The most terrifying assignment of these two weeks was the Foley one.

I’m one of those people that needs a million takes to do anything. “Live” just isn’t easy for me.

So the assignment was to make the sounds for a Charlie Chaplin movie.

I am born in February, so I had to create the sounds for 00:31 – 1:00 of the clip.

As per the directions, I made a list of all the actions that might have created noise.

Pull a scarf out of a pocket
Wave scarf
Put back in pocket
Take step
Take step
Take step
Take step
Lifting aluminum cage door
Cat breath
Cat growl
Aluminum door falls
Step backwards
Step forwards
Pan slides off wooden shelf
Water drops

Then I went on a quest to find objects in my apartment that could make similar sounds to these actions.

For the scarf, I used a silk dress that I have. I shook it in the air and then ran it through my hand to get the first few seconds of sound.

Of course, for the steps, I stepped on my wooden floors in soft shoes.

The aluminum cage door was the easiest! I used two aluminum pans and scratched them against one another to create that effect.

Now the hardest part… cat growls. This isn’t a lion’s growl–it’s a tiger’s. Much harder, in my opinion. I found some manila folders and thumbed through them while making a sound with my mouth for the tiger’s growl. Not perfect, but it’s the best I could do!

Finally, the last scene required some water. This was tough. I spilled water all over my floor in my attempt to make this sound. What I had planned to do was splash water from a cup into a baking pan. I didn’t realize, however, that the water would splash out as well…

This took me probably over 50 recordings to get to where it is now.

Here it is in all its glory in Audacity. Not much to see really, though.

So now the final product: