Jack Foley

I've long been fascinated by Foley, which is the reproduction of everyday sounds that are added to films to enhance their audio quality.

It's an art that was created by Jack Foley, an American sound effects artist who was working in the film industry in the 1920s when sound was introduced into movie making.

It's now a trade of its own, but a slightly mysterious one.

I've met Foley artists in the past, and when I ask them the best path to get into it, they don't really have an answer.

Right.

Apparently it was sound effects friend Jack Foley.

Oh, yeah.

Which his name is now synonymous with movies.

And I remember

you telling me a story about how Foley got his name.

Yeah, he worked at Universal, like on Dragnet and an old cop show.

And so, you know, on the mixing stage, they used to have cue sheets, which actually had footages and all that because everything was serial, right? It was binary.

And those were called cue sheets.

And they had footages and what it was and descriptions and all that.

And Jack Foley came out of radio and migrated into doing custom sounds for features like horse hooves and all that kind of stuff.

And my father was working there, and you have to name what your sheets are, like atmospheres or dialogue or whatnot.