5. How to Be a Foley Sound Artist

Summary

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How to Be Anything

Episode 5: How to Be a Foley Sound Artist

Host: Emily McCrary
Guest: Ronnie Vanderbeer
Released: August 6, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode of How to Be Anything illuminates the unusual and elastic world of Foley sound art through the career and studio practice of Dutch Foley artist Ronnie Vanderbeer. Host Emily McCrary takes listeners behind the screens of cinema to uncover how movies and TV shows construct the sounds that make imaginary worlds feel real. Vanderbeer reveals the artistry, problem-solving, and sometimes sheer improvisation that Foley entails—from mimicking footsteps on human flesh to the clank of a machine gun belt—while sharing insights about the evolution of his craft, the details of his daily work, and his creative journey.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What Is Foley, and What Isn’t?

• Foley artists recreate naturalistic, character-driven sounds for film and TV—not big effects like explosions, rain, or engines, which come from sound libraries or other specialists (05:25).
• The focus is on the “movements of the actor,” e.g., footsteps, the clink of a cup, a hand tapping a table:

  “We don’t do the actual shooting, but we do the rattle… maybe of the gun or someone puts a gun on a table.”
  — Ronnie Vanderbeer [05:28]

2. The Art & Ingenuity Behind the Sounds

• Sounds are rarely what they seem: a “tunnel made of flesh” was built from a mat, wet towels, and the artist’s hands, creating a mix of “tappy” and “squishy” (02:22):

  “It should be sounding like a very thick, big skin or organ… so that’s why I put it on a wooden floor, because the wooden floor gives more bass.”
  — Ronnie Vanderbeer [02:42]

• Everyday objects like wet chamois cloths, rubber mats, or keys become surrogates for mud, food, or bullets.

3. The Foley Process

• Foley is performed live to picture, physically mimicking actors’ gestures while watching the screen—not just recording isolated noises:

  “I watch the TV and watch all the movement of the actors. I look at the screen while I perform the movements.”
  — Ronnie Vanderbeer [06:19]

• Foley fills in or heightens scenes where real set recordings don’t capture enough detail or emotional nuance.

4. Creative Problem-Solving

• Making unfamiliar or impossible sounds (e.g., landing in a shark’s mouth, fingers being cut off) demands trial, error, and imagination (08:10, 18:33):

  “I had this USB stick that was made of rubber… and I dropped that on the floor and that worked very well for a chopped-off finger.”
  — Ronnie Vanderbeer [18:33]

• Props are often scavenged or invented; for machine gun belts, bullets may be simulated by shells, wind chime pieces, or keys (13:05).

5. The Layered Construction of a Scene

• Each scene’s Foley is built in layers: footsteps first, then props, then clothes, capturing all sound-action elements the actors experience:

  “For a scene like that, Rani works in layers, starting with footsteps, then add sounds for any props… then the rustling of clothes…”
  — Emily McCrary [12:29]

6. Collaboration and Workflow

• Foley artists communicate with the film’s sound designer to align style (realistic vs. heightened), solve unique sound challenges, and synchronize creative vision (09:59).
• Work is tightly scheduled: a mid-scale feature takes about six days; epic war movies take much longer (“The Forgotten Battle” required 23 days) (11:01, 11:43).

7. Tools, Studio, and Professional Growth

• Ronnie’s studio near Amsterdam features nine different wooden floors, a small pool, and even a car—not for engines, but “subtle sounds” inside a vehicle (19:51, 20:15).
• His journey began as a sound designer and composer, segueing into Foley out of necessity and curiosity. Lacking mentors in the Netherlands, he learned through hands-on trial, feedback, and travel (17:15).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Foley’s Magic:

  “That's actually the cool thing about my job. When I record it and I listen back and see it, and I feel like I would believe that… this is the original sound. Then my job is done.”
  — Ronnie Vanderbeer [14:27]

• On Admiration for the Work:

