After watching the new trailer for the upcoming Deadpool and Wolverine movie that is coming out this summer, I became quite curious as to how foley artists make that “snikt!” sound for Wolverine’s claws.
I found this article, published by Empire Magazine in 2015, that details the sound design of many popular sounds in superhero cinema. Before I read it, I had assumed the sound of Wolverine’s claws popping in and out was probably created using kitchen knives. Then I realized that only having the sharpness of metal knives wouldn’t be enough to represent that visceral fleshy sound that accompanies the retracting of the claws.
Craig Berkley, lead sound designer of the first two Fox X-Men films, explains that there were actually two main components to making that iconic sound: “One was the metallic blade sound, as it goes in or out. The other was the actual physical sound of something going through flesh and retracting.” The metallic element was created by a knife being drawn from a sheath. That much more difficult piece, creating a sound that mimicked flesh, was created by ripping chicken and turkey carcasses as well as cracking nuts.
Smashing carcasses like that of a chicken is actually more common in foley work than one might think! For example, in the 1999 flick Fight Club, foley artists were “shattering chicken carcasses with baseball bats” and slapping slabs of meat with pigs feet. To make it sound even more gruesome, oftentimes big nuts like walnuts are inserted inside these carcasses to create an even snappier sound when hit. Pretty gross stuff if you ask me, but equally cool.
After the initial recording of the sound effects, there’s still much work to be done when mixing the final cut. Sound designers, like the ones showcased in the video above, determine what sounds they’d like the audience to hear above others and then adjust levels accordingly. As they mention, it’s exciting yet challenging to figure out what you think an audience will want to hear when they can’t even visually see any of your work. I, for one, enjoy hearing Wolverine’s claws cut through the scene’s music, dialogue, and everything in-between.