Recently I had to create sounds for tiny people, they were about as tall as a pencil.
I couldn't figure out a good sound for footsteps so I used my fingers on bare wood (because they ran across a bar).
Does anyone know of something that would sound good for tiny footsteps? I may have to do some more design in the future.
Thanks! - Ryan
Rent a flea circus.
(just kidding).
Bare fingers is a great way to do it. Also, a tried and true foley method for animal feet could work: Leather gloves with paperclips taped to the fingers. Instant claws!
Foley is about capturing a performance, so you will want to try using objects that you can get in character & perform with... experiment! Male or female? what kind of shoes? Maybe two pencils will work... maybe pencils with erasers on the end.... maybe 2 lego blocks... maybe your finger nails.... maybe the sharp end of two kitchen knives for high heels....
I had to foley a little robot dog on mars once, I ended up performing them using drill bits in a tray of sand.... As with human foley, once I had a sound that was right the most important thing was getting the 'feel' of the performance right for each walk...
Use your fingers again, but this time cut two finger tips off a pair of old leather gloves and put the offcuts on your 'walking' fingers. You will have instant 'booties' and will be able to easily match the action.
The reason for using just the finger tips is that you will avoid the rubbing sound if you wear a whole glove. If you cut off a second pair of finger tips you can harden them in the oven to make them sound more squeaky, and you can also apply leather feed to make a set softer. You can also use the thumb tips to make it sound like the character is walking out of their shoes.
If you're comfortable with synthesis Audiokinetic has a plug-in for Wwise called soundseed "impact" which they claim is suited for this sort of situation. link text
Just a different option to think about for the future.
Everyone's responses we so awesome. As a fellow foley artist I am glad to have such rad cohorts!
I had to do something similar and what I did was take the heels off of some shoes and then moving them against the applicable surface. Worked great.
