Food: Hollywood's secret to special effects

It doesn't matter if millions of dollars, Hollywood's top actors, and hours upon hours of CGI are used to create a film. Sometimes what makes a movie truly spectacular is one thing: food. (And I'm not talking about the caterers on set.)

A sound effects team in 1931 for CBS radio series "The March of Time". [Source: Atlas Obscura / Public Domain]

For years, Hollywood has turned to unique ways of breaking, crunching, and smashing food to create great sound effects for motion pictures. Steven Spielberg and his sound artist Joan Rowe famously used jelly, popcorn, and liver for E.T.'s charming, liquidy movements. 

Even James Cameron relied on a head of lettuce to express the cracking of Rose's frozen hair at the end of Titanic. Adding sound in post-production using food removes the need to capture a specific noise in a moment on set and gives sound artists time to make the sound they want—because sometimes visceral reactions are more important to the audience than a truly "authentic" sound.  

Read the full article: Why Foley Artists Use Cabbage and Celery to Create Hollywood’s Distinctive Sounds on Atlas Obscura.