Noises off, filmmaking version

Jana Vance

Foley Artist at SkyWalker Sound

Latest project: “Shrek 2”

What the job entails: “We are re-creating sounds basically dictated by the picture. We are really acting to whatever is happening on screen.”

How she does her job: “Imagine yourself standing in a theater where there is no seat. Instead you are surrounded by 20 different floor surfaces, ranging from spaceship metals, marble, cement, different wood floor, gravels, sand and dirt. We also have a big water tank that has simulated a lake, which we used in ‘What Lies Beneath’ and the ocean for the opening scene of ‘Saving Private Ryan.’ We also have boxes and boxes of just a bunch of junk. We have over 100 pairs of shoes.”

Sound design: “We get director’s notes. There will be a list of kind of adjectives for how they want someone to sound. They wanted Shrek himself to be the lumbering giant that he is. We didn’t give him a real hard-soled shoe. So what you see [him wearing] is kind of moccasin. But we definitely gave him weight and a big sense of presence. I used simple clogs -- the old ones, the big wide ones with a rubber soul.

“Puss-in-Boots was an interesting character. In his opening scene all you see are these giant boots and he’s kind of wiggling his foot. So I had on a huge boot with a kind of great creak to it. Then as the story progresses and he becomes the kitty he really is, I switched to toddler shoes.”

Foley versus sound effects: “There is a fine line sometimes between actual what we call hard effects and foley. We can go into effect world and do some pretty big sounds. But we are more known for the human-generated or animal-generated kinds of sounds.”

Background: “I don’t have any film background. I have an art background. I knew someone who worked here. I had been on a tour out here. I had gone on the foley stage and was really intrigued. I had been an assistant coat buyer at Macy’s, of all things, and wanted to get out of the clothing business, so a foley recordist position opened up.

“A foley recordist sits with the sound mixer in a soundproof booth. The mixer I was working with was an aspiring sound designer and he happened to get me to try [doing foley on] these six Japanese anime and I did really well. One thing led to another and I started working with Dennie Thorpe about 12 years ago. We are a team.”

Credits: “Peter Pan,” “Finding Nemo,” “The Ring,” “Minority Report,” “Saving Private Ryan,” “Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones.”

Sounding “Private Ryan”: “[Director Steven] Spielberg really wanted it to sound realistic. He wanted it to sound like [the soldiers] were carrying really heavy gear and all of these guns. So we had the gear strapped to our bodies and we put on big military boots. I ended up popping out three ribs. It’s a very physical job. You have to take care of yourself to do this job. You have to stay strong.”

Guild or union: No

Salary: “We go by day rates. I know that people usually start between $300 to $400 a day and it goes from there.”

Resides in: Fairfax in Marin County

Age: 44

Problem solving: “We can get a little stumped sometimes in terms of what are we going to use. Sometimes we will bring in things we think are going to work but they don’t. The creaking of the onion carriage in ‘Shrek’ -- that took some time to sort. We ended up using this really bizarre giant fork. It is this piece of wood that creaks as it opens and closes. Then we miked it in such a way to make it sound different. We do a lot of different miking techniques to make things bigger than they are.”