If all your skin were to peel off your body, what kind of sound would that make? These and other essential questions make foley artists smile.

Canada’s sound designers, effects editors and foley artists are a hyper-creative, flexible bunch. Almost no one has a steady diet of anything. But whether it’s for series and features or documentaries and commercial work, the final product always has to sound great, big budget or not.

Steve Munro, sound designer and owner of Toronto’s Trackworks, knows the song and dance well. ‘You have to be more creative with the money and you have to watch what you’re doing. Ten years ago, if you did two or three films a year, that would make your year. You can’t do that now.’

But even as they take on more work, each project still needs close attention and a healthy dose of creativity. In an industry attempting to establish a worldwide reputation, slack work would hurt everyone. As Kevin Evans, studio manager at Toronto’s Manta/Eastern Sound, puts it, ‘You can’t ever skimp on the quality you put out there because clients will think we’re a hick town and stay in l.a. That’s not what we want.’

So what’s the deal in Canada then? In this age of belt-tightening, of increased competition due to the advent of digital workstations, of shrinkage in margins and budgets and production schedules, how is the audio post end holding up? Not badly, actually.

Shops which have weathered smaller margins and shorter turnaround times for tv series and features have taken comfort in a booming area for production in this country – cable features and movies-of-the-week.

‘That’s where the volume is,’ says Geoffry Halton, director, creative and client services at Vancouver’s Pinewood Sound. ‘There’s a tremendous thirst for that kind of programming, and from an investor standpoint, it’s desirable. There’s more opportunity for recoupment as opposed to straight series. There’s video release as well.’ Halton estimates that a $2 million to $4 million cable feature spends about $55,000 to $85,000 for audio post.

But shops cannot live on mows alone. On the whole, the industry’s booming (and crashing, and banging…) in many directions, but the sweetest spots vary depending on who you ask.

Toronto foley artist Andy Malcolm of Footsteps has carved himself a spot amongst the sound teams on features like Stargate, Universal Soldier and Johnny Mnemonic. Currently he’s working on Cutthroat Island, an mgm picture directed by Renny Harlin (Cliffhanger, Die Hard ii). Malcolm counts his imax work as some of the most profitable even though he works consistently in feature film, most of it American.

By contrast, on the sound effects side, Dave Evans of Toronto’s Casablanca says they’ve been making their money from Canadian work by choice. TekWar, Dead Ringers and Atlantis Films’ mow Man in the Attic are counted among their credits and they’re currently bidding for David Cronenberg’s feature Crash.

Evans isn’t convinced that features necessarily produce the best profits. ‘I think a tv series like TekWar with lots of effects might be a better opportunity than a small-budget film, for example.’

Michel Bordeleau of Audio fx in Montreal sees dollar signs in coproductions, particularly those of the Canada/u.s. sort. He’s just completed a Dolby srd sound track in Montreal for Rainbow, a coproduction between Quebec’s Filmline International and Winchester Pictures of the u.k., directed by Bob Hoskins.

‘It depends on who you’re working for, but I would say feature work is more lucrative,’ says Bordeleau. ‘More money tends to get set aside for post and the sound is more elaborate than in most tv series.’

At Pinewood, the lucrative work has an international scope. They’ve just delivered a Hong Kong feature called Crossline and they’re quoting on a series from Belgium. According to Halton, Crossline’s director is considering posting a number of movies shot in Hong Kong in Vancouver. ‘That could mean a tremendous amount of work for us. There’s a huge market there.’

On the small screen, Pinewood’s credits include Alliance/ BLT Productions’ ReBoot and cbc’s North of 60. While feature film work may have the glam factor, Halton says tv has its advantages. ‘You know what your revenue stream is and it’s longer term. tv tends to be much more stable.’

However diverse the opinions are about where the most post cash is coming from right now, there’s one point on which everyone agrees: if all the u.s. productions which shoot in Canada could be kept here for posting, Canada’s foley and effects industry would be a different one indeed.

Gary Daprato, foley artist at Toronto’s Master’s Workshop, says there’s not much keeping Canadians from the work once their reputation has been established. ‘It’s not something that’s handed to you. It’s a process. We’re steadily becoming good and people are realizing it.’

Pinewood’s Halton doesn’t believe Canadian talents or skills are lacking. ‘Because of the logistics, some foley and sfx will continue to be taken back to l.a. because it’s such a time-intensive process. If you’ve shot in Vancouver, as a director you’ve been in a hotel room and away from home for a long time. As long as most of the decision-making is in l.a., that’s where a lot of the post will be handled.’

One of the three features Pinewood is currently working on is The Losers, an American high-action film shot in Toronto. ‘We’re getting work like The Losers because we’ve demonstrated our capabilities,’ says Halton. ‘The quality of our sound and foley is very high. This is the first time the director has done any work outside l.a., and clearly our work is on par with what he would be able to access in l.a.’

Bordeleau goes one step further. ‘With the same time and facilities, we can do even better.’

Meanwhile, while they build the reputation and the infrastructure to attract post from the four corners of the globe, Canada’s foley and effects talent won’t be languishing. Indigenous independent film is widely credited as the hot spot for creative sound opportunities.

Freelance sound supervisor Jane Tattersall of Toronto’s Tattersall Sound says indie films like her recent credits Rude and Soul Survivor have the most creative breathing room. ‘Young independent directors are very willing to experiment.’

Halton sees the same trend. ‘Canadian productions tend to be a more creative environment. With some of the American productions, they have very clear ideas about what they want and they will tell you.’

Malcolm has found that bigger budgets on u.s. productions mean more fingers in the pie. ‘In the u.s., they work in teams. There are two foley artists, a foley supervisor, and then they have foley editors. The foley supervisors have the final word. Even if you come up with something you really like, they can nix it. Here we have the final say.’

And when it comes to what foley and effects people like, organic sound hasn’t lost favor despite advances in digital sampling.

Bordeleau, who calls himself ‘a traditional guy,’ used a lot of organic sound for the high-definition Rainbow. ‘In the film, every time we see the rainbow we’ve put in a rumble that’s an avalanche mixed with an earthquake with the tail end of a thunderclap added on. There are lots or organic sounds in there. We also used a slowed-down screech from a metal chair.’

Munro, who handled the sound for Atom Egoyan’s Exotica, says digital technology allows him to more easily modify and enhance organic sound. He cites the weird ambiance he created outside the roti shop in Exotica. ‘I used cat sounds slowed down 300 times and eerie sounds like the inside of drainpipes.’

Digital sampling also allowed him to create impossible soundscapes with organic sound. ‘In the nightclub in Exotica, there are all these birds flying around when no one’s in there. Those are samples of birds from every continent in the world. They’re set up on a keyboard and I played them. It’s not reality, it would never sound like that, but we turned the sounds into a textural element.’

While digital technology has made an irreversible impact on the world of sound effects, foley artists agree that their work will probably remain ‘low-tech.’

Michael Keping, foley artist and owner of Vancouver’s TraxStar, agrees that the foley stage will probably continue to look more like a ‘rummage sale’ than a digital workshop for some time.

‘With foley you’re not committed to a sound from a cd, you can add extra bangs and thumps. Some of the things will come off of cd, but for body hits, falls and the gory stuff, we’ll be still hitting phone books and stabbing cabbages.’

And in case you were wondering, peel an orange and mic it really close. Voila! Peeling skin.