In fall 2025, STLPR reporter Marissanne Lewis-Thompson reached out to Deirdre Maitre, a senior lecturer and resident filmmaker in Washington University’s film and media studies program, with a story idea: to explore the indispensable but often invisible art of film sound.

Maitre welcomed Lewis-Thompson and her team from St Louis Public Radio to WashU’s Harvey Media Center for the interview and to observe and try Foley; the art of creating original sound effects to picture in post-production. The performance-based artform takes its name from Jack Foley, a sound pioneer at Universal Pictures who helped develop the technique as Hollywood shifted from the silent era to “talkies” in the late 1920s. Foley was hired to perform and record high quality sounds separate from the original filming, but in sync with the picture, launching the foundation of a highly creative practice that remains central to filmmaking today.

The Foley session brought a piece of St. Louis film history into the recording room, as well. Maitre selected a climactic moment from Return of the Fly (1959), starring St. Louis native Vincent Price, as the scene for the team to recreate. Price first played François Delambre in the original The Fly (1958) and reprised the role in the sequel. In both films, François heads the Delambre family’s technology company and is reluctantly drawn into a dangerous human experiment, which unleashes consequences no one can control. Like the original, The Return of the Fly is set in Montreal but was filmed on a soundstage in Los Angeles.

Lewis-Thompson’s story, “How Foley artists transform watermelons into a chorus of feasting zombies in horror films,” first aired last fall and was rebroadcast this week on STLPR, taking listeners behind the scenes to create the sounds that bring horror to life. Since its original

broadcast, Lewis-Thompson has received four awards: a prestigious Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Sound; First Place in Feature Reporting; a First Place Crystal Mic Award for Use of Sound from the Illinois News Broadcasters Association; and Best Use of Sound from the Public Media Journalists Association. The honors recognize Lewis-Thompson’s outstanding journalism and the collaboration that made it possible. Together, Maitre and the team at STLPR helped bring the hidden art of performing film sound into focus.

Alongside Making Movies I and Making Movies II, this spring Maitre will teach Video Post-Production, with a special segment on Foley art that gives students a closer, hands-on experience creating and shaping original sound effects for the screen.

Students can explore the full range of Film & Media Studies course offerings for spring 2027 here: https://fms.washu.edu/news/fmss-spring-2027-courses