ShmoopTube

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[Dino and Coop singing]

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When we think about movies, we often think about images, like a pair of shiny, ruby slippers [2 people in a cinema]

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clicking together, or Darth Vader, force-choking the heck out of some poor Imperial officer. [Darth Vader on the screen]

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And yeah, visuals are really important in movies, but guess what?

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So are sound effects.

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Vader's more than just his tall, dark, and not-so-handsome look: think about his menacing,

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loud breathing, and the hum of his weapon. [Darth Vader holding a lightsaber]

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He wouldn't be quite so scary if he hiccupped all the time, and his lightsaber meowed.

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The importance of sound effects in storytelling goes all the way back to theater. [People sat in front of a red curtain]

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After all, if part of your play takes place during a furious rainstorm, chances are you [Man is hit by a lightning bolt]

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wouldn't be shoving a cloud through the roof.

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A new tradition called Foley started with the rise of radio dramas in the early 1920s.

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Foley is a fancy word for the reproduction of sound effects to make the drama seem more [Coop pointing at a blackboard]

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realistic!

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For instance, cornstarch in a leather pouch mimics the sound of snow crunching. [Someone squeezing the leather pouch]

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And anytime a door opens slowly in a creepy horror movie, it's probably just a squeaky [Door slowly opens]

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chair.

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These radio dramas were broadcast live by a bunch of actors reading in a studio, and

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all the sound effects were made live in the studio, too. [Picture of studio and a Foley artist]

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Once movies started introducing sound, a lot of the Foley artists from radio made the jump

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to the big screen.

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After a film had been shot, they would watch it, and play the sound effects in perfect

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time with what they saw onscreen, all in one take. [The movie playing with a microphone hanging down]

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They'd do things like clomp shoes against wood to imitate footsteps… [Person making footstep noises with a pair of shoes]

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…or clap two wet hands together to imitate the sound of a person getting slapped. [Person claps]

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It's true, they could have just recorded the sounds of slapping people, but that wouldn't [Man gets slapped and his face is brusied]

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be very kind to the Foley artists.

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As technology progressed, so did sound effects.

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Sound could be manipulated electronically, combining all sorts of recorded sounds to [Man looking at soundwaves on a computer]

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make completely new ones.

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We can see how this worked with the sound effects used in Star Wars for Chewbacca's

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voice.

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Unfortunately, there aren't any wookies out in the wild that could be recorded, so the [Man in the wild with a microphone]

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people making the movie had to figure something else out.

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The film's sound designer, Ben Burtt, combined the sounds from a whole bunch of different [Walrus on a beach]

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animals: walruses, lions, camels, bears, rabbits, tigers, and even badgers.

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Thank goodness they didn't have to get all of them into the studio to record at once.

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Cleaning up after that session would have been a nightmare. [Studio full of animals]

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