The Foley artist on a
film crew is the person who creates many of the natural, everyday sound
effects in a film, which are recorded during a session with a recording
engineer. Before the session, a project will be cued, with notes kept
about what sounds need to be created during the foley session. Often,
the project will have a sound supervisor who will dictate what sounds
need to be covered in a foley session and what needs to be created by
special (audio) effects, which is generally left to the sound designer.
Sound effects and foley are added during post-production to dialog and
real effects that were picked up by microphones on-set. Sometimes
(especially in the case of cartoons, many Italian films, and almost all
Bollywood films) there is no sound recorded on-location, and all the
sounds need to be added by the foley artist and sound designer, and
dubber. The Foley artist may also accent existing sounds to make them
more effective—enhancing the sounds of a fistfight may require thumping
watermelons or cracking bamboo. Many Foley artists take pride in
devising their own sound effects apparatuses, often using simple,
commonly found materials. Some making-of featurettes show Foley artists
at work.
The term Foley artist is named after Jack Foley, one of the earliest and
best-known Hollywood practitioners of the art. Foley began his career in
the film industry as a stand-in and screenwriter during the silent era,
and later helped Universal make the transition from silent movies to
talkies.