  “It's still a magical thing to me even after all those years… you listen back to it, and you believe that that's the real sound.”
  — Ronnie Vanderbeer [25:57]

• On the Importance of Rhythm and Musicianship:

  “What I do, it’s all rhythms actually… You have ‘Chucka chugga Chuck’… If someone writes a letter, that’s also rhythms.”
  — Ronnie Vanderbeer [24:18]

• On Foley Community and Trade Secrets:

  “…People realize it’s not about that one object you use… it’s about your talent, and if you’re good, then you will have enough work.”
  — Ronnie Vanderbeer [24:18]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Meet Ronnie & What Is Foley? [01:34]
• Creating the Sound of Walking on Skin [02:22]
• Foley vs. Sound Effects [05:25]
• Performing Foley to Picture [06:19]
• Solving Unusual Sound Challenges [08:10]
• Workflow with Sound Designers [09:59]
• Big Projects: “The Forgotten Battle” [11:01], [11:43]
• Layered Sound Construction [12:29]
• Favorite/Clever Foley Solutions [14:27], [18:33]
• Studio Setup & Tools [19:51], [20:15]
• The Creative State & Reflection [20:45]
• Recognition & Professional Learning [22:16], [23:19]
• Sharing Knowledge in the Foley Community [24:09]
• Love for the Craft [25:57]

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Episode Takeaways

• Foley isn’t about noise, but about storytelling—the invisible artistry that convinces you a world and its characters are real.
• The best Foley marries technical skill, resourcefulness, inventiveness, and a certain playfulness: turning anything into anything, even a tunnel made of flesh.
• The field is small, collaborative, and ever-evolving, with a spirit of shared discovery rather than trade secrecy.
• For Ronnie, the magic of Foley endures: every time the artificial becomes convincing, it’s the thrill of starting fresh, and, as he puts it, “We made a sound for that.”

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For more on Ronnie Vanderbeer and his films, visit howtobeanything.com or follow the show’s Instagram.

Transcript

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[Emily McCrary]

If you've ever watched a film or TV show and felt immersed in the story, really believing in the world on screen, whether hyper realistic or entirely otherworldly, it's due in part to someone like Ronnie Vanderbeer.

[Ronnie Vanderbeer]

At one point someone moved a closet and then there was a big hole in the wall and that turned into kind of a tunnel made of meat. So it's kind of like a bird canal they called it.

[Emily McCrary]

Ronnie is a Foley sound artist based in the Netherlands. This is an art named after Jack Foley, the sound effects specialist who originated the forum in the 1930s. It's Ronnie's job to create the squish of a person walking through a tunnel made of flesh, the sticky sound of someone nervously wrapping their hands over a steering wheel, and the tip tap of an ant's footstep, or the rattle of a machine gun belt.

[Ronnie Vanderbeer]

I remember we spent quite some time on that scene where the character was walking through that tunnel to make the footsteps big, but also squishy but not too wet. It's not like they walk in mud because they walk basically on the skin. So it was a very weird scene, but it was very nice challenge to do that.

[Interviewer]

What did you use to create the sound of walking on skin?

[Ronnie Vanderbeer]

I used wooden floor and on top of that I had, I think, was your judo mat. So it's kind of a rubbery mat. And on top of that, I put wet towels. And I think in the end I didn't walk, but I used my hands and so I could perform it better. It was easier for me to perform that sound and make it a bit more tappy as well, so you still hear the wetness, the skin tissue sounds. That's actually one of the most used Foley props there is. So a chamois, the leather cloth, if you make it wet, gets this slimy sound. So we use it for, for instance, pasta, for food, for instance, but also from mud, walking through mud. And in this case, it's a very obvious choice, actually, to just use multiple. Make them wet, walk on it. And then you're like, ah, this sounds like a wet surface. But then because this was part of a bigger organism, it should sound big as well. It should be sounding like a very thick, big skin or organ. So that's why I chose to put it on a wooden floor, because the wooden floor gives more bass. And then you get all these low ends, these low frequencies that help. Selling the idea that this is part of a bigger organism.

