About
Sergei Kupriianov is a Canadian, Toronto based foley artist with more than 16 years of experience in composing complete foley recordings for all types of media.
Sergei's experience counts close to a 100 different titles in film industry, which include feature films, TV shows, animation, documentaries, and other media. Highlights such as The Postman's White Nights, drama film directed by Andrei Konchalovsky, which won the Silver Lion on the International Film Festival in Venice in 2015, and The Hunter by Bakur Bakuradze and a string of collaborations with Alexey Balabanov, stand out on an extensive CV. Sergei re-creates and then replaces sounds that cannot be properly recorded on set. His foley tracks are suitable for use in different sound program such as ProTools and can be used for foreign language localization. What makes a great foley artist based on Sergei's expertise: To be a great foley artist, I believe one must have relatively good reflexes. Eye-hand coordination is key to making a sound believable. Many times, a sound can be perceived as correct if the sync is perfect. You need to be a good listener. We work for editors. Editors have different criterion for each show we work on. It’s a subjective art with lots of possible variations. It’s important to do things the way the client intends for it to be heard. It helps to be an artist, musician, have a good physical ability. This is a physical job that requires strength and coordination. You need to be able to portray, (through the body language of the actor) what emotion they are presenting. |
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Describe Your Job?
I create the "sounds" for all types of media: features, documentaries, tv films, animation. Using our diverse assortment of shoes that I bring to the stage (heels, boots, sneakers, cleats, whatever the actors are wearing), I physically do all of the footsteps of the actors (walking, running, stumbling, etc.) on whatever surface they are on (dirt, pavement, spaceships, running through puddles, snow etc). Then I create the sounds of the props that the actors or heroes touch, throw, smash, etc. From computer keyboard typing, digging in the dirt with a shovel, slapping someone's face, crashing through a ceiling, to rampaging through a lab where the actor throws glass vials and metal shelves, and tosses boxes around; I do it all. Every time it looks different for different type of media, I always try to create something new, very personal for each title. I always try to think a lot about the concept, about the movie, what it means, what you are looking for. Work a lot with the Director, trying to understand what he wants. Then you define a set-up that means something for the project. Yes, you are taking some risk, but it’s controlled risk because you’re doing something that means something.’ For example, I remember working on a The Postman's White Nights, drama film directed by Andrei Konchalovsky. It is a half documentary, half feature film, I decided to pretend all sounds are natural, as if it is a documentary, with all sounds taken on a set. It was an interesting experience, nobody believes there is no one sound from the shooting, all of them were made by me. Later, Film was selected for the In Competition section at the 71st Venice International Film Festival and won the Silver Lion. I am proud of being a part of such interesting job. Animation films also a great possibility for creation. I like all of them! |
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