“Hey, guys, remember the ‘Black Panther’ area?” Roden called out. “It’s kinda the squeak I was looking for,” Curtis said softly. “We have so many metal boxes,” Roden said, and walked away. “It has potential.” A few yards away, Curtis had moved on to a shelf of metal filing-cabinet drawers, freckled with rust. She suggested that one of the wheels could be used as a sweetener-a sound that is subtly layered over another sound, to add dimension-for a high-tech roll-up door, or perhaps one made of stone. He began rotating one against another, producing a gritty, high-pitched ring, like an elementary-school fire alarm. Inside the yard, Curtis immediately gravitated toward a pile of what looked like millstones, or sanding wheels. Petaluma is a historically agricultural town, and that afternoon was the thirty-ninth annual Butter and Egg Days Parade the air smelled of lavender and barbecued meat. “The funny thing was, the cleaning crew discovered this hinge squeak, and they lubricated the squeak-the hinge. “There was a door at the Paramount stage that had the best creak,” he said. Curtis was in the market for a squeaky hinge.

The pair was joined by Scott Curtis, their Foley mixer, a bearded fiftysomething. Roesch, a puffer-clad sexagenarian with white hair, had brought his truck, in the event of a large haul. A lazy Susan was also on the checklist-something to produce a smooth, swivelling sound. “I’m looking for a resonator, and I need more ka-chunkers,” Roden, who is blond and in her late forties, said. On a recent morning, Shelley Roden and John Roesch, Foley artists who work at Skywalker Sound, the postproduction audio division of Lucasfilm, stood in the parking lot, considering the sonic properties of an enormous industrial hopper. To the untrained eye, the place is a testament to the enduring power of American detritus, but to Foley artists-craftspeople who create custom sound effects for film, television, and video games-it’s a trove of potential props. The salvage yard at M. Maselli & Sons, in Petaluma, California, is made up of six acres of angle irons, block pulleys, doorplates, digging tools, motors, fencing, tubing, reels, spools, and rusted machinery. This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.

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