A foley artist is a person who recreates sound effects for films or tv shows on a Foley stage in a post production studio. They do this by using various items such as shoes, plated, chair etc. The purpose of this is to create a richer sound than already present.
The reason a Foley artist is so important is due to the fact that props and settings aren't always available when they are needed and they may not have the right materials for what you need. This is where the foley artist steps in a makes the sound that you want. An example of what he or she does would be if the film or tv show had swords they may be plastic so its the Foley artist job to make it sound like they are real.
Below is an example of a Foley Artist and he examples what he does and how it is done.
As a class we had a go at creating some foley sound and I will embed these below.