[Emily McCrary]

Foley artists recreate ordinary, everyday sounds for film and tv. Or in the case of footsteps on skin, not so ordinary. The work of Foley artists is often very, very small, almost undetectable on screen. But if it weren't there, the whole thing would just feel kind of wrong. Typically, while a scene is being shot, the sound engineer is primarily concerned with capturing the sound of the performer's voice if there's dialogue. Every moment spent on a film set costs a lot of money. So any other sounds that might be made during a performance, like footsteps or rustling clothes or a tapping finger, those don't get captured with much fidelity. And it's not worth redoing a whole scene just to log the sound of footsteps and then again to capture the noise made by putting on a jacket for sounds.

[Ronnie Vanderbeer]

The situation is also not ideal on a movie set. There's wind machines and there's maybe all kinds of stuff that makes sounds that's not really ideal for the recordings for a movie. You also want to enhance the sound a bit. You want to have a cinematic experience also with the sound. So what we can do in the studio here is have a very quiet recording, use the microphone, put it very close, and make it sound better than life.

[Emily McCrary]

Basically, this is how to Be Anything. The podcast about people with unusual jobs. I'm Emily McCrary. Ronnie Van Der Veer has worked on movies you may have seen, like Yorgos Lanthimosis, the Lobster, starring Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz and Olivia Colman, Victor Pollster's the Girl, as well as the Forgotten Battle, a Dutch movie about the battle of the Scheld in World War II.

[Interviewer]

What do people misunderstand about your job?

[Ronnie Vanderbeer]

First of all, people think it's sound effects. So. Oh, then you do rain and thunder and that kind of stuff, but that's actually the things we don't do, but we do all the specific, like more the movements of the actor actually putting a cup on the table, sitting in a chair, a gun rattle, for instance. We don't do the actual shooting, but we do the rattle, maybe of the gun or someone puts a gun on a table.

[Emily McCrary]

Those kind of sounds, sounds like rain, thunder, explosions, a dog barking, a car engine turning over. Those are typically made by other sound effects specialists and then pulled from sound effects libraries. They aren't necessarily unique to any given film. Lets say a character on screen makes a pencil sketch or handwrites a letter. The sound you hear doesn't come from the actual production of the film. It might come from a studio in the Netherlands where Ronnie sat in front of a TV mimicking the actor's movements.

[Ronnie Vanderbeer]

One thing that's very common also is that people think that we just record all the sounds and then someone else will put it under the movie. But what's important to know is that I really watch the TV and watch all the movement of the actors. I look at the screen while I perform, while I perform the movements. So in the case of that drawing, for instance, I will not look at the paper, I will look at the TV and make the same movement.

[Emily McCrary]

Rani can also be the pinch hitter. If a recorded scene doesn't really land.

[Ronnie Vanderbeer]

Let'S say there's a very quiet scene and the director is not happy with the performance of the actors and she's like, yeah, it doesn't work really. And then maybe we can add extra sounds to make the scene more interesting or to help the performance a bit. Or maybe the character is a bit nervous. The sound designer can ask me, can you maybe make the chairs creak, for instance? So we enhance that part a bit so the person seems a bit more nervous than he actually is. Sometimes I'm seeing also in the performance of an actor that someone is wiggling his foot or someone is tapping his finger. And those kind of things I always try to record also because the actor chooses that it fits the character. So then I also feel like I should Also follow that lead in the end. That really helps telling the story of the character.

[Emily McCrary]

Sounds like footsteps or eating often translate pretty well one to one from studio to film. So we hear someone crunching crackers on screen and the foley artist does the exact same thing in the studio to replicate the sound. But not everything translates that well. Let's say we see someone running a fork through creamy pasta. You could easily cook up a bunch of pasta and run a fork through it in a Foley studio. But sometimes an imitation sounds better than the real thing. A wet chamois cloth might sound richer and more real than reality.

