A guide to creating sound effects for your film.

Foley is the reproduction of everyday sound effects that are added to films, videos, and other media in post-production to enhance audio quality. In this series, Insider looks at how sound designers get creative with sourcing and manipulating sounds for animals in films:

How Sound Is Used To Create Suspense In Horror Movies:

Why It’s So Hard For Foley Artists To Make Footstep Sounds:

There are a couple of ways to go about producing the foley for your own film:

Try It Yourself

A quick search for royalty free sound will turn up resources like freesound.org – archives of pre-recorded sounds, of varying quality, that are free (of both cost and licensing) to use in your projects:

The best (and often most fun) way is to make your own foley. Parker Walbeck demonstrates many of the typical steps in the process – locating sounds, treating your room, setting up, props, rehearsing, recording, and layering sounds:

Further Listening

In order to create better sound for our films, we should first ask, “What do our ears see?”:

Film School: Sound Design

Many of the tricks behind the sound effects in some of the best-known movies ever made are surprising – and creative:

Film School: Ben Burtt

MAKE. ART. NOW and Andrew Huang demonstrate some fun ways to capture and manipulate sound effects:

Film School: Sound Design Tricks