Chewy Spit (CSM Film)

Aside from my usual work and submissions for uni, I was invited to another project from Central Saint Martins. India Wilson reached out and said she needed assistance with foley and sound for her film, ‘Chewy Spit’ and I was brought on board. Though this is not my first work with foley, it was a new endeavor to live record the sound while on set for the film during the shoot. I came simpy with my Zoom recorder and a set of headphones. This film was put together for India’s Fine Art submission where she aimed to display her design skills by creating the whole set and all props for the film by hand. My main objective for the shoot was to extensively capture the main actress shoveling jelly into her mouth, and spitting it back out for one of the main sequences for the film. This sequence proved to be very entertaining to edit, the scene was comprised of the actress taking a small sip from a chalice and proceeding to enter a frenzy where she consumes an absurd amount of jelly, popping pearls, smoothies, and retches all of it back into a desk drawer. From this experience, I can take note of how I record efficiently as a sound artist, for this was not necessarily the ideal environment to be recording sound. Throughout the shoot, I would pull specific props to the side to gather the recordings, but due to the fact that there was a small crew and a small set, my recorder picked up on a lot of background noise. Initially, I did not think the background ambiance would be an issue until I took these recordings and discovered how many voices in the background were captured. Background noise generally has not been an issue for me in post-production, but voices in the backing have been a challenge for me to edit out and at this point, it would just be less work for me to re-record. This project, however, was my first on-set film, this came as a lesson for me to learn from. Though I enjoyed being on set and helping out with the film hands-on, as a foley/sound designer, I did not need to be there. In terms of my own efficiency, I can say now that in future foley jobs, my job and workflow would move best with its’ entirety in post-production where I do not need to worry about background ambiance and learn how keep re-recording to a minimum. I have yet to finish the final sound for this project, but we are officially in post-production.