When it comes to movie magic, Palm Desert resident Zane Bruce waves the ultimate audial wand. Bruce, a native of New Zealand, is among only 150 people in the world who hold the title “Foley Artist.” The craft is eponymously named for one-time silent film director Jack Foley, who pioneered the art of sound effects for radio and movies. It involves post-production performance of handcrafted sounds created in synchrony with myriad on-screen actions. The specialized art form called “Foley” accentuates and creates the depth, soul, and feel of sound to heighten the viewing experience.
After traveling the world in his youth as a circus performer (tightrope and trapeze were among his acts), Bruce made his way to SoCal in the early 1980s. There, he started his nascent Hollywood career by working in the mail room for Aaron Spelling’s production company. Keeping his ears open aided his path. “When I saw Foley being performed, I found the niche and followed the path,” Bruce recalls. “I kept my nose clean and slowly worked my way up.”
More than 35 years and over 500 film, TV, and video game credits later, Bruce is among the entertainment industry’s most in-demand Foley artists. He commutes between Palm Desert and the LA-based Paradise Sound Group stage he and his business partners opened three years ago. Bruce’s mantle includes four Emmys and a shared Oscar in Sound Effects Editing for the movie "Bram Stoker’s Dracula."
Sounds of Home
The art of Foley involves creating an effect for almost every sound – subtle or paramount – heard in a show or film. The sound can be as indirect as a character touching their face or as immense and crucial to narrative as a dramatic murder. "You see something, you wanna hear it,” Bruce says. While a feature film generally requires the creation of approximately 6,000 individual sound files, Bruce remembers creating as many as 12,000 for "Bram Stoker’s Dracula" … and most of those sounds actually have multiple sound files within them.
Remarkably, a Foley artist’s craftsmanship rarely, if ever, involves an effect generated by the sound or subject that the screen portrays. For instance, Bruce uses boxing gloves to create the sound of bodies falling, wooden dowels for hand-fighting “whoosh” effects, feather dusters for a bird’s flapping wings, gloves with paper clips for a dog’s claws on a floor, coconut shells (with a little tar resin for depth) for horse hooves, doorknobs for metallic gun movements, and over 200 different pairs of shoes for walking effects.
The majority of Bruce’s set props come from thrift shopping, home goods, and hand-me-downs, though they play an integral part of a multibillion dollar industry. “Most of my props are from my home,” Bruce says with a smile. “When my daughters are getting rid of something, [the objects] always end up on my sound stage. The purses they’ve purged, they have a nice leathery creak to them. So, say there’s a scene with a guy walking around a house with a gun, and a camera zooms in on his feet and he’s walking on an old wooden floor. Between the steps, I’ll take one of those old purses and give it a nice little twist for that leathery shoe creak.”
Jewelry boxes also prove critical to the sound arsenal. "Say it’s a scene where a bartender is pouring a cocktail and putting ice in a glass and pouring a drink,” Bruce says. “What works great for that? Pearls. The thicker pearls work great for that fresh ice sound and then, throughout the scene as the ice is melting, I’ll use a smaller strand of pearls to get that ‘thinner’ sound.”
No winter season? No problem. The pantry can solve that. “Obviously, I don’t have snow on the sound stage,” Bruce continues. “So, for a scene with a character walking in snow, I’ll use a pillowcase full of cornstarch – about 40 pounds – and then have a damp towel in there for just a little wetness. And when you walk on that, it has that crunch, that moist crunch.”
Though Western movies need the most sound creations – horse hooves, wagons, guns, boots, spurs, bridles, gun-loading, cigars – Bruce’s favorite projects generally involve the undead. “I really like the vampire stuff,” he says. “They’re very ... sexy, very cool, and I like the period style of the productions and all the antique props. And then I like the sounds of all the blood drips and crackles and bone breaks. I guess I just really like all the gory stuff.”
Along with grinding lava rocks together for cringey bone-on-bone effects, gripping either the innards of a raw turkey or a watermelon to mimic a gushy kill, and dropping wet paper towels for vampy blood drops, Bruce truly revels in a good bone break. “For an arm break, you’ve got the solid bone on the upper arm and more cartilage down below … same as with the fingers,” he says. “I’ve got a bunch of wood shingles on my stage – thick on one end, thinner on the other. I’ll wrap a towel around them, and when I crack the lower end of the shingle, you get those bone sounds. And the upper end of [it] has that nice big pop.”
For a crimson kill, Bruce goes to the fridge for the sound of fangs. “Celery is really good for neck bites,” he says. “I used to use apples, but I now use frozen celery that I’ll bite into.”
Sounding it Forward
Despite a near-century of existence, there is no formal training, no formal schooling, and no formal degree for the Foley art form. The reason? Equally historic Hollywood competition and unease. “We’re very insecure people, though I’m not anymore,” Bruce says with a laugh. “But, there is nobody to teach this craft. People don’t want to teach anybody because … there’s only so much work out there to go around. But, of course, that’s now changed, with all the streaming services and so many films and documentaries and projects to work on.”
Bruce envisioned starting the world’s first-ever formal Foley school for years. As a decades-long desert guest before becoming a full-time Valley resident, he believes his sandy base is the perfect spot for founding such a unique institution. “It’s something I’ve thought about for a while,” he says. “There’s a great career here in Foley, and I want to pay it forward.”
The aim is more than a whim, and Bruce performed his due diligence by connecting locally with College of the Desert (COD); California State University; California State University San Bernardino, Palm Desert Campus (CSUSB-PD); and the McCallum Theatre. CSUSB-PD hosted Bruce at its annual Communication Day event last spring; the house was packed with faculty and students from its own campus and visitors from COD. “He demonstrated walking in heels and explained the timing of that with matching the film,” recalls Michael Salvador, professor and coordinator of communication studies at CSUSB-PD. “He showed how he used his voice to create effects; he used different props to create sounds of wind or birds flying. And when he was done, the students had lots and lots of questions, which is always a good sign.”
Since CSUSB-PD offers a degree in media studies and a minor in film studies, Salvador believes that Bruce’s Foley school concept has ample potential for the desert. “He’s got such depth of knowledge, and the students were really captivated,” Salvador adds. “Zane was one of the most popular speakers we’ve had at the campus. It was all so interesting.”
The desert has a vast history as a playground for the stars. So, Bruce believes that a local training ground for Hollywood-bound students of Foley can make some serious noise across the 100-mile stretch between Tinsel Town and the Coachella Valley. “There’s never been a formal Foley school, and as I’ve been coming out to the desert since the early ’80s, I’ve spent a lot of time out here and have been doing my research out here,” Bruce concludes. “Palm Springs has that classic Hollywood vibe, so I want to dig further into that and into this community.”
