In a dark, cavernous underground sound stage, two women crouch, their eyes riveted to a giant movie screen. Episode I. Like musicians in an orchestra pit playing to a celluloid score, they take their cues from the movements of the images flickering in front of them. The duo of performers creates a sound to match the movement onscreen wielding mysterious metallic instruments. Highly sensitive microphones record the specialized work of these two women. Lithe and highly focused, Dennie Thorpe and Jana Vance are the foley artists of Lucasfilm.
Many films utilize a foley track because sound as recorded on the set is often unusable.
Background noise like a plane flying overhead or the toot of an automobile horn can obscure dialogue. Sometimes live sound recorded on a set must be replaced because sets created to look like real environments are actually fake. I's climactic lightsaber battle, they were actually performing on a set constructed of plywood made to look like metal. The live sounds recorded during this scene consisted of a series of heavy footsteps on plywood, the clack of prop lightsabers and the breathing of the actors as they performed the complicated fight choreographed by Stunt Coordinator Nick Gillard . The other sounds, like the lightsabers and doors opening and closing, were created by Ben Burtt and his sound editing team.