Sound design and Foley for film and games: what they are and when you need them

"Sound design" and "Foley" get used as synonyms all the time, but they're different services solving different problems. Mixing them up when quoting a project can get expensive or leave you with the wrong result.

What sound design actually is

Sound design is custom sound effects creation, audio layering, and sound sourcing to build a scene's complete sonic landscape — from ambiences to effects that don't exist in reality (a spaceship, a creature, a stylized explosion). Priced at $600 MXN/hour, with complex projects or original libraries quoted separately.

What Foley actually is

Foley is different: it's performed sound synced to picture in real time — footsteps, cloth, objects — recorded by an artist watching the scene. Recommended in half-day (4-hour) blocks, at $700 MXN/hour including artist and recording.

When you need which one

If your scene needs ambiences, effects that can't be recorded in reality, or a complete sonic atmosphere, that's sound design. If you need character movement to sound natural and in sync — footsteps, clothing, handled objects — that's Foley. Most audiovisual projects end up needing both.

A real example

On "Nostos", one of the projects in our portfolio, the work was specifically sound design — building the short film's complete sonic atmosphere. You can see that and other projects on the Studio page.