Mockumentary Spoofs Life of Porn Movie Foley Artist
Hollywood behind-the-scenes stories about how Ben Burtt created the sound effects in Raiders of the Lost Ark are legendary: smacking a leather jacket with a baseball bat for fistfights noises, mixing a macaroni salad for the sound of slithering snakes, or driving down a rocky road for the rumbling boulder. But what about the porn-movie equivalent? A new short-film mockumentary directed by Jack Pearce takes a satirical look at a fictional porn foley artist named Grant Meyers (played by Will Stephen).
The philosophical, serious-minded adult film sound effects man is seen creating XXX soundtracks by all sorts of unusual means, including by thumping raw meat with a hammer, pulling on a balloon, and even jabbing his hand with a plunger. “When you’re watching an erotic film, you’re watching pixels. Pixels aren’t real. Sound is real. Sounds is vibrations in the air. That’s the contact the performer is making with the viewer; it’s not visual. the sound is the thing that’s touching you. You’re not hearing it, you’re feeling it… the sound is where the sexual activity happens,” he notes.
He’s also seen out in the field capturing natural sounds for possible use, even some with improbable utility (a creaking bank sign). But it’s all in a day’s work! “When I’m doing field recording all I’m doing is contextualizing the eroticism, and when I layer that on to my films and to the work that I’m hired to do, I’m layering on depth, and I’m layering on substance. It makes something real of the world; it adds context, and it makes it authentic. It makes it live and breathe and drip with sound,” he says.
At two other points, Meyers joins his editor to listen to the product. Round one just doesn’t work and Meyers saunters away in disappointment, but round two is pure movie magic (though the editor’s amusingly nonplussed reaction suggests he doesn’t share Meyers’ singular enthusiasm for XXX foley art).
Watch the complete short-film parody here:
And if you’re craving adult entertainment that emphasizes the sonic side of things, check out these choice selections, which might even win over Grant himself.
