Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
- Ryan Purcell, a renowned foley artist, retired after 40 years in film.
- His collection of props was discovered by sound designer Jake Proctor.
- Proctor inherited Purcell's props, continuing the legacy of creating movie sound magic.
SALT LAKE CITY — A coffee pot, an old Slinky, a shovel. To the untrained eye, it looks like junk. But to the few people who understand, it represents a life's work searching for movie magic and the passing of a torch from a foley artist of one generation to one of the next.
When I met Ryan Purcell 28 years ago, he was barefoot and walking in a pit of sand in a recording studio to recreate the footsteps of actor Omar Sharif for "The Mysteries of Egypt" IMAX film. The well-known sound designer, Mike McDonough, a frequent collaborator, manned the audio mixing board.
Purcell was an ADR recordist (an audio engineer who re-records dialogue in the studio that replaces dialogue shot on location) and – more germane to this story — a foley artist, someone who recreates footsteps and other sounds synchronized to the picture for movies and TV shows.
Over his long career he'd walked in the footsteps of many stars and, like most foley artists, amassed a large collection of props, everyday items – chairs, teacups, belts – that helped him create those sounds.
He banged together two pieces of broken cement from his driveway to make the sound of Egyptian stonecutters.
For another project, a rerelease of "Star Wars," jostling football shoulder pads served as the sound of marching stormtroopers.
"When it comes to folly props, there is no such thing as junk," Purcell said
He had one foot in Hollywood and one foot in Salt Lake City. He said he was lucky enough to work in one world — he worked on audio for TV hits like "Lost," "24," and "Touched by an Angel," and he called actors Treat Williams and Della Reese his friends – but lived in the other.
"Over 40 years, it's been a pretty amazing run," he said in a recent interview.
During the final few years, Purcell watched the rise of streaming and the decline of show business revenues and knew his career was coming to a close.
So, in 2018, when HUGEsound Post Production, the audio studio that then was housing his props, shut down, (the owner, Gaylen Rust, also owner of Rust Rare Coin, was charged with running a fraudulent silver trading operation and was later sentenced to 19 years behind bars) Purcell decided it was time to retire.
"I left it all (his props) sitting there (in HUGEsound)," he said.
Then, he mostly retired.
Enter sound designer Jake Proctor, who began working on postproduction sound and, out of necessity, a foley artist, for the 2013 short "Imagine," starring Scott Wolf.
Proctor and his business partner, film composer Christopher Doucet, were invited to tour the then-defunct HUGEsound to see if they wanted to purchase any of the company's audio gear.
"I remember the whole thing feeling very serendipitous," Doucet said.
Most of what they saw wasn't of interest until their tour guide mentioned that there were some foley props (of Purcell's) in the cargo bay.
"Because it looked like junk, the lawyers didn't realize what it was," Doucet said. "It looked like random stuff you'd see in a garage. I remember realizing that it was a finely curated life's work. It was like inheriting a museum of someone's life's work. It was like the craziest coincidence that it just magically came to Jake."
Purcell and Proctor were likely the only two foley artists in Salt Lake City.
Proctor rented a U-Haul and carted it away.
"You spend your whole life in thrift shops or at pawn shops or people's houses and garage sales collecting all of these knickknacks. At the end of your (foley) career you're left at this big room full of stuff," Proctor said. "For me to be coming into my own, kind of, as a sound artist right at that same time and going, 'This is Christmas. This is unbelievable.'"
The props, Doucet said, have been an education, with little audio mysteries Proctor has to unravel as he figures out what sound each makes.
Purcell said he's happy his props ended up with Proctor.
"For every other person on the planet, they would go, 'Uh, where's the dumpster?'" Purcell said.
The two have since met and talked.
"He was just gushing. He was so honored. It was good for my ego," Purcell said.
Purcell's passed along to Proctor some other favorite pieces — a creaky old table that could emulate the groans of an old wooden ship, a case (he fished out of a dumpster) that he used to make the sound of horse-drawn carriages.
"They were literally my babies," Purcell said. "I had no idea that anyone had the slightest interest in it. I'm thrilled. The fact that my babies are part of his success, yeah, I'm good with that."
