Audio Acquisition, and Pulp Fiction.

[Tobiah]

There was a scene in "Pulp Fiction", that sticks in my mind.
Ok, almost all of them do, but one sticks because of the
audio that was captured.

When Butch comes back to his apartment to retrieve his
Kangaroo watch, he pauses at the door, with the key at
it's intended orifice, and takes a breath.

Next, he shoves the key into the doorknob that opens his
own apartment door.

I have always been curious as to the equipment that was
used to acquire the insertion (key) sound. Any ideas,
or experience?

Thanks,

Tobiah

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[Richard Crowley]

"Tobiah" wrote ...
> There was a scene in "Pulp Fiction", that sticks in my mind.
> Ok, almost all of them do, but one sticks because of the
> audio that was captured.
>
> When Butch comes back to his apartment to retrieve his
> Kangaroo watch, he pauses at the door, with the key at
> it's intended orifice, and takes a breath.
>
> Next, he shoves the key into the doorknob that opens his
> own apartment door.
>
> I have always been curious as to the equipment that was
> used to acquire the insertion (key) sound. Any ideas,
> or experience?

You can be sure that it was done after the fact in a Foley
studio. Perhaps with some completely different kind of lock
(and maybe not even a lock and key at all). Foley artists
select objects for how they *sound* :-)

If you asked this question over in the film sound newsgroup
news:rec.arts.movies.production.sound you might even
find someone that worked on that film. IMDB says that
Catherine and Joan Rowe were the Foley artists for that
production.

[Chris Hornbeck]

On Mon, 03 Dec 2007 17:21:03 -0800, Tobiah > wrote:

>Next, he shoves the key into the doorknob that opens his
>own apartment door.
>
>I have always been curious as to the equipment that was
>used to acquire the insertion (key) sound. Any ideas,
>or experience?

These specialized sounds are called "Foley", named after
a real person. They're recorded separately from the movie
by folks who do just that. It's a specialized art, and
sometimes doesn't even come from a related source - kinda
like cocoanuts for horse's hooves.

Beyond that tidbit, I know nothing.

Thanks, as always,

Chris Hornbeck