“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.

Artclip of man cleaning