Tdhtdhtdhtdhtdh: Sound Effects!

Summary

Stuff You Should Know

Episode: Tdhtdhtdhtdhtdh: Sound Effects!
Date: September 23, 2025
Hosts: Josh Clark & Chuck Bryant
Podcast: iHeartPodcasts

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into the fascinating world of sound effects, with Josh and Chuck exploring not only how sound effects are made, but also their history, artistry, and impact on storytelling, especially in film, TV, and other media. The hosts discuss the craft of Foley art, the creative tricks that bring everyday sounds to life onscreen, and the unsung heroes working behind the scenes. Whether you’re curious about why movie punches sound so satisfying or what a classic Star Wars blaster really is, this episode is a deep and entertaining dive into sound.

"If we get across anything in this episode, it should be how hard and creative the people who make sound effects are."
— Josh Clark [07:01]

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Key Discussion Points & Highlights

1. What Are Sound Effects, and Why Do They Matter? [01:52–05:54]

• Most sound effects (SFX) in movies, TV, animation, and video games are created manually in post-production.
• Foley artists and sound designers use a mix of sounds created live in the studio and pulled from sound catalogs/libraries.
• The majority of sound effects you hear—footsteps, doors, background chatter—are added later. Only dialogue and music are generally captured on set.
• Sound is critical but often underappreciated compared to visuals on set.

Quote:
"It's half the thing is what you're hearing, the other half is what you're seeing."
— Chuck Bryant [04:05]

2. The Magic of Diegetic vs. Non-Diegetic Sound [06:02–07:07]

• Diegetic sound: Occurs “inside” the film’s world (what characters can hear).
• Non-diegetic sound: Soundtrack, narration, or other sounds the audience hears but characters don’t.
• The line between the two can be blurred for creative effect, as in comedies like “The Naked Gun.”

Quote:
"Diegetic sound is the sound inside the movie's world. Like that lawnmower, that car driving by..."
— Josh Clark [06:02]

3. Behind the Scenes: The Foley Artist’s Craft [07:45–11:27]

• Foley art is an intricate, still-essential art form despite advances in digital tech.
• Foley artists are “sound actors,” matching real-life actions on screen to sound in the studio.
• Footsteps are especially challenging—tailored to actor, gait, weight, and emotional tone.

Quote:
"You have to make the footsteps based on the actor and how they're moving...the weight, the height, the gait..."
— Josh Clark [10:27]

4. A Brief History of Sound Effects

[11:33–16:22]

• Originated in vaudeville, with live props ("traps") for on-stage effects.
• Drum companies like Ludwig produced early sound effect contraptions.
• The transition from silent films to “talkies” revolutionized the demand and technique for synchronized sound.

Notable Anecdotes:

• Slapstick humor is named for a real prop (“slapstick”) used to accentuate pratfalls.
  [14:47–15:16]

5. Jack Foley: The Namesake and Pioneer of Foley Art [21:26–26:25]

• Jack Foley’s work at Universal Studios after “The Jazz Singer” (1927) established the art of performing sound effects live with films.
• He was so influential that “Foley” became the term for the whole discipline, the room, and the position.
• Created effects in real-time, often with only one take due to technical limitations.

Quote:
"He became so good at it and so legendary that still today, anything that has to do with creating sound effects in a studio is called Foley."
— Josh Clark [22:09]

• Famous for clever tricks—using car keys for Roman armor in Spartacus to save reshoots.
  [25:50–26:45]

6. Foley Today: A Rare, Specialized Profession [26:45–29:46]

• About 100 professional Foley artists in the US today.
• Requires exceptional hearing; many wear earplugs in real life to protect their “instrument”.
• Artists develop a unique jargon (“poofy,” “screechy“) based on sound qualities, not object names.

7. How a Foley Studio Works [29:46–32:35]

• Foley is typically a team effort—partners act out scenes together for multi-dimensional action.
• Studios have multi-surface floors, divided for different sound environments (concrete, gravel, parquet, etc.).
• Inventiveness is key: crinkled magnetic tape can sound more like “leaves” than real foliage.

8. Iconic Foley & Sound Effects Examples [38:00–44:43]

Star Wars (Ben Burtt):

[38:23–48:03]

• Wilhelm Scream: Recurring inside joke among sound editors; first used widely by Ben Burtt.
• Blaster sound: Created by striking metal guy wires with a wrench or rock at radio towers.
• TIE Fighters: Modified elephant roars, layered and distorted.
• Chewbacca: Blend of walrus, badger, and bear vocalizations.
• R2D2: Synthesizer beeps and boops, performed with emotion.
• Ben Burtt's innovations shaped modern sound design.

Other Film Tricks:

• E.T.'s footsteps: Jello in a damp t-shirt and raw liver [43:43].
• Titanic's frozen hair: Frozen lettuce for the crispy sound of cold hair [41:14].
• Fight Club punches: Chicken carcasses and walnut cracks for realistic impacts [42:12].
• Jurassic Park's egg hatching: Hand inside melon and ice cream cone cracking [44:06].
• Raiders of the Lost Ark boulder: Car with engine off rolling down a hill [44:20–44:32].

Quote:
"He somehow creates emotion and conveys emotion through these beeps and boops from a little droid with a synthesizer."
— Chuck Bryant on R2D2 [48:01]

9. Nature Documentaries & Sound Fudging [48:10–50:41]

• Nature docs like “Planet Earth” must add or exaggerate sounds in post, as actual field audio is often unusable or doesn’t exist (e.g., mushroom growing, spider footsteps).
• Even animal calls are carefully matched for realism; but environmental sounds are often totally fabricated.
• Purists may object, but the artistic enhancement increases viewing enjoyment.

10. Sound’s Place in the Film Industry [50:41–51:47]

• Sound departments often work with small budgets relative to other departments.
• Big movies can afford bespoke Foley; indie films often use library effects, explaining tonal differences between major and low-budget productions.

Quote:
"That's why the sound is always really awesome. And that's why they highlight it at the Academy Awards."
— Chuck Bryant [51:47]

11. Finishing Thoughts: The Joy of Sound & the Artist’s Dilemma [51:47–52:54]

• Designed to inspire listeners to re-watch films, now acutely attuned to background sounds.
• The hosts joke about whether Foley artists can “turn it off” and just enjoy movies.
• Newly-minted SYSK slogan idea: "Stay Dumb, Enjoy Things" (Josh & Chuck, [52:37])

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Foley Artistry:
  "You have to make the footsteps based on the actor and how they're moving, and not just in sync with them. But a good Foley artist will take into account the weight, the height, the gait..."
  — Josh Clark [10:27]

• On the Origin of ‘Slapstick’:
  "There was a trap...a slapstick. It's like two wooden duck bills that you smack together…That's where the name came from."
  — Josh Clark [15:08]

• On Ben Burtt’s Blaster:
  "If you ever see one of those really, really taut cables. If you hit that thing with something metal, it'll go Q."
  — Chuck Bryant [45:33]

• On Nature Docs:
  "Lean in and put your ear to a mushroom as it's growing and you're not going to hear anything. Doesn't make a sound."
  — Josh Clark [49:55]

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Introduction & Defining SFX/Foley: [01:12 – 05:54]
• Diegetic vs. Non-diegetic: [06:02 – 07:07]
• The Foley Process & Footsteps: [07:45 – 11:27]
• History (Vaudeville to Talkies): [11:33 – 16:22]
• Jack Foley’s Legacy: [21:26 – 26:25]
• Foley Today & Studio Work: [26:45 – 32:35]
• Tricks & Famous Movie Examples: [38:00 – 44:43]
• Star Wars, Ben Burtt, and Synth Innovation: [38:23 – 48:03]
• Nature Docs & Fake SFX: [48:10 – 50:41]
• Budget, Film Industry Realities: [50:41 – 51:47]
• Conclusion & Slogan: [51:47 – 52:54]

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Episode Takeaways

• Foley artists are essential artists, not technicians. Their creativity and attention to detail create the immersive worlds we love.
• Most of the sound you hear in media is fabricated, and your enjoyment relies on how seamless and “invisible” this work is.
• Sound effects aren’t just technical—they are an art of illusion, emotion, and storytelling.
• Even in a digital world, old-school ingenuity and live performance are irreplaceable for compelling sound design.
• Next time you watch a movie, listen for the craft happening under the surface—just don’t let it spoil your fun:

"Stay Dumb, Enjoy Things."

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For more from Stuff You Should Know:
Check out merch at Cotton Bureau and revisit iconic episodes for more behind-the-scenes wonders.

Transcript

[Chuck Bryant]

This is an I Heart Podcast.

[Josh Clark]

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[Chuck Bryant]

Have you ever heard a story so unbelievable it just had to be true? Well, Roofman is the jaw dropping new film about Jeffrey Manchester, played by Channing Tatum, a man who became infamous for breaking into over 40 McDonald's through the roof, then secretly living inside a Toys R Us for six months. With humor, suspense and heart, Roofman is a cat and mouse story that will keep you hooked until the very end. Don't miss Roofman. Only in theater. October 10th.

[Podcast Announcer]

Welcome to Stuff youf Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

[Josh Clark]

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck. And Jerry's here too. And this is stuff you should know. I got nothing.

[Chuck Bryant]

Hey, that was a sound effect in.

[Josh Clark]

And of itself, I guess. I don't know if it really qualifies, but I appreciate the support, Chuck.

[Chuck Bryant]

It was Josh introing the show as he falls off of a cliff.

[Josh Clark]

No, it was Josh in space.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that too.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, the cliff works too.

[Chuck Bryant]

I like you in space. Better than dying.

[Josh Clark]

Thank you. I appreciate that. But I think that really goes to illustrate just how versatile sound effects can be.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I'm excited about this one.

[Josh Clark]

I am too. This was a Dave joint. He helps us with this. And I knew nothing about this stuff. I mean, I knew that the people who make this are often called foley artists when they do a specific kind of thing, but just like the little details and everything, and it was all new to me and it was all super interesting. So I'm psyched about this one too.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, me too. So what we're talking about is sound effects, if you haven't gathered that by now. And, you know, I never assume what people know about moviemaking because I worked in that field for a little while and you and I did a TV show, like you know some stuff about it, but I never assume that people know things or not. So we should say right out of the gate when you're watching a movie or you're watching a TV show or something like that. And also this stuff is for animation and video games and all that stuff. But we're mainly talking about, you know, live action stuff. When you see a. A car drive down the road or a person, a couple sitting in a restaurant having a conversation, and you hear all the people in the background and you hear that car drive down the road or anything, you hear a door shut, footsteps. All of that stuff is created in post production, either by a person doing it, a Foley artist, which we're going to talk a lot about, or it might be from a sound catalog, like, where you have all kinds of recordings you can pull from, like car door shut, stuff like that, or sometimes that stuff. Now, obviously, is created through the wizardry of computering.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. But there's a surprising craft that's still left that has not been pushed out by computers yet. That seems like this sort of happened years ago. But the work that the foley artists do is so intricate and so well done that computers just can't replicate it yet. Like, yeah, there's a car door. Sound sounds good, but it just doesn't quite work. And the reason why, from what I saw, all the explanations I saw basically said Foley artists are. They're sound actors. So they're acting along with the actors on screen to make the sounds that. That you know and love and actually don't even notice. But you would notice them if they weren't there or they were off.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. And two more quick points for me. Sound is often overlooked, I think, by the general public in a movie or TV show, for sure. And even as you've seen, my friend, on actual sets, it's half the thing is what you're hearing, the other half is what you're seeing. But the sound department, every sound department I've ever worked with is always like, just they're shoved to the side and they make room for the camera and everything, the lighting, and there's a boom person that's like, oh, don't worry about me. I also have to stand in this room.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, Brian.

[Chuck Bryant]

And do, like, half the sound, they're always just shoved off to the side, which is incredible that it's still sort of like that. And also getting back to what I said before about how every sound you hear, basically that is not dialogue or music, like soundtrack stuff or unless it's diegetic sound, actually screws things up on recording out in the world. That's why they try to shoot as much as they can on a stage, because if you're out on the Street. You often hear the term hold for sound. Cause there's a lawnmower. And they may add a lawnmower later to make something more real. But they don't want the lawnmower that's actually there or the plane flying over. They could add all of that stuff. The birds chirping. They add all that stuff later to make it real. But you can't have any of that on the day while you're shooting. So you're always holding for sound, waiting for the car or the train or the leaf blower. And that's why they shoot restaurant scenes completely silent. Everybody is miming, talking in the background. And it's really weird when you see, like, a clip of it.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, it's definitely weird. It's also weird to be, like, in the middle of it trying to act when everybody around you in the restaurant is silently miming.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And it's also hard. I did an extra thing or two that's hard to do.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, for sure. I'm sure those are two sides of the same coin.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So two. Those were two great quick points. Seven quick points from me.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's about how it goes.

[Josh Clark]

Aw. So you said a word back there a minute ago, Diegetic. And that stood out to me. Like, wha. And the reason why I didn't stop you and say, what are you talking about, Chuck? Is because I already know what it means. So I feel like I should explain it. Diegetic sound is the sound inside the movie's world. So if you were one of the characters or the extras or anybody in that movie, you would hear these sounds. Like that lawnmower, that car driving by, the machine gun, you know, from the car driving by. That's my best one.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I mean, a lot of times you hear it in terms of music. Like when they're playing something in the car that they're hearing. And then a very common sort of thing to do is then that becomes the soundtrack. It, like, kind of changes the tone a little bit, you know?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it's always great, but. So that would be diegetic music. But, like, the score that's just going along with it, that would be non diegetic. Cause the characters aren't hearing that. Same with narration.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Unless it's like a Naked Gun kind of thing. And then they might. The strings will swell and somebody will be like, did you hear that?

[Josh Clark]

Has Ruby taken you to the new Naked Gun?

[Chuck Bryant]

I took myself, Scotty and I went, oh, really?

[Josh Clark]

How was it?

[Chuck Bryant]

It's very, very, very funny.

[Josh Clark]

Really? So do you know Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson are a couple now?

[Chuck Bryant]

I wondered about that because they're both people at a certain stage in life that are without their partners for very different reasons. But I kind of was like, you know, I kind of hoped they would get together.

[Josh Clark]

Well, they did, buddy. Your wish came true.

[Chuck Bryant]

She's very funny in it. I don't know if it's still out, but I highly recommend seeing it in a theater with laughing, with a group of people.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, good to know.

[Chuck Bryant]

But it's probably too late for that.

[Josh Clark]

So you talked about how you hold for lawnmower and all that, and that that stuff's added on later. I think something like 90%. I've actually seen higher than that of the sound you hear in the film that's not dialogue or music is added later on in post production. That's how important this stuff is. And like you said, though, it just. It gets treated like a second class citizen despite how hard they work. And I think if we get across anything in this episode, it's. It should be how hard and creative the people who make sound effects are.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. And again, we're gonna get into the Foley stuff and mention things like sound banks of doors shutting and wind blowing and all that stuff that you can pull from. But a lot of times you have sound designers that go out and make their own recordings of that stuff. They don't want the Universal catalog of cars, car door shutting. They want to get their own. Maybe it's a specific car. In fact, that's what they should be doing because car doors are very specific, the sound they make. So they'll go out in the field. There was a whole movie about that blow up. I'm sorry, Blowout with John Travolta where he played a guy that captures the sound of a car crash that ends up being very murderous.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Yeah. That was actually a pretty good movie.

[Chuck Bryant]

Great.

[Josh Clark]

This is a classic, right? Don't people consider it a classic? There's also. So in addition to car door shutting, like the vehicles themselves, the sounds they make, those are often, like from a sound library. But I've also seen that they'll be layered. They'll add certain details sometimes later on onto the sound library file called Sweetening. And that seems to be a pretty common thing. Even if you're taking stuff that you're making out in the field yourself or you're making in the studio, as you're watching the clip, you'll probably still layer all that stuff together to get like the most realistic Richest possible sound.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, they get really into it. It's a good, nerdy sort of line of work. You gotta have a good ear, that's for sure. Cause you're recreating punches and slaps. And every gunshot that you hear in every movie is not what you hear on set, obviously. And then of course, this is all stuff done that's like real sound effects. A lot of the things that are created via computer are, but not all of them are things that don't exist. You know, like if you're gonna do like a movie set in outer space, you're gonna be making up a lot of brand new sounds that have never been made before.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, they seem to love that stuff. Cause they have like carte blanc to just go nuts and get creative, basically.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's awesome.

[Josh Clark]

Another one that gets left out that sounds really boring, but apparently it's really hard are footsteps. I'm sure there's tons of sound effects of footsteps in libraries, but those don't work. From what I've seen, from what I've read, they're essentially there because somebody put them there. People don't use them. You have to make the footsteps based on the actor and how they're moving, and not just in sync with them. But a good foley artist will take into account the weight, the height, the gait. Are they shuffling? Are they high stepping? Are they goose stepping? They take all this stuff into account to make a specific kind of walk or footfall for a particular actor.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And a lot of times this stuff is dictated by budget. Obviously, foley artists don't come cheap. So if you've ever been watching a low budget movie and the footsteps sounded kind of corny, it's probably because they're pulling from a library.

[Josh Clark]

Probably. They're trying their best, they're doing their best.

[Chuck Bryant]

They don't have the kind of dough for that. So, you know, it all just depends.

[Josh Clark]

So I say, do you want to go back to the beginning of all this?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Which is surprisingly silent movies, right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Well, apparently it goes even further back than that to vaudeville. Before there were even movies, people would play along on stage to make sound effects with vaudeville act. So it was a pretty brainless transition from vaudeville stages to the stage underneath a movie. And it was just somebody playing along, I think, to start with, like drums and like maybe some clackers and a few different things. But it very quickly took off as like a cottage industry to make props for people who did this live to use.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, props or traps. Traps baby. Short for contraption. And A lot of times it was percussionists, even if they weren't literally playing drums, because percussionists are just good at doing multiple things with the hands and feet at the same time. So they had these contraptions or traps, and they started making them like drum companies. Like, Ludwig started making traps to just simulate things like the sounds. And, you know, these are early. Early, so it's not like they were going for absolute realism with, like, a barking dog sound or a train whistle or a snore or a cash register, but they would make these traps that were close enough that people hearing this stuff for the first time in a movie were like, oh, my God.

[Josh Clark]

Right. I never knew a dog actually sounded like that. Yeah. There is this video of a guy named Nick White, and he is a master of this. He has a bunch of, like, vintage traps, and he does live sound effects along with, like, black and white talkie movies. Silent movies. Sorry. And there's a video of his called Vintage Sound Effect Artist for Vintage Films. And it's amazing to watch him do this in real time because, like you said, he's doing stuff with his feet, he's doing stuff with his hands, and then he's also probably got some sort of weird whistle in his mouth at the same time, too.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And it's funny Dave mentioned him later in the article, but I was gonna bring him up anyway. This guy, Josh Harmon, is a very fun Instagram account to follow because he does it to old cartoons, and he is really blown up. He's, like, got close to 5 million Instagram people now.

[Josh Clark]

Wow.

[Chuck Bryant]

And has had, like, some famouses on there that take part. And the delight of Josh Harmon's stuff is not only watching him squeeze a balloon to make it sound like somebody like Porky Pig is trying to get through a door, but the delight he gets at the end of the clip, he just always lights up with this wonderful smile. And, like, one of my life goals is to sit in and do a thing. A sesh with Harmonious. Oh, man. I've asked.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, have you asked?

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, just on Instagram, like, hey, I know I'm not Nick Jonas, but, like, I got a few people who listen to me. Can I get in there? And a bunch of stuff you should know. People are like, yeah, get Chuck. Get Chuck. But he, you know, it didn't get through.

[Josh Clark]

No. Well, keep trying, Chuck.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm gonna. Maybe this will get to him.

[Josh Clark]

It could. Attention Josh Harmon do this.

[Chuck Bryant]

What about slapstick, though? I didn't know that even.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. The term is actually, you know, Slapstick is like physical, silly comedy made up with pratfalls. And the reason it's called slapstick is because there was a trap that people used to use that was a slapstick. I think I can imagine it. It's like two wooden duck bills that you smack together.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

As a clacker.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And they use that when somebody had a pratfall, like when they tumbled and fell or something like that, they would use this slapstick. That's cool.

[Chuck Bryant]

So cool.

[Josh Clark]

That's where the name came from. So now you can go forth and tell everyone you ever meet where the origin of the term slapstick is from.

[Chuck Bryant]

I love it. Maybe. Yeah. Here, let's finish up with the Jazz Singer and then take a break. What do you say? Well, the Jazz Singer, as we've mentioned in other episodes, was the first sort of widely released successful talkie. And I know we've talked about the Vitaphone before. So did we do it on silent movies, or was it just the birth of the movies or something like that?

[Josh Clark]

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, Warner Brothers had developed something called the Vitaphone, and that was a separate machine that would sync the audio along to the projector while they're playing it. And it was basically like a record. They recorded it on shellac discs, like an lp. And once the Jazz Singer came out, a whole new industry was born from silent movies.

[Josh Clark]

Right. Like throwing a light switch. Like, silent movies were out and talkies were in. Like, this was an enormous innovation, for sure. Yeah. So, yeah, I say that's a great setup for where we are in history with sound effects.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, so we're just going to walk away.

[Josh Clark]

Clip, clop, clip, clop. Wait, wait.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, no. We'll be right back. You can make a difference in someone's life, including your own, with a job in home care. These jobs offer flexible schedules, health care, retirement options, and free training. They also provide paid time off and opportunities for overtime. Visit oregonhomecarejobs.com to learn more and apply. That's oregonhomecarejobs.com.

[Podcast Announcer]

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[Chuck Bryant]

You do a great machine gun. And I have to say, you and Scott Aukerman both do great machine gun sounds with your mouth.

[Josh Clark]

That is from years and years of playing with M16s in the woods.

[Chuck Bryant]

What is that horrible instinct that little boys have?

[Josh Clark]

I don't know. It's weird. I'm glad. It usually gets left behind or shed as you get older. Typically.

[Chuck Bryant]

But let's pick up that stick and go.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

See, that was terrible.

[Josh Clark]

No, that was pretty good. That was a. That was a modified M16.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right. How about this? Bullet, bullet, bullet. Is that good?

[Josh Clark]

Did I ever tell you about the time I was playing laser tag and we didn't. It was like at like 10:30 in the morning on a Tuesday for some reason. And we didn't have enough of us in a group to make it like even teams.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So the, the guy who worked there, this other kid, he played with us and he caught me in a corner and got me and then he just stood there and shot me. Like every time, like my piece would reset. Oh man, he kept just shooting me and killing me and finally I shouted at him like, stop. And he just laughed and walked away. But he killed me probably like 10 times in just, you know, however long it took to reset.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, since you mentioned that and we're doing this today, I had my very first laser tag at Ruby's birthday party this summer.

[Josh Clark]

Nice.

[Chuck Bryant]

I had never done it before and I was the only adult in there with all the kids. I was on the boys team, and I was like, listen, guys, they're gonna be running around and screaming and shooting. I was like, everyone find a position and stay there. Preferably higher ground. And I feel kind of bad because we dominated, and I specifically dominated.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

I beat. It was like I had, like, 10 times the points as the next highest person.

[Josh Clark]

That's awesome. Against kids, though.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So I just. I got in a high spot and was just picking them off as they came up.

[Josh Clark]

You're like Billy Madison playing dodgeball in Billy Madison.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh. And not only did I not feel bad, I got a lot of satisfaction out of it.

[Josh Clark]

I'll bet, ma'. Am.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it was fun.

[Josh Clark]

I'll bet. Instead of Bullet, did you go laser, laser, laser?

[Chuck Bryant]

I did.

[Josh Clark]

Well, that's our laser tag anecdotes, everybody.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, we gotta talk about a legend named Jack Foley. And this guy's story is pretty great.

[Josh Clark]

He was there at the beginning, like, where we left off with the release of the jazz singer in 1927. So he was there at the transition to talkies, and he was doing all sorts of stuff. He wrote a monthly column in Universal Studios, like, essentially, Company magazine. I guess he did that for decades. He was a great illustrator. He was a insert director where, like, if you showed one of the three Stooges, like, grabbing a paintbrush out of a bucket and you just saw their hand, that's an insert. And then they would edit that in later. The director who directed the whole thing, like the Stooges, probably didn't actually take that or get that shot. Somebody like Jack Foley did. And somehow, some way, he ended up becoming a sound effects guy. I don't know how he got his first chance. I think he was just hired on as one of the people doing it. And he became so good at it and so legendary that still today, anything that has to do with creating sound effects in a studio is called Foley.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. His name became an adjective, a verb, and an art form and a department.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Which is. I don't know many people that can say that, so. And I also think he got hired because he was just around doing all kinds of stuff. So it was one of those things like, Jack Foley can probably do it, right? So after the Jazz Singer, you know, everyone was like, oh, my gosh, this is the new thing. We have to have our talkie. And Universal had already gotten the movie Showboat in the can as a silent film. And they said, we want to change this into a talkie. So Jack Foley Goes over to Stage 10 at Universal Studios with an orchestra and started working his magic, which was, you know, fairly limited stuff at first, like audiences cheering and water and the sounds of the steamboat and stuff like that. But, you know, he kind of saved the day.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And the thing is, so there's this live orchestra playing along with this and there's no retake. So you did this whole movie in one take because it was being recorded directly to that Vitaphone record. Right. So it. It went out with the film like that was it. So this orchestra is playing and he's making these sound effects as it's happening on screen. It's just mind boggling what he was doing. And he got really good at it. Apparently. He could do a reel of film, which I saw 10 minutes. I think it probably varies a little bit, but somewhere around there, let's say 10 minutes of film, several scenes, he could do the sound effects live in one take.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it's amazing. He, you know, started assembling his props and stuff and they got him a room and it became known as Foley's room. And then eventually that would just become the Foley room, like on every studio. I don't know how quickly they adopted his name as an adjective and a verb and all that stuff. But I do know that it was pre credit because he was not even getting a credit for this because there was no such thing as a Foley artist till after him.

[Josh Clark]

No, his. His first movie, like you said, was Steamboat, which I think came out in 1928. And his last movie was Spartacus in 1960. He did scores, probably hundreds and hundreds of movies. And. Yeah, never once got an on screen credit, which is nuts.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I mean, the credit is named after him. Like he invented a credit.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, for sure. By the way, I think it was the early 60s and Desilu was the first studio outside of Universal to call their Foley room a Foley room.

[Chuck Bryant]

Amazing. What year Was that?

[Josh Clark]

Like 61 or something like that.

[Chuck Bryant]

So kind of right after he was done, he got the honor.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I guess.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's amazing.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that Desi Arnaz, man, he really. He was a class act.

[Chuck Bryant]

I did a shoot on the Lucy stage one time. It was pretty cool.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah? Is she buried there?

[Chuck Bryant]

No, no, no. It was just where they shot it.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

I would always ask, anytime you're shooting at one of the old, like Paramount lot or Universal, I would always kind of ask the old timers like, hey, what was here? And, you know, one time it was Happy Days. One time it was Lucy. It was Always kind of neat, right?

[Josh Clark]

Hans Moleman goes, I'm only 31 years old.

[Chuck Bryant]

A couple of books ago, I think three books ago, I read a really great dent. Stanley Kubrick talked about this fact, which was in Spartacus. He didn't like the audio recording of the Roman army marching. So he was trying to bring in a big, fairly expensive two day shoot to redo that. And Jack Foley was like, no, no, no, I think I've got this. And on the spot, went and got car keys and was able to recreate the sound of like the armor kind of clanking such that even Stanley Kubrick approved of.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Which is really saying something.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

But it went from potentially flying back to Spain and rehiring thousands of extras and reshooting these two days just for the sound to. No, check out these keys. I just saved your movie so much money. So just, I mean, that was his last one too. That was a great way to go out, I think.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, absolutely. Great movie. There are about 100 Foley artists working today in the United States, which, you know, that's not a lot. I was sort of surprised it was that high given sort of the digital takeover of a lot of things in Hollywood. But, you know, they call them artists because they are true artists. They have, obviously, you know, I mentioned earlier, they have great ears. Apparently Dave found that some of them have to wear earplugs in movies and concerts and things like that because their ears are just so kind of tuned in and sensitive.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

And they have their own language. You know, they don't say, oh, they may say clip clop of a horse, but they definitely make words up as sounds like, you know, I need it to make a screechy sound or it needs to sound poofy. And they just sort of know what they mean when they're talking to each other, right?

[Josh Clark]

Oh, they definitely do. There's this really great profile in the New Yorker where I think that hundred working Foley artists came from. One that one of the Foley artists profiled said there was probably a hundred. But they, I mean, just the different words that they use for these sounds are like they, they immediately know what the other one is talking about. And yeah, just even more than that, they can point to some chain or block and tackle just hanging in a junkyard and say, that'd make the, the swaying chink sound or something like that. And they sure enough, they could go up to it and make it sound exactly like what they were just describing. So it's like a really niche group of people who work in this really niche. It's like you said before, it's an art form and it's just fascinating to read about, let alone talk about. I'm fascinated right now. If you can't tell.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well. And just the ability to disassociate sound from object is key. And just like super impressive, like you mentioned, to be able to look at a thing and not see the thing, but see the sound, you know, what I'm. Or hear the sound, I guess in your head for sure. Potentially. It's super cool. I love it. When I was a kid, I remember seeing videos of Foley artists at work with a split screen of what's going on on screen. And I was just like wrapped.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So that's how they do this. So usually they work in pairs because there's like, in a given scene, there's probably frequently more going on than one person could possibly handle. I know. Jack Foley pioneered using canes with shoes attached to the bottom to make multiple people walking at the same time. It's a lot easier to just have another person in there. So you have like a Foley partner that you work with and then there's the Foley mixer. And apparently they don't really see what the Foley artists are doing because they're keeping an ear out to see if it matches what they think it should on the screen. They're making a lot of the final decisions on how it gets, like what sound gets made, how it gets sweetened or tightened or like tweaked or whatever.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And then if you step back and watch, like, like you said, they're behind. They're in front of this giant screen or even a TV sometimes. And they're just acting along with the actor. But making the sound with stuff that, you know, you just would never say, like, yes, this is obviously. This celery is obviously what you would use to, to make the sound when somebody falls down and breaks a bone.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

But they use celery.

[Chuck Bryant]

Snap is pretty good.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it definitely works. It's an industry wide vegetable.

[Chuck Bryant]

It is. They, they, they start with a spotting session, which is essentially just sitting down with the director and all the sound department and foley department and just making a huge list. You go through the movie and you just have a huge list of every single scene, every single sound you need to make. It's not the same thing as adr, which is additional dialogue recording, which is a lot of times actors will have to come in. We had to do this for our own TV show a little bit.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And you have to restate your lines for one reason or another and try and match it up. And we're watching the screen. But they do use the same technique called looping, which is just playing the thing on a loop over and over and over to try and, you know, sync it as close as you can.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And it's amazing that anybody can do that. Cause it's really hard.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. What? ADR or Foley?

[Josh Clark]

Adr? Well, both.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Adr. Always. I felt kind of dumb when I had to do it because it was, you know, you're trying to. Even though we were bad actors, like, we were trying to convey. You're always trying to convey some sort of emotion with everything that you're saying, even if it's just normal or bored.

[Josh Clark]

That is true.

[Chuck Bryant]

And to do that in a room looking at yourself with no experience, it.

[Josh Clark]

Was tough for me. I blamed Brian for all of those.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, no. So he'll hear this, by the way, so.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah, I know. I'm hoping he will. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I knew it.

[Josh Clark]

One of the other very classic things you'll see in a Foley studio is the floor will basically have, like, a raised section and it'll be divided into, like, squares. And one square will have, like, a concrete pad. Another square will have pebbles. Another square will have, you know, parquet fleece. Yeah, Leaves. Although I saw that they don't usually use leaves. They use, like, old magnetic reel to reel tape.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, yeah. Magnetic.

[Josh Clark]

Pull it out and crinkle it. And that makes a better leaf sound than a leaf. Somebody figured that out along the way. That leaf sounds don't really make a good leaf sound. Isn't that crazy? But that's how manipulated we are when we watch movies.

[Chuck Bryant]

True. But I have seen them go in the field for, like, forest walks and stuff. So there's a mix of everything. There's not, like, just one way to do things.

[Josh Clark]

Right. True.

[Chuck Bryant]

And they all share stuff. Like, whoever came up with the celery is probably regarded as a genius in the field, for sure.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I'm sure they're.

[Chuck Bryant]

They were using carrots before that.

[Josh Clark]

Right. I also saw there was. In that New Yorker profile, one of the Foley artists talks about a Halloween mask of the Tin man that got handed down from her former Foley partner when he retired. And she was like, nothing will ever make this sound. It's like a sh. Like it's described as a yawning shit sound. I can't even wrap my mind around that.

[Chuck Bryant]

But what sound is it supposed to be?

[Josh Clark]

A yawning church sound. I don't know. I think it used its.

[Chuck Bryant]

Like, what's it used for?

[Josh Clark]

I don't know.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

If you wait a little bit, I can look her up and call and ask.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, no, no, no. That's all right. I just wondered if you were like. And that's the sound of a pot going on a stove.

[Josh Clark]

How about this? Let's edit this in. The sound of a pot going on the stove.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay, perfect.

[Josh Clark]

But she was pointing out, like, I think they even said, like, she ordered a new one online and it came and she was like, this doesn't sound anything like it. It's made of different materials. So, like, it's so nuanced. I saw a quote from David Fincher, the director, who is like a huge fan of Foley art artists, and he basically was like, we're looking at like the, like a scene of some people having a. A meeting in a lawyer's office. And he's like, what is the. What is the naugahide or the leather on the sofa sound like.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Like, is it. Is it fake? Like, is this a strip mall lawyer's office or is it like a really well heeled lawyer's office? So it's real leather. Like, that kind of attention to detail that Foley artists make, like, that's what makes a movie, like, engrossing or, you know, at the very least, extremely realistic. Like that level of attention to detail.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Or if you're not paying attention to detail like that, it makes something stand out as. And you may not even recognize it, but subconsciously it may just. A sound may sit wrong if they don't do it right.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Like, if somebody sits on a leather couch and it makes a yawning shh sound, you're gonna be like, what was that?

[Chuck Bryant]

That's a Tin man helmet.

[Josh Clark]

Right. You wouldn't believe them if they told you.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. So the Foley stage is amazing. They have that floor, it's just riddled with props and weird things that they all. They don't call it by the thing, you know, they call it by the sound it makes. Like, you don't say, give me those coconuts. You say, give me the hooves. Although they don't use coconuts. A little bit of a Monty Python reference there. But yeah, it's a fun looking room. I encourage everyone to go see some YouTube video of a Foley artist in work in their little kind of cool, air conditioned dark room. There's water, there's usually a bathtub, there's usually a working toilet, and just all manner of props that people use.

[Josh Clark]

That's right. You want to take a break and come back and talk a little more about sound effects?

[Chuck Bryant]

Let's do it.

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[Chuck Bryant]

Let me open my door.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Oh, that was good. And then look out Chuck going out again.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, so Dave kind of dug up some fun classic Foley tricks from famous movies and we're going to talk about those and more because we're going to get into Star wars as well. Because everyone loves talking about Star Wars.

[Josh Clark]

Well, the guy who was the Foley artist and I guess sound designer for Star Wars, Ben Burke, just changed the industry from what I could tell. He's a really interesting creative guy.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, we've talked about him before. He was the Wilhelm Scream guy.

[Josh Clark]

Yes. Yes. Did you see the Wilhelm Scream thing I sent?

[Chuck Bryant]

I did not.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, I know the story of the Wilhelm Scream. You want to hear it?

[Chuck Bryant]

We did a whole episode on it, didn't we?

[Josh Clark]

No, we just mentioned it, and then Jerry put the wrong one in.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, I thought we did a whole short stuff on it.

[Josh Clark]

On the Wilhelm Scream. I don't think so.

[Chuck Bryant]

I thought we did. Well, either way, just go ahead.

[Josh Clark]

All right, if we have, then we'll edit this part out. But essentially, the Wilhelm Scream was a scream that they think was recorded by a guy named Sheb Woolley, who is an actor and musician who's known for the song Purple People Eater. He's the guy who sang that. And it was in a movie called Distant Drums, and I think we can play the. The. The Wilhelm Scream right here. Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

I mean, I thought we could the first time, and it didn't work.

[Josh Clark]

Well, let's try again. So this is what we're talking about. This is the very famous Wilhelm Scream. Okay. So apparently Sheb Woolley recorded that for Distant Drums, but it didn't become kind of, I guess, a thing or iconic or, well used until two years later. There was a movie called the Charge at Feather river, and a character named Private Wilhelm gets shot in the leg by an arrow, and he screams. The Wilhelm Scream still wasn't called the Wilhelm Scream until Ben Burke came along for Star wars, and he'd seen just tons of westerns as a kid, and the Wilhelm Scream showed up in almost all of them. So he sought out that scream and found it in the Charge at Feather River Sound Library, and. And used it. The first time it shows up is when Luke shoots a stormtrooper and the stormtrooper falls off of something or other. I can't remember where exactly. And he adopted it as a signature sound, and it just became kind of a iconic in joke among sound editors since then.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. You know, it may have been Movie Crush.

[Josh Clark]

That makes sense where I covered that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, totally makes sense.

[Josh Clark]

And I think it was all. That's interesting. Said it's been in over 400 films.

[Chuck Bryant]

Amazing. Yeah, the E.T. sound. They needed E.T. to sound a certain way when E.T. walked around because they needed him to sound like an ET but also not be, like, gross. They wanted people to like E.T. so they used, like, jello wrapped in a damp T shirt and raw liver, apparently, just for the sort of squishy walking sounds. That's a pretty good one.

[Josh Clark]

Yikes. What about Titanic? This is a good one. No spoilers.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm gonna Spoil the end of Titanic.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, come on.

[Chuck Bryant]

So you can dial out now if you want to, but at the end of Titanic, Kate Winslet is floating on a door or a piece of wood or something. I think it's a door. And she's freezing cold. And they used apparently frozen lettuce to recreate the sound of her hair moving.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Which was perfect. Cause I remember that sound effect. I don't think I was like, that crispy hair sounds crazy at the time. But when I read about it, I remembered that it made some sort of impact on.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

To prevent anybody from emailing in. Apparently it's not a door. Everybody says it's a door. But some people on Reddit found the piece of the staircase that it was taken from. So James Cameron's film was so accurate that you could determine that she was floating on a piece of staircase that is shown earlier in the Titanic before it sinks.

[Chuck Bryant]

I think it was a door.

[Josh Clark]

That's fine. I just wanted. I knew somebody was going to email in and I wanted to burst their bubble.

[Chuck Bryant]

Fight Club. You know, if you've ever heard of fist fight in real life, a. I'm sorry, because that's a really dumb thing to do, is to punch somebody. But a punch to somebody's face in real life or to their body doesn't sound anything like it sounds in the movies. It's a fairly boring sound. So they need to recreate that, obviously. And a lot of times they're punching, you know, raw meat and things like that and adding extra, like, bass and kind of tweaking it in post. But apparently in Fight Club, chicken carcasses were pounded with baseball bats along with the sounds of cracking walnuts. Yes, pretty good.

[Josh Clark]

There was this movie called Berberine Sound studio back in 2012. Did you see it?

[Chuck Bryant]

I've never heard of it.

[Josh Clark]

It was a little art house movie. What's the British actor? The short British actor with glasses? Toby Somebody. He played Capote. Jim Capote.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah. Toby Jones, maybe.

[Josh Clark]

Yes, you're right. So Toby Jones is in it and he's a Foley artist who starts to descend into madness. And essentially the entire movie takes place on a Foley studio stage. And there's parts where they're stabbing a melon to make the sound of the person on screen getting stabbed. And the Foley artist who actually worked on that movie said that they had to use wet cloth and wood to make the sound of the Foley artist on the screen stabbing the watermelon to make the sound of the person on their screen getting stabbed with a Knife.

[Chuck Bryant]

I think I do remember that movie. I don't think I saw it, but I remember that happening.

[Josh Clark]

It's worth seeing. It's a slow burn that possibly, depending on your view, never actually ignites.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

But it's a. It's an interesting movie. He does a good job.

[Chuck Bryant]

They should put that on the poster. Possibly never ignites. Josh Clark.

[Josh Clark]

Right. They're like, this is the best we could get.

[Chuck Bryant]

Melons are useful. Use a lot of melons for a lot of things. A hand inside a melon, apparently was when that first dinosaur egg hatches. Sorry, spoiler alert. In Jurassic park, it was a hand inside of a melon combined with the cracking of an ice cream cone.

[Josh Clark]

Very nice. I also saw Raiders of the Lost Ark, that famous boulder rolling at Indy in the beginning of the movie. First movie, yeah. It was a car with no motor being rolled down a hill.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, okay. And that was also Ben Burt.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, was it? That makes sense.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. He did all the Indiana Jones movies. He did E.T. he was clearly a Spielberg Lucas y guy.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, he was a. He was good. And probably still. Is he still working?

[Chuck Bryant]

I bet he is. He's in his mid ish 70s, so I bet he's. He's still out there.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, there we go.

[Chuck Bryant]

I like to think he is. Should we talk about some of the Star wars sounds too while we're here?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I think so.

[Chuck Bryant]

The Blaster. Star Wars Blaster. Very, very legendary film. Sci fi sound. He. And you'll see a lot of sound people that just like kind of always carry around their recording device. I don't know if they do that kind of stuff on phones now. Just to say, like, hey, this, like, just to pick up the sound. But back then, for Ben Byrd, it was a Nagra reel to reel recorder and he was on vac. He was just collecting sounds all over the place to potentially use for Star Wars. And that's kind of the fun thing is just looking around the world and like, just collecting noises and say, you know, this might come in handy later. You never know.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

And they were in the Poconos and he went to a. He saw a radio tower with those big, taut, big bundled wire support cables. And he was like, I wonder what that sounds like. When I hit it. He hit it with a rock and it made that sound. And then he did it at another tower, a radio tower in the Mojave Desert, and combined those, tweaked them a little bit. And that's how you get that laser blast, which you too can make. If you ever See one of those really, really taut cables. If you hit that thing with something metal, it'll go Q. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

There's a bunch of different laser blasts in Star wars, but the ones that were made with that sound effect, once you know that, you can really clearly hear it. It's perfect.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I think it's the blaster sound.

[Josh Clark]

You mean Han Solo's blaster?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I mean, the blaster is just a type of gun. I mean, we're probably going to get in big trouble from Star wars people.

[Josh Clark]

Probably.

[Chuck Bryant]

But when they put laser sound, I was like, oh, no, you can't say that, dude. It's a blaster.

[Josh Clark]

Let's move on to the TIE Fighters. How about that?

[Chuck Bryant]

Let's do it.

[Josh Clark]

Those are actually so the very famous.

[Chuck Bryant]

Hey, that's pretty good.

[Josh Clark]

Thanks. Those are African elephants that are roaring layered over one another and then distorted so that it doesn't sound like elephants. But when you hear that and you go listen to the TIE Fighter sound being made, you'll say, yeah, that's an elephant.

[Chuck Bryant]

I think you do a Chewbacca, too, don't you?

[Josh Clark]

No.

[Chuck Bryant]

I thought you used to do that.

[Josh Clark]

No, my Chewbacca sounds like this. It's like a nitrous.

[Chuck Bryant]

I could have sworn it was you that did a pretty good Chewbacca, but maybe not. But apparently Chewbacca was made by just combining a bunch of different animals and again, layering them on top of one another, including a walrus, a badger, and a bear, at the very least. And then we got to mention R2D2, because that's where Ben Burt brings in. A big change in the industry is when the synthesizer, especially the moog, was invented, because not only could you make all sorts of, like, cool space ag music for soundtracks, you could also make just bleeps and bloops, which is what he did. He had a Korg synthesizer, a very early Korg, and did these beeps and boops for R2D2. And you think, all right, that's great. Big deal. But the genius of it is that he somehow creates emotion and conveys emotion through these beeps and boops from a little droid with a synthesizer.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's magic.

[Josh Clark]

That's the reason Foley artists are still around, because you just can't do that with stock stuff from a sound library.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Or you could tell when it's done that way for sure.

[Josh Clark]

There you go. So one other thing we should probably touch on real quick are nature documentaries.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Get ready to be disappointed.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, they get a lot of guff for basically fudging stuff. And they are legendary for fudging stuff. Like apparently they'll use semi domesticated animals that they rent to film, you know, chasing a lamb around or something like that. But one of the things they're very frequently criticized on is using sound effects and really kind of going overboard with them. But by the nature of what they're making, they have to use sound effects to begin with.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I mean a lot of this stuff is filmed on very long lenses from very far away. If you're filming a lion tracking down an antelope and killing it, you're not like right up on it. So you don't have the sound to begin with. Maybe they bring some people out there with those long distance mics to record some stuff, but then there's just so much ambient sound they probably can't use it. So generally if you see like a Planet Earth Discovery documentary, these, the sound department is handed kind of like a silent film almost. And they use, you know, it's not like they, they gotta have to use like real animal calls for the real animals. They're not just like, hey, let's make this lion sound kind of like different.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

So they want accuracy there for sure. But you know, when you see a mushroom growing in a time lapse, they're just adding all those sounds of like a mushroom stretching its arms out.

[Josh Clark]

I guess.

[Chuck Bryant]

Mushroom doesn't have arms, it's head.

[Josh Clark]

Sure. I mean lean in and put your ear to a mushroom as it's growing and you're not going to hear anything. Doesn't make a sound.

[Chuck Bryant]

Nope.

[Josh Clark]

Another one they get accused of is making the northern lights make a sound. Yeah, those don't make a sound. There's just all sorts of like if you stop and think about it like a close up of a spider walking on a leaf, it wouldn't make a sound. But it would look weird to not have a sound or at the very least it looks better. That makes the whole thing better to add a sound. I don't really. I mean nature documentaries are so fudged to begin with that I don't really have a problem with that. The sound?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I don't have a problem. And I think if someone like you said, if you sat someone down and showed them just the realistic thing, with just the realistic sound, it's probably not nearly as compelling.

[Josh Clark]

They'd be like, can I leave now? You got anything else?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, one last thing. Just sort of on the note of using things like pro tools, I mentioned earlier that it was kind of budget related. And obviously big movies can just afford to do whatever they want in terms of that kind of thing. But even then, the sound line items are often just a very small part of the budget. You know, it kind of depends. But, you know, when you budget out a movie or a TV show or commercial or anything, you kind of have a general template to work for. Like, we're going to allocate this percentage for this. This percentage for this. Camera department's going to get probably something like this. And sound is always like maybe 10% or so. And a lot of times that can include the rights to play soundtrack stuff. And, you know, it depends on the movie. If it's like Dazed and Confused or something like that, that's really music reliant. You know, you're going to have to spend a lot of money on that. So you may look at the post production sound and be like, I'm sorry, you have very little to work with. So that's where you're going to get stuff like pulled from libraries a little more. When you get these big, big movies, that's when they can afford to bring in the Foley artists and the whole teams. And that's why the sound is always really awesome. And that's why they highlight it at the Academy Awards.

[Josh Clark]

Yes. Nice. Yeah. So go forth and watch movies and listen out for sounds and you'll probably be amazed here or there.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, but don't get so caught up in that. Like, I wonder if Foley artists can even watch movies and enjoy them.

[Josh Clark]

I feel so bad for people who can't watch movies who can't enjoy food because they're chefs or something like that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, yeah, totally.

[Josh Clark]

Can't enjoy simple pleasures in life because they know too much about it. You know, can't enjoy bologna or sausage.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I say, here's a new Stuff youf Should Know T shirt. We have a new T shirt seller, right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it's on Cotton Bureau, our new merch merchant.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. We've never put a lot of effort into merch, but we always hear people asking, so Cotton Bureau stuff you should know. You can find our merch now. And I think a new T shirt should be Stay Dumb Enjoy Things.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, that's a good one. Yeah, that's a great one. All right, well, let's have Aaron Cooper get on it. Because I say, I think two thirds of our shirts in our merch store from Aaron Cooper because he's really good at it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And stayed up Enjoy Things is perfect to promote a show that's all about trying to make people smarter.

[Josh Clark]

Precisely. Yeah. I wonder if we can get a shirt that says.

[Chuck Bryant]

How would you spell that?

[Josh Clark]

I don't know. I'm gonna leave that to Aaron Cooper. Yeah, well, since we said Aaron Cooper's name at least two times, I think maybe three. We've unlocked listener mail.

[Chuck Bryant]

You don't want to say it three times because he'll be right behind you. All right, here we go. This is from Stephanie. And I feel bad about this because I even knew this. Hey, guys. Thanks for the great episode about the militarization of the police. I'm truly grateful for the decade of learning. Since I've been listening, one of you commented, I think it was me probably, that you were surprised to read about the police and Teen Vogue. I thought you might be interested to know that Teen Vogue is pretty well known for serious journalism and being an example for taking young women and girls seriously. I knew that. And we have even talked about this before. And so I don't know why I.

[Josh Clark]

Was like, no, it was me.

[Chuck Bryant]

Was it?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it was 100% me.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, I thought it was me. I'll throw myself on that grenade.

[Josh Clark]

That's okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

Along with you.

[Josh Clark]

That's all right.

[Chuck Bryant]

But she says, here's an article from Jezebel by juliannescobedo Shepherd. If you're shocked Teen Vogue is great. You're not paying attention. I imagine you may get other emails like this, although I may be the first since I was up crazy early and listened right away. Way thanks and have a great day. And that is from Stephanie.

[Josh Clark]

Thanks, Stephanie. Those are the corrections that we love to get where it's very gentle, but also like you. You guys, come on. You know. Yeah. If you can balance those two things, you've come up with a great correction email as far as I'm concerned.

[Chuck Bryant]

Agreed.

[Josh Clark]

Do you want to be like Stephanie and send us a correction or just an email to say hi or whatever? You can send it off to stuffpodcastiheartradio.com.

[Chuck Bryant]

Stuff youf Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.

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For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit.

[Chuck Bryant]

The iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever.

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[Chuck Bryant]

This is an iHeart podcast.