[Interviewer]

Are there any sounds that you haven't been able to make or something that's been really difficult to figure out?

[Ronnie Vanderbeer]

We always try to do something, even if I feel like it's very difficult. Today I'm working on a few animation scenes that are part of a live action movie. I was working on a scene where people jump off of a platform into the mouth of a shark. Don't ask me why, but they do that. So then I need to make the sound of someone landing in the mouth of a shark. How does it sound? I don't know. So I just used those wet shammies again. Made impact with my hands on it. So you have this kind of, yeah, wet impact of a mouth and then.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Ronnie Vanderbeer]

I'm hoping that the sound effects editor will also do something because since it's animation, they can do maybe a funny bite sound or something like that that will work nicely together.

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[Emily McCrary]

Ronnie never goes on set. His work is entirely post production. The sound designer is in charge of all sou in a movie, so she'll call a dialogue editor to clean up any dialogue, a sound effects editor to find those big noises, and then she'll call Ronnie for the Foley sound.

[Ronnie Vanderbeer]

Before I start recording on a movie, I would call with him or her and Then I would talk about, yeah, what is the idea for the sound? Should it be very realistic? For instance, when you work on an arthouse movie, you want it to sound like more realistic, actually. Yeah, like an action movie, like the Forgotten Bat, all that. You can make it a bit bigger. People are expecting that the machine gun sounds big. And we would do the same with the foley as well, make footsteps big. So that's good to know from the sound designer what the approach is for the movie. And sometimes it's good to know if there's any problems that need to be solved in sound. Normally when I call it a sound designer, I already watch the movie. So I can ask very specific things. For instance, is the music that I hear in the guides, is that temporary music or is it already fixed music? Or I would watch the movie and then, yeah, then I would do test recordings for things that are very subjective or that I need to figure out. When someone drives in a truck, we need to make the rattle of the truck. Then it's nice to try some stuff out as well.

[Emily McCrary]

It takes him roughly six days to do all the foley for a single movie. Whether that feels like a crunch depends on the complexity of the film. Sometimes that's a comfortable six days. For other projects, he may struggle to complete the work in 10. One of the biggest projects he's worked on is the Forgotten Battle, that movie about the Battle of the Scheldt, which was a critical military operation that helped the Allies reclaim the port of Antwerp from the Nazis. That movie is on Netflix in the US by the way. There are scenes on the ground and in the air. There's a plane crash and lots of fighting in water. It's a big movie with airborne battles and hand to hand combat, followed by scenes of quiet tension.

[Ronnie Vanderbeer]

On a movie like that, because people know Saving Private Ryan, they expect a very big sound. But we have, I don't know, a tenth of the budget of Saving Private Ryan, but people still expect that. So you need to record very nice sounds. But for the Forgotten Battle, it was so much work that we did 23 days, but that was. Yeah, I think that movie is two hours long. There's battle scenes with soldiers, like, I don't know, hundreds of soldiers running. So it's so much more work. And I think the Forgotten Battle was the most difficult because it was such a big scope and it was so many sounds. Also I hadn't done that often and it was a lot of variety as well. The soldiers were running through the mud and then through the water and then on dirt and then through a field.

[Emily McCrary]

The movie opens with an anxious, active scene in which dozens of clerks in a high ceilinged office shuffle papers and pack boxes. For a scene like that, Rani works in layers, starting with footsteps, then add sounds for any props in the scene, then the rustling of clothes, more or less all the noise you hear in that scene. That's Rani being a movie about World War II. There's also a lot of machine guns in the forgotten battle. But remember, he's not creating the sound of the gunshots. He's just the rattle of the ammunition belt and the clacking of the gun itself.

