Walking/Running Advice

Question

Dear all,

I had to do some walking for a couple characters on a short film I am working on today.

Last night I recorded the main character, and couldn't help but notice that it's really hard to walk without the additional cloth of my own clothes added to the sound.

Luckily, my own clothes didn't sound different to what the character had on screen, but I'm curious to what the rules of thumb are for walking and what types of clothing to wear (shorts, type of pants, socks, etc.) for minimal cloth rustle while walking? For example, what if it's someone who has on a full suit made of a different material than what you have on and you want to add that sound in later?

I'm sure this is covered in the book entitled "The Foley Grail" - I really need to purchase that book. But for now, any experience you might have that you could impart to me would be most excellent.

Thanks in advance -

Ryan

Answer 1

I always use the same shorts (yewwww!) that i've "auditioned" for two years ago. I went around in a store and rustled all the shorts they had until i found a pair that was really quiet. I always use those and a very tight tshirt (mind you i don't make the shirt look good haha) to keep the rustle to a minimum. Also i tend to squat a little bit when i'm walking, i find to have better control that way, and the byproduct of that is that the legs are a bit further apart also helping in reducing the rustle.

For socks i try to use thin small socks, if i have some clean ones.