Everything in life has a sound. Imagine you are sitting in a café listening to people passing. The sound of shoes – click, clack, click… the sound of denim blue jeans on a person walking by or wriggling in an armchair. The sweet sound of glasses clinking.
Foley is the art of recreating those sounds for motion pictures. Every sound a Foley Artist performs is designed to bring the audience into the film reality and make them believe what they see. We love to spend time and effort on producing sounds that blend entirely into the movie. When Foley is done well, it is invisible and adds depth and texture to the soundtrack. This work remains subliminal, yet essential.
It also is a powerful tool that helps a good sound designer to put the focus on what is important in a scene and to give additional emotional impact to the sound design. The creaking of a chair, the sound of a spoon turning around in a cup of coffee: at a certain point this all becomes music.