Recently I've been hearing more of two theatrical effects that have been used so often that there must be a name for them. (Directors love stealing ideas from each other, so I'm fairly certain these effects have been named by now. Please don't ask me where I've been for the last 30 years...)

Effect #1: In film or theatre, when an object falls, is blown in two, lands on the floor, pavement, top of someone's head, there is a sound effect added that is reverberating, deep, and often unlike the natural sound of whatever has fallen or made impact with something else. Or, say someone sweeps the tip of a shoe across the floor...sound effects would be added to electrify and intensify that sound--anything from the sound of a rocket taking off to, say, an amplified ripping sound. (I think rips are often doctored up this way.) Amplification, timbre-manipulation, and surprise, I guess, would be the sound tech's intent here. But what's the name for this kind of manipulation with sound? (This goes beyond just a sound effect--this is sound effect taken to a sensational, often fantastic level. It can get on your nerves if overdone and it's rarely underdone.)

Effect #2: This one I didn't like the first time, did like a little the second; but now I just want to say, "Oh, shut up!" It's when you take a group of lines that the director has some personal affection for. You hear one actor, for example, begin the line:

"To be!"

Another picks it up, "To be!" And then a third: "To be..." Each actor delivering the words slightly differently. Then, say, a group says, "Or not to be." A fourth group, on a mountaintop or coming down the aisles, says, "That is!" And then someone else enters stage left, "That is..." The first three speakers say, "That is..." And then maybe the whole group says, "The question..." And each exits one at a time saying and fading, "The question....." ...except Hamlet, who draws his foot in imaginary soil, seemingly causing effect #1, and therewith completes the soliloquy.

What is this layering, repetitive use of monologue and/or dialogue called? It's used in TV commercials and I can't stand it.

Sounds like you've just seen a rather "experimental" version of Hamlet (was it done in modern dress, all nude, or pig outfits?). I don't know about that second effect (I think "layered dialogue" is a good enough name for it if there isn't one), and I'm assuming that you don't mean Foley effects by the first one. Foley effects are those added to a film (and plays, I assume) to replicate sounds that would not otherwise be picked up in the filming (or were impossible to pick up). They are often done with unlikely implements (pounding coconut shells for hoofbeats is the obvious one) and today can be layered, tweaked, and twisted ad infinitum on computers. I think you're looking for something more surrealistic though, where the sound is not supposed to be natural at all. Perhaps Special Foley Effects?

FlatLander, I am fairly certain that "Foley Effect" is the sound manipulation effect that I've heard about in regard to exaggerating sound in creative ways. Thanks for that!

The layering of dialogue I'll bet has a name, too--it's used very much in theatre today, so I hope someone out there will read this and put my mind to rest over it.

Best regards,
WW

Dear WW: There might be something of interest to you in this link:

http://www.marblehead.net/foley/

Awesome, wwh! I learned a lot, particularly about Jack Foley and ways you can home brew sounds effects.

The Foley effects that are used today are taken to the max. They were used in "Moulin Rouge," which is fun to hear just to notice the sound effects--exaggerated, humorous, and a sonic feast for the ears.

Here's a little from the site you posted that some here may be interested in reading:

"Jack was truly adaptable in a period of change, a jack-of-all-trades and master of them all. "

He went to Public School No. 158. His classmates were James Cagney, Arthur Murray, and Bert Lahr.

During this period, Jack met Cary Grant, who was a stilt walker at Coney Island.

The movie "Spartacus" showed scenes of slaves walking in leg chains. The director was all set to return to Italy and restage the scene to capture the sound effects. Jack stepped in and did the whole sequence with footsteps and key chains.


Corn Starch in a leather pouch makes the sound of snow crunch

A pair of gloves sounds like bird wing flaps

An arrow or thin stick makes a great whoosh! [wwh: What was the name of that stick with the string you
mentioned a few weeks back?]

An old chair makes a controllable creaking sound..."

Anyway, thanks for the site.


Now, I hope still to learn what that effect of layering dialogue may be called...


A new Jack Foley fan,
WordWooed