John Simpson creates sounds for tracks of array of films from silence of shed in South Australia's outback
Foley artist John Simpson (inset) created soundtrack sounds for an array of featurefims, including Mad Max: Fury Road (above right) from his remote tin shed, set up with equipment, awards and creative oddments, outside Quorn in South Australia's Flinders Ranges.
Images ocurtesy Dr Ann Jones for her ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) radio programme Off Track
John Simpson created the sounds for a huge range of international and Australian feature films a remote tin shed in South Australia’s outback Flinders Ranges.
The silence of Simpson’s workplace is the great benefit for his skill as a Foley artist: someone who creates all the sounds, beyond sound effects, that an actor makes such as having a shave, brushing teeth, putting on a necklace or a jacket.
Simpson moved to live and work outside Quorn, about five hours north of Adelaide, chasing the silence. He started working in film in the 1980s as a projectionist with the South Australian Film Corporation in Adelaide. When a foley producer didn't show up to work one day. Simpson stepped into the sound recording room permanently as foley artist for the corporation and later formed his own FeetnFramea studio business.
One of Simpson’s first films was The Lighthorsemen (1987) a World War I story with lots of sand and horse footfalls sound needed. From all the sound for a film being recorded at that time onto tape and mixed using about five tracks, Simpson’s studio in a shed putside Quorn was able to record hundreds of tiny sound snippets for a scene, using specially designed Australian-made equipment.
Simpson said working on The Adventures of Tintin with director Steven Spielberg was highilight of his career that grew with Foley walker work for Jane Campion’s The Portrait of a Lady and Peter Weir’s The Truman Show. His other Foley artist work included Oscar and Lucinda, Babe: Pig in the City, Lantana and Danny Deckchair.
Simpson’s shed was full of oddments to create sounds matching the variety of his film tasks including The World’s Fastest Indian, December Boys, Australia, Mary and Max, The Lovely Bones, The Hobbit films, The Sapphires and 100 Bloody Acres. Projects for Simposn and his team into the 21st Century included Chef, The lego Movie, The Babadook, The Water Diviner, Max Ma: Fury Road and Regression.
As the name FeetnFrames suggested, footstep sounds became a theme for Simpson. For the penguins in Happy Feet, he usedwet sand to do the snow and different layers of concrete with grit on it for the ice. 'He told the ABC (australian Broadcasting Corporation) radio and television presenter Dr Ann Jones: “There's not too many animals that I haven't done, right down to a dung beetle rolling his roll of dung across a little thing for a BBC (British Broadcasting Corpoiration) nature doco to King Kong.”
The summer heat and internet lapsed were the downside of working at Quron but Simpson said he he had found the ideal place for his work:”A magical place”
