Animals are never ever
silent - dogs whine/bark/yip, cats meow or purr,
cows moo, even in cases where most animals wouldn't
be making a sound.
Rats, mice,
squirels and other vermin always make the tiny little
squeeky noises constantly while they are on screen.
Dolphins
always make that same "dolphin chatter" sound when spinning,
jumping, etc.
Snakes are
always rattling
Crickets in winter and
peepers in the fall
Dogs always know who's
bad, and bark at them.
Insects
always sound wet
It's the same Cat scream
over & over.
Sound effects
editor Peter Steinbach once tried to record his
own cat scream by stepping on it's tail. His advice:
- You only have one take. Step hard! (and dont wear shorts)
In a horror film when
there is a full moon there is either an owl or a wolf
howling in the distance. [Listen
to Wolves!]
The Loon is mostly found
in lakes in North America. In the movies it seems to
be just about anywhere in the world. [Listen
to Loons|
Kookaburras (a type
of large Australian kingfisher) are inhabitants of African/South
American jungles, not Australian open forest. (laughing
bird sound, see most Tarzan films). [read
about and listen to Laughing Kookaburra!]
Bombs always have big,
blinking, beeping timer displays.
If something explodes,
it takes about a minute for the explosions to stop
Explosions always happen
in slow motion. When an explosion occurs, make certain
you are running away from the point of detonation so
the blast can send you flying, in slow motion, toward
the camera.
Bombs "whistle" when
falling from a plane
CARS
Car tires "always" screech
on dirt roads.
Car breaks must always
squeak
Car tires must always
squeal when the car turns, pulls away or stops
On big budget films-
whenver a car does any maneuver It must accelerate -
ideally to the point of peeling out! even if it is going
under 20mph
In a route we hear a
large truck and a horn with Doppler effect
COMPUTERS
Every button you press
on a computer makes some kind of beep
Text being
spelled out on screen (whether computer or lower third)
MUST make some sort of typing and/or dot-matrix-printer
type of sound.
in foreign
language versions of u.s. movies computers show their
messages in english, but they all can speak!
Storms start instantaneously:
there's a crack of thunder and lightning, then heavy
rain starts falling.
Thunder is always in
sync with the lightning, and the explosion sounds are
always in sync with the stuff blowing up, no matter
how far away. Same for fireworks
Whisteling types of
wind are always used
Non-stop bubbles underwater
Doors always squeek
Enviromental sound to
a shoot with the window open, are always next
to a schoolyard or a construction-site.
When in San Francisco,
no matter where you are, you always hear a cable car
and or a fog horn.
The Universal
Telephone Ring
Endlessly used on television (especially in TV shows
produced at Universal Studios during the '70s and '80s)
and in many films as well - is the sound of a telephone
ringing. Read
about and listen to "The Universal Telephone Ring"
Exterior
Ambiences: No matter where you are outside, if it's
not in the city, you hear a lonely cricket chirping
Trains:
we always hear the same old classic distant trainhorn
over and over again.
in U.S.
films playing in big cities there's always a police
horn in the background -
in films from other countries... never!!!!
When a light
bulb gets broken, there's always a kind of electric
sound
Whenever
there is a fight or commotion going on in the upstairs
of a house, the person downstairs won't hear a thing
because the noise of gunshots, chairs falling over,
screams etc will be totally masked by the following
sounds; the phone ringing, the washing machine beginning
its spin cycle, the dog barking, a drink is being whizzed
up in the liquidiser or the maid beginning the vacuum
cleaning. .
HELICOPTERS
& AIRPLANES
Helicopters always fly
from surround to front-speakers.
People standing outside
a running helicopter can always talk in normal or just
slightly louder than normal voices
Every helicopter shutting
down emits the chirp-chirp-chirp sound of the rubber
drive belts disengaging, in spite of the fact that only
the famous Bell 47G (the Mash chopper) actually makes
this sound.
Piston helicopters always
start up with screaming turbine engine sounds.
An approaching airplane
or helicopter will make no noise until it is directly
over the characters, at which point it will suddenly
become thunderingly loud.
Characters will never
hear an approaching airplane or helicopter, even though
in real life you would hear them approaching for at
least a minute before they were close enough to see.
This also holds true for approaching armies on horseback
and tank battallions.
The tires of any jet
screech upon landing
Any airplane in a dive
will make a whining noise that will get louder and higher-pitched
the longer the dive lasts.
KNIFE
When a character pulls
out a knife, even from his pants, you hear a sound of
metal brushing metal
LANGUAGE& VOICE
The WILHELM
Scream A
series of short painful screams performed by an actor
were recorded in 1951 for the Warner Brother's film
"Distant Drums." They were used for a scene where a
man is bitten and dragged underwater by an alligator.
The recording was archived into the studio's sound effects
library -- and it was used in many of their films since.
"Star
Wars" Sound Designer Ben Burtt tracked down
the scream recording - which he named "Wilhelm" from
a character who let out the same scream in "Charge at
Feather River (1953)." Ben
has adopted the scream as sort of a personal sound signature,
and has worked it into as many films as he can.
History of the Wilhelm Scream
by Steve Lee
Video
compilