Today’s sound effects are often recorded live, then archived in SFX libraries for use in recording studios where they are mixed with dialogue, music and other sound. The technology used to perfect—or even exaggerate—sound effects is highly sophisticated and film sound designers are experts at using it to tell a large part of a movie’s story.

Several categories of SFX comprise the emotional language of films: Foley sounds (see description below); designed sounds (usually the sound of something that doesn’t exist in real life, like a laser pistol); creature sounds (the “language” of creatures you see on the screen); or ambient sound (such as crickets in the background). Contemporary sound designers use computerized sound effects to enhance movies, but an early sound man named Jack Foley made innovations in one area of sound technology that are still in use today.

Jack Foley, a 1950s radio and movie sound pioneer and Universal Studio technician, turned the early and sometimes primitive field of sound effects into an art form. Foley became famous for producing synchronized sound effects, and in doing so, gave his name to a specialized segment of future sound technicians called Foley Artists.