If you want a film to really have visceral impact, the sound maketh the movie—and the foley artist maketh the sound. During a shoot, mic placement is optimized for dialog, and the quality of background sounds can suffer. That’s where the foley artist steps in, re-creating and recording those other noises, from footsteps to crackling fires, as discrete layers that can be edited into the scene. The practice goes back to Jack Foley, part of the team that transformed the 1929 silent movie Show Boat into an ear-tickling musical hit.

Some say great foley is the stuff that goes unnoticed: the soft swirl of a waltzing dress, the clunk-a-chink of Iron Man. But in a fight scene, we want our crunches and slashes to command attention. Foley artist Marko Costanzo, whose more than 400 film credits include The Departed and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, has produced audio for countless duels in his 28 years on the job. For punches, he says the best sound comes from hitting himself: “I used to hit soft; now I just hit hard enough the first time so I don’t have to do three takes.”

His latest film is the sci-fi thriller Limitless, starring Bradley Cooper as Eddie Morra, a writer who discovers a drug that gives him superpowers. Costanzo recorded about 1,500 sounds, or “cues,” for the film. The most boom-tastic come during a sequence in which three goons attack Morra in his apartment, looking for his stash. Costanzo was tasked with matching sound to punches, stabs, and a window that gets in the way. Here’s how he brought the noise.

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