Reviews for The Foley Grail: The Art of Performing Sound for Film, Games, and Animation

1. Well I liked it!

   Rated 4 out of 5 stars, February 12nd, 2010

   Had absolutely no trouble with pages falling out, and I really abused the book on my daily commute - I had to sort of roll it up in order to get it into my rather small jacket pocket and then really force it to get it out. Never had any trouble with books by this publisher too.
   
   Liked the book a lot, I've not given it 5 stars because it didn't capture my imagination and blow my mind like Yewdall's sound for motion pictures text book which was just so full of character and I'm feeling a little tight on the stars today.
   
   Wished I had read it before I had started my foley for this mate's 50min film i'm doing at the moment (usually work mixing tele and don't do much foley normally) as the ideas on cueing up the cues would have been most helpful!

2. Foley Grail

   Rated 3 out of 5 stars, February 12th, 2010

   The book arrived quickly and in excellent condition.
   The book is interesting enough but I had hoped for a few more actual ideas for creating sounds rather than reminiscing about ones colleagues in the business.
   

3. Save Your Money

   Rated 1 out of 5 stars, December 12st, 2009

   Book arrived yesterday. Opened the book and a whole number of pages fell out from the binding. Was just about to sort out returning the book to Amazon when I saw the review above saying the same and that the replacement book had the same issues - so don't think I will bother returning it. You would think that paying the sort of money that this book sells for that it would be well made. Not sure I will bother reading it - wish now that I had read the reviews first.

4. what a bind of a book

   Rated 1 out of 5 stars, May 12th, 2009

   I ordered a copy of this book as I am a sound recordist who dabbles in sound design and foley, The book arrived the next day to my delight, so i sat down to read it. The first few pages were OK, however as i progressed, the book binding started failing, pages started to fall out. I returned the book as faulty for a replacement. just thinking that it was a faulty binding and that a replacement would be OK. The new book arrived and i starting reading again and guess what! the pages and the binding started coming apart again. I ended up with pages of the book in my hand, this was very frustrating making it basically unreadable, The crux of it is it is a badly made book, made on the cheap. As for the content, don't expect any quality photographs inside, all very dull. the chapter on the history of jack foley and the origins of foley managed to hold my attention, but after that lots of self important trumpet blowing and back slapping. Shame i could'nt get through it. dissapointed! typically American in tone. tacky! just like hollywood. I like to think that jack foley and his art as a sort of whimsical avant garde electro acoustic sound artistry. non of that feeling comes across in this book.

5. pardon?

   Rated 2 out of 5 stars, May 12th, 2009

   While some nice reviews prompted me to buy this book, I got little from it in terms of technique, background or motivation. Reading more like a (rather dull) memoire than an educational textbook, I will be selling my copy.