Water Foley - How does it work?

Question

We few of us are planning to build a foley pit, but are quite concerned as to how to do water foleys. Till now we have been using plastic buckets and metal tubs filled with water. There are two problems to it, a) both of them resonate pretty badly b) The foley stage gets messed up after a water session. Since we are planning a foley stage that doubles up as an adr room, we would like to have it need most of the times.

I would like to know how most big studio work with water foleys. What sort of tub do they use. How do they drain it, etc.

Answer 1

One tip - be sure it's round. Square tanks have terrible slapback resonance.

Answer 2

Purpose built Foley stages usually have water pits built into the floor. The bigger the pit the better as one of the biggest issues is that the water tends to hit the sides of the tub or pit and splash back, which is a bit like adding echo to the sounds you're recording. Having a pit that has an angle to all the sides will help reduce these unwanted extra sounds. I suggest that you make your water pit out of concrete so that the plastic sound of a bucket or the metal sound of a tub do not interfere with the purely aquatic sound you need.

I've never tried it, but I've heard of someone who used a round kiddie wading pool and lined the walls with foam rubber. It worked for them.

Yes, water is messy.