[Ronnie Vanderbeer]

I used a combination of multiple things together. So I had some real bullets that I got from an antique shop, but I think it was more like shells because they were empty. They were not real bullets anymore. I just have a whole plastic container full of things that sound like bullets. So it might be things from the secondhand shop that I found that sound like it. Like keys, maybe, or part of a wind chime that has the sound of a bullet. So I remember I made kind of a belt myself with just a combination of those sounds together. And I think since it was going through a machine gun, I think we also did a take of the bullets rattling on a metal surface. So you have that it goes through, and then, of course, someone puts the sound effect of the actual shooting. So then those three layers sell the machine gun.

[Emily McCrary]

There's a scene in which Allied soldiers walk through an abandoned house that was recently flooded. The floor is muddy and the soldiers are wearing heavy uniforms and carrying bulky gear and weapons. He made the sound of their boots on the floor with, you guessed it, a wet shaming cloth. On one of the wooden floors. In his studio, the soldiers slowly explore the house, picking up little trinkets and opening creaky cabinets. One of them gently taps his fingers against a plate hanging on the wall. Ronnie made that little tap in his studio. When one of the boys finds a tin of crackers, he looks to see if anyone's watching, then dumps them in his mouth.

[Ronnie Vanderbeer]

I literally did that. Yeah, it's kind of toast. I think it's a typical Dutch thing, actually. It's like toasted breads in a circle. But the can, like all the toasted bread is. Is out of the can, but the crumbles are still there. So, yeah, I just used crumbles in. In a can, Just literally use the same thing because I knew that the movement and putting it in my mouth, all those things, people recognize that sound. So if you do this in another way, it will not work. That's actually the cool thing about my job. When I record it and I listen back and see it, and I feel like I. I would believe that the actor. That this is the original sound. Then, yeah, my job is done. Then. Then I know that I. Yeah, that it's good for that.

[Interviewer]

Are there any sounds in that movie that you're especially proud of the way you did it or the way it turned out?

[Ronnie Vanderbeer]

Yeah, there's a lot of stuff also in, like, a glider plane. So at one point they got hit. So there's all these pieces and bullets and stuff flying through the plane. So we did all these impacts on the inside of the plane, and then the plane crashes, and then the point of view from inside the plane that is in the water. So I used my swimming pool where I. Yeah, I think I put a. I put some pieces of metal in the swimming pool so I could create kind of a chamber. So then when you move the water, then it sloshes and moves a bit in that chamber. That sounded a bit like an airplane. So I could record it very realistically in that way. I remember a lot of water sounds I was happy. Happy about. Also to get that sound of a soldier with a uniform moving through the water, which is different than someone in a swimming suit swimming, for instance, because you have the whole uniform that's heavy and wet and sounds way more heavy and big. We did, I think, one half day of water. I think one half day of only doing people walking through water, falling in the water. There's whole fights also happening in the.

[Emily McCrary]

Water while Ronnie is performing a sound in the studio. There's at least one mic on him and what he's doing and others around the studio or the environment he's created in the studio to capture the acoustics of the space. There's also a Foley mixer there working behind a computer to make sure the audio is recorded properly. Then the Foley mixer combines all of the sounds they capture and sends it to a Foley editor who syncs it perfectly to the film, and then it's on to the film's sound designer.

[Ronnie Vanderbeer]

It's nice to have people that you regularly work with because it's a very specific profession. There's not so many people that do Foley. There's very little Foley artists. When I started here in the Netherlands, there was no one doing this, so I was lucky that I could watch Guifa Doyle, an Irish Foley artist, work in Ireland. So that really helped for me to see. Okay, how does someone who's Very professional do this. So that helped me early in my career.

[Interviewer]

How did you get started as a foley artist?

[Ronnie Vanderbeer]

After I graduated, I actually graduated more as a sound designer from university. Yeah, I did. It was more like an art academy kind of. So I studied composition and music production. So it was actually a combination of music and sound design. So music production, recording my own music, but doing also sound design for animation and movies. And after I graduated I did some like small short movies and once in a while I did some foley as well. And I really liked the foley only, yeah, I didn't have any paid work in that area. And then there was a colleague of mine who did foley for a few movies at a studio, like in one of the studios. That studio was searching for a new freelance foley artist and he didn't want to do it. So he recommended the sound designer to hire me. So that's how I came to do more and more. By doing more, you learn how to do it better, faster, better sounding. So yeah, I really made a lot of hours and that was very good training. Just doing and hearing it back and be like, oh, next time I should change it a bit like this or this. Getting feedback from the sound designer and improving it based on that. Because yeah, the easier way is just to be an assistant to experience foley artist. But since there was no one in the Netherlands doing it, I had to figure it out myself.

[Interviewer]

What was the first project, big project that you worked on?

[Ronnie Vanderbeer]

It was kind of a crime comedy. It was a nice movie. I remember it was very nice. And I remember there was a very scary scene where someone cut off a finger and the finger fell on the floor and I had to make the sound of the chopped off finger. And it was like, how the hell am I going to do that? And I had this USB stick that was made of rubber on the outside, kind of a shock proof one. And so I dropped that on the floor and that worked very well. Very nice. But that, yeah, I think that was the first project I did. I did a few movies in that year. Also one movie where we did a lot of Footsteps in the Dirt played in Curacao. So it was very dry dirt. So I had this one square meter of dirt where I was just doing runs and jumping and whatever in. So the whole studio was full of dust. So I needed to wear a mouthpiece for all the dust. At that time I was working in that studio that hired me as a freelance foley artist. But it was a very small studio. So I remember in the beginning I was learning a lot and was getting better. But after I think one and a half year, I felt like, oh, I'm really limited by the space because there's so much stuff you cannot do if you just have a small space. Like, for instance, footsteps on a wooden floor. You. Yeah, you can put a plank in the studio and walk on it, but it doesn't sound like a real wooden floor in an old house, for instance. I noticed I wanted to get a step up, and that's why I decided to start my own studio.

[Emily McCrary]

Ronnie now works out of his own studio in Harlem, a small city outside of Amsterdam. He's added a pool, though. It's only about 5ft in diameter, but it's plenty good for splashing around. He has nine different wood floors to capture different textures, tones and acoustics. There's a car in the studio now. Not to capture the sound of anything like a closing door, but smaller things like the sound of hands on a steering wheel.

[Ronnie Vanderbeer]

It's a smart car, so it's a small one, so it doesn't have the back seat. So it's a very good size for a Foley studio. But we do more just the subtle sounds. So someone gets into a car and sits in the chair, for instance. So we do maybe a creak of the chair and he puts his hands on the steering wheel. So those sounds. Or maybe he grabs his phone and starts texting someone. That we will record in the car as well. So you have that kind of facey sounds, the specific acoustics of a car.

[Emily McCrary]

Ronnie typically keeps a 9am to 6pm schedule, working chronologically through a film.

[Ronnie Vanderbeer]

I noticed then when we are actually recording, I'm also in a different mode because I can really. Now I'm alone in the studio and I could maybe prepare some recordings and test some stuff out. But I know when the Foley mixer is behind the computer, my brain doesn't have to be figuring out the technical part and doesn't have to think about key commands and that kind of stuff. And I can just focus on the sound. I get into this flow that where I'm more creative, and then I know I will be able to make a better sound. In the end, what helps is if my schedule is not too rushed, so if I know I can watch the movie and maybe two weeks later we start recording. Actually, then I. In those two weeks, maybe suddenly I'm showering and I'm suddenly having this idea, oh, I can do the footsteps like this. Or I can certain sounds that I've never done or that are very hard. Sometimes it's nice to think a bit about those sounds, and suddenly you're cutting vegetables and you have suddenly this crazy idea that you can do it this way.

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[Emily McCrary]

How do you know if you're good at what you do?

[Ronnie Vanderbeer]

I guess from hearing what people say. I think, like, if sound designers are not calling you back anymore for movies, then that's not a good sign. But if they're like, oh, you really did a good job, or you really helped the scene or something, that, yeah, then you know, okay, I did good. Did a good job. When I just started out, I thought I was doing nice sounds, but then you hear two years later and you're like, oh, that. That really sucks. But, yeah, luckily I noticed I'm getting better over the years, and it keeps on being a nice job. So that's. That's nice. So when I just started out and maybe it didn't sound so good, I was still. For me, it sounded good because I was still learning. And now I'm all the time improving small things and making a little bit better every time with maybe testing other microphones or finding out new techniques or buying new props for the studio.

[Interviewer]

When you watch a movie, when you go to the theater, watch a movie. When you watch a movie at home, can you tell how they created their sound, their Foley?

[Ronnie Vanderbeer]

Not always, but there's certain sounds that I do recognize. Like what I said about the chamois, for instance, the wet chamois. That's such a specific sound. It's very hard because every Foley artist has different props and we might use similar things. I was, for instance, editing someone else's Foley and other foley artists Foley recently. And I was like, hey, this gun rattle. I recognize the sound. And I was asking him, how did you do it? And he said, yeah, I used some locks together. So the lock that you put in the door, for instance, and if you put them together and maybe put them on a real gun or then it rattles a bit. And I recognize that sound because I also use that. It's very hard because everyone has different props. Like, I just go to A secondhand shop, and I buy things that I think sound nice, but someone else might have something totally different. So in that sense, yeah, it's hard to recognize it sometimes.

[Interviewer]

Do people in your field trade secrets or share advice or are people really competitive and don't talk about it?

[Ronnie Vanderbeer]

They do, actually. What I read in interviews with older foley artists is that it used to not be the case that people were very secretive, like, oh, I tell my secret trick, then they will copy it, and they will steal my job or something. But people, I think, quickly realize also that it's. It's not about that. That one object that you use or that one trick. It's. It's about your talent, and if you're good, then you will have enough work. There's a Facebook group called Foley Artists, and there's a lot. There's thousands of foley artists there that are sharing tips and tricks there. So once in a while, someone asks, like, hey, how did make the sound of snow? Oh, I did it like this. And then. Then it's also funny to. To read all the differences. Some people might use the same thing, but some people might use totally different things. Every time I stumble upon an interview and someone uses something that I don't know, I try it out as well. Because sometimes you. You think you find the holy grail of a certain sound, but then you realize later that it actually can be done even nicer or for a different flavor. I'm a drummer. I use that a lot in my work as well, because, yeah, what I do, it's all rhythms, actually. So what I said about someone writing something. Yeah. If someone writes a letter or something, then that's also rhythms. So you can divide it into little rhythms. And so that really helps me if I need to record it, that I record it in steps. You have Chucka chugga Chuck or something. And that's rhythm. Then, like, I also played a bit of Djembe, for instance, and you really use your hands for that. But I do the same when someone puts his hand on the table. Now for a movie, for instance. So you also use your hand to make a sound. And I know how to tilt my hand or how to. If it should be hard or heavy or light. So all those nuances, I think, are easier to make if you're musical.

[Interviewer]

What do you like about your job?

[Ronnie Vanderbeer]

I like the creative part, I think just that you're, like, thinking in the morning, how the hell am I gonna make that sound? And then in the afternoon, you did it, and you listen back to it, and you believe that that's the real sound, that's still a magical thing thing to me even after all those years that you still are surprised like, oh wow, we did that. We made a sound for that.

[Emily McCrary]

How to Be Anything is created and written by me, Emily McCrary. Our producer is Lily I. Johnson and our editor is Caden Baughman. Visual design by Nika Simovich Fisher at labud. You can learn more about Rani and the movies he's worked on at our substance Stack how to be anything.com and follow us on Instagram. How to Be Anything if there's a job you think we should feature, let us know at how to be anything podcastmail.com.

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[Brock Ciarlelli]

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