others and timekeeping when sticking to deadlines I’d set for myself.

This project consisted of me taking the clip from Toy Story 2 where Geri (the old cleaner man) fixes Woody, removing the original audio from the clip and replacing the sounds with my own recorded samples, ADR and syncing/editing samples from an academic sound library/Splice. I worked alongside a brief that was given to me by a client – we had a few feedback sessions throughout the creation process that allowed me to add/take away parts of the audio and also gave me the opportunity to use my communication skills to get the best outcome for the client.

I used almost exactly half and half real recorded sounds and samples which challenged me to get a balanced sound and make sure that they sat well together in the mix – I wanted to make sure it was almost impossible to tell what was existing samples and what I recorded. This was difficult but helped to push me to make something immersive and realistic.

As I am aspiring to become a Producer/Remixer, the syncing of audio in this clip was very challenging and needed a lot of hard work to be implemented. The clip I chose has a lot of detail and movement throughout which I made sure I was going frame-by-frame to ensure the sync of each tiny detail was perfect e.g. Woody being grabbed from his glass case and placed onto a tiny barber's chair.

My knowledge of microphone choice and recording techniques was put to the test in the making of this audio. I had to pick specific microphones that I knew had a drop (below 500Hz) in the frequency response so as to help balance with the proximity effect – the Foley I recorded was up close to the mic a lot to get the desired “ASMR” effect e.g. the squeaking noises of Woody’s glass eyeball being cleaned with a cotton bud. I had put in a lot of research prior to starting to record my replacement audio/foley on different materials to use to replicate real life sounds like the placement of items or opening of latches. I was also given an opportunity here with this project to show off my creativity when remaking audio. Understanding where sound sources are coming from relative to where the viewer will see the clip from was important to create a sense of reality and immersion by using editing techniques like panning or using EQ to make audio/voice recordings more believable.

Collaborating with others to record voice overs was great practice in not only allowing me to showcase my recording techniques & editing chops, but also my ability to act as a director in terms of helping the voice actor get the best performance out of them – by encouraging them to try different vocal deliveries or standing a certain way/putting different inflections to get as close to the original audio as possible.

My file management knowledge and timekeeping has been critical during this entire process as I’ve transferred files from different computers using different DAW’s. Ensuring I was taking the utmost care when moving from different stations to edit audio files was a must as I had to schedule to record with collaborators – I made sure I wasn’t wasting my own or anyone else's time.

 

Timeline/Logbook

 

  • Session 1 (25/11/24) - I decided on the Toy Story 2 clip of Woody being fixed by Geri as there was a tonne of detail for me to recreate/sync samples to. I removed the audio from the clip and imported it into a new Pro Tools session – I removed the audio purposefully so that I didn't have anything to inspire my creative decisions I went solely off how I thought it should sound. I placed some markers when big moments happen in the clip that would require more work and then wrote up a sound map in Excel to note time codes for when sounds should be placed, what type of sounds they will be and the source of the audio i.e. Foley/ADR or SFX.
  • Session 2 (9/12/24) - I began adding some placeholder samples for the markers that I placed in the initial session. This was just to get a feel and start compiling samples from both the academic sound library and Splice. Even some of the sound cues I had planned to be recorded audio I just threw in some samples to hopefully inspire me creatively.
  • Session 3 (6/1/25) - This was the first session back after a break at the end of the year for the holidays. I continued to add some more samples to flesh out the clip a bit more for the first half of the day, and then the 2nd half of the day consisted of me helping to record a friend on their own ADR/Foley project they were working on – this allowed me to get some practice in acting as a Producer and Engineer by being creative and testing out different microphones that would best fit the ideas he had.

 

  • Session 4 (13/1/25) - On this day I did some research by seeking tutorial videos relating to vocal editing using iZotope RX for de-hum, de-ess and audio syncing. Using plug-ins like this is very useful as de-hum can reduce room-tone to isolate a vocal more clearly, and de-ess helps to reduce sibilance in an audio capture to ensure both consistency and a pleasant listening experience (it reduces the nasty high-frequency tones). During this session there wasn’t any studio availability to record Foley or ADR, so I made use of my time and continued to add more samples to my clip of different impact noises and different wood texture noises.

 

  • Session 5 (20/1/25) - Decided which of the samples I’d added to my Pro Tools session so far that I would definitely be keeping and deleted the ones that I planned to change. I added panning automation to some sounds to fit what was happening on screen & add immersion. This allowed me to begin adding fades to the ones I was keeping and syncing them up more precisely using the nudge function and setting the function to feet+frames. I only had a few to add sample-wise before I could start recording.
  • Session 6 (3/2/25) - Had my first client feedback session – Client was impressed with what I had up to his point and agreed that the sync of the audio was spot on. We discussed my next steps with recording Foley and how I planned to complete them i.e. when I’ll be recording them, which studio I’ll arrange to use and which microphone(s) I planned to use. After listening to the client, I promptly began recording Foley. I had the Lewitt LCT 441 Flex microphone already in my mind as the right tool for the job as it can handle recording up-close to. sound sources without the proximity effect being as issue – this is because in its frequency response, it has a nice drop below 500Hz that it can handle well. I transferred my Pro Tools session onto my hard drive and took it into the studio where I recorded impacts, movement/fabric noises and different wood texture noises. All I was left to do after this session was ADR, a few misc. noises and to compose some background music.

 

 

  • Session 7 (4/2/25) - At my home studio I opened a new session in Logic Pro X to compose and record the background music, which is comprised of electric guitar, bass guitar, acoustic guitar and drum samples from Splice.

  • I then recorded the remainder of the Foley audio using a PreSonus M7 microphone as it is very reactive and sensitive due to its frequency response being able to reach up to 18kHz – this ensures both presence and clarity when recording Foley. Now all I had left to record was ADR.

 

  • Session 8 (6/2/25) - Transferred all the recordings from my home studio into my Pro Tools session and placed/synced them – got a good balance of all the recorded Foley against the samples that were there already.

 

  • Session 9 (10/2/25) - To voice Geri the old man, I approached my dad to do some vocal work. I recorded him at home using the same PreSonus M7 microphone as he needed to get really close to the mic to imitate an old man’s voice and I knew from recording Foley it could handle recording closely. Later in the day I took the recorded vocal lines and imported them into the Pro Tools session. This was my first time hearing the original clip audio, too.

I synced them up to the clip using the nudge function and used the time stretch function on pro tools to get an accurate recreation of the original line’s delivery. Then I added EQ to remove lower frequencies in order to eliminate unwanted low-end rumble and make the audio clearer in the mix. Fabfilter’s Pro De-esser was added to subtly remove some sibilance from the performance – I kept the range low and the threshold around –15dB as the old man’s voice is quite lisp-y and I wanted to keep some of the higher frequency sibilance.

 

  • Session 10 (24/2/25) - The last thing left to record was Al the chicken guy’s ADR/Dialogue. I got my friend Fraser to record Al’s dialogue using a Shure SM7B Dynamic mic and he did a great job recording the lines in only a handful of takes.

I gave him his script on a piece of paper and played the original capture so he could ‘parrot’ an impression of the character. I chose the SM7B as its capture is clear & smooth and it is popularly used in voiceovers – it has a flat/wide frequency response (50Hz – 20kHz) that creates a realistic and natural sound. Due to getting great recordings, it wasn’t hard to sync them into the original Pro Tools session. I copied the exact same plugins and EQ that I used for my dad’s ADR lines and it sounded great with the subtle de-essing.

 

  • Session 11 (25/2/25) - I turned down the background music I recorded –1dB to help all the other elements sit atop it in the mix. I used the Pitch II plug-in on both my dad and Frasers ADR to bring them down by 1 semitone to be closer to the originals.

Now that all SFX, samples, ADR and music was added and synced in the session, I grouped & routed all audio into respective, colour-coded folders to keep my session neat. (I also went as far as to colour within the folders e.g. wooden noises: blue, plastic sounds: red etc.)

The 5 different groups/folders are:

- SFX/Samples

- Foley/Recordings

- Ambience (Room tone)

- Music

- Vox/ADR

 

  • Session 12 (24/3/25) - Had a 2nd client feedback session and they were very pleased with all the work I had put into this clip. The only personal sound that stood out/bothered me was a sample I chose for an earbud cleaning the side of Woody’s head as it felt repetitive and robotic – decided I would change it sometime in the future.

 

  • Session 13 (1/5/25) - Picked a more suitable sample from Splice to replace the earbud sound that I had a problem with before. I did keep the original sample, but I cut it up and turned it way down, so it complimented as a layer for the new sound. I then panned the new sample to go from right to left to be synced with what happens in the clip. Also layered in some eyeball squeak sounds from my home recording session and panned it the same way to match the others. The project was now finished, so I got a final stereo bounced .Mov (24 bit, 48kHz).

Project Excerpt - Before + After

Click this button for a link to the full, finished project!