Part 6 · Gapped text

The sound of footsteps

Next time you watch a film, listen carefully to the footsteps. The chances are that they were not recorded while the actors were walking. Instead, they were added months later by someone like Amira Hassan, who works as a Foley artist in a studio in London. (1) ______ 'People are always surprised when I tell them what I do,' she says. 'They assume the microphones on set pick up everything.'

In fact, the microphones used during filming are positioned to capture the actors' voices as clearly as possible, and most other sounds are either too quiet or deliberately avoided. (2) ______ The job of a Foley artist is to recreate these everyday noises – footsteps, the rustle of clothing, a cup being put down on a table – and record them in time with the pictures.

Amira's studio looks rather like a junk shop. One wall is covered in shelves of shoes of every kind, from high heels to heavy boots, and the floor is divided into small sections of different surfaces: wood, gravel, stone, carpet, even a shallow tray of water. (3) ______ A box of old leather gloves, for example, is perfect for the sound of a bird's wings, while a bunch of celery, snapped sharply, makes a convincing broken bone. Cornflour squeezed inside a leather pouch produces the crunch of footsteps in snow, and a wet cloth slapped against a table can stand in for almost anything that splashes.

The work requires a surprising amount of physical skill. Amira watches the film on a large screen and performs the sounds as the action unfolds, matching every step exactly. (4) ______ 'If a character is nervous, they walk differently from someone who's confident, and I have to show that in the sound,' she explains. 'It's a bit like acting, really – just with my feet.' A single scene of two people walking through a busy café might take a whole morning, because each character's footsteps, clothing and movements have to be recorded separately and then mixed together.

She came to the profession almost by accident. After studying music, she got a temporary job making tea at a company that adds sound to films. (5) ______ When one of the Foley artists fell ill just before an important deadline, she was asked to help out, and she never looked back. Twelve years later, she runs her own studio and trains young Foley artists, many of whom, like her, started out in completely unrelated jobs.

Although computer technology has transformed much of the film industry, Amira does not believe her job is under threat. Libraries of recorded sound effects have existed for decades, and they are useful for things like car engines or thunderstorms. (6) ______ 'Every scene is different, and every actor moves differently,' she says. 'A library sound will always be slightly wrong, and audiences notice, even if they don't know why.' For now, at least, the shoes on her shelves seem safe.

Learning to sail at forty

I had never set foot on a sailing boat until the summer I turned forty. My wife had given me a week-long course as a birthday present, and I suspect she thought I would never actually go. (1) ______ I was not a strong swimmer, I got seasick on ferries, and my only experience of the sea was lying next to it on holiday. When I finally packed my bag and set off, I think she was more surprised than I was.

The sailing school was in a small harbour on the south coast, a place of brightly painted fishing boats and seagulls that seemed to regard every sandwich as their personal property. The school itself was a single wooden hut with a kettle, a whiteboard and a row of wetsuits that smelt faintly of seaweed. There were six of us on the course, and I was by far the oldest. The others were mostly university students who seemed to have been born knowing how to tie knots. (2) ______ I could not have been more wrong. Within half an hour of watching her handle a boat, it was obvious that she had spent her whole life on the water, and she had been teaching for longer than the students had been alive.

On the first morning, we were each given a small boat and told to sail it to a buoy about two hundred metres away and back. (3) ______ Within minutes, the wind had pushed me in completely the wrong direction, and I had to be towed back to the harbour by a rescue boat while everyone watched from the shore. It was, without doubt, the most embarrassing moment of my adult life.

That evening, I seriously considered going home. What stopped me was a conversation with Jo. She told me that almost everyone capsizes or gets lost on the first day, and that the people who make the best sailors are often the ones who struggle at the beginning. (4) ______ Whether or not it was true, it was exactly what I needed to hear. She also pointed out, rather less kindly, that I had been holding the rope that controls the sail as if it were a dangerous snake.

The rest of the week was hard work, but gradually things began to make sense. I learnt how to read the wind by watching the surface of the water and the flags on the harbour wall. (5) ______ By the Thursday, I managed to sail to the buoy and back without help, and I was so delighted that I almost fell in. Jo rarely praised anyone, but that afternoon she gave me a small nod, which from her felt like a medal.

When I got home, my wife asked whether I had enjoyed my birthday present. I told her that I had hated about half of it and loved the rest, which she said was the most enthusiastic thing I had said about anything for years.

I now own a small second-hand boat, which I share with a retired teacher I met at the harbour, and I sail most weekends between April and October. (6) ______ But on a bright morning, with the sails full and nothing but the sound of the water, I feel calmer than I ever do on dry land.

When the museum closes

When the last visitors leave the city museum at half past five, most people imagine the building falls silent until the next morning. In fact, for Rachel Owusu and her small team of conservators, this is when the real work begins. (1) ______ 'During the day there are hundreds of people walking past the display cases,' she explains. 'We simply can't take a two-hundred-year-old dress off a model with a school group watching.' Night work has another advantage, too: the galleries are cooler and quieter, and the team can spread their equipment across the floor without blocking anyone's way.

Rachel's job is to protect the museum's collection from damage, whether it is caused by light, insects or simply time. (2) ______ Moths, for example, are a constant threat to anything made of wool or silk, and a single infestation can destroy an item that has survived for centuries.

To prevent this, the team checks special traps placed around the galleries every week. (3) ______ If any insects are found, the affected objects are sealed in plastic and placed in a freezer at minus thirty degrees for several days, which kills the insects without harming the material. Larger items, such as rolled carpets, have to be wrapped and frozen in sections. The method sounds extreme, but it is widely used by museums because it avoids the need for chemicals, some of which can damage the very objects they are meant to protect.

Not all of the work is so dramatic. Much of Rachel's time is spent carefully cleaning objects with soft brushes and tiny vacuum cleaners, or recording their condition in detailed reports. (4) ______ 'You need a lot of patience,' she admits. 'Sometimes I spend a whole evening on a single glove.' She is also responsible for controlling the lighting in the galleries. Colours in fabric and old paper fade slowly under strong light, so some rooms are kept surprisingly dark, and the most delicate items are only put on display for a few months at a time before being returned to storage to rest. Visitors occasionally complain that they cannot read the labels, but Rachel is unapologetic. 'If we lit these rooms like a supermarket, there would be nothing left to see in fifty years.'

So what attracted her to the profession? Rachel studied chemistry at university and had planned to work in a laboratory. (5) ______ 'I watched a conservator repairing a torn flag, and I thought: that's what I want to do. It combined science with history, and it felt as if it really mattered.' After graduating, she spent two more years training as a conservator, including six months at a specialist studio where she learnt to repair everything from old maps to wedding dresses.

Twelve years later, she has no regrets. (6) ______ 'People sometimes ask whether it's strange being in the museum at night, surrounded by all these old objects,' she says. 'But I never feel alone. Every piece has a story, and it's my job to make sure it goes on being told.' Her next project is a collection of theatre costumes that arrived last month in very poor condition. 'It'll take most of the year,' she says with a smile. 'I can't wait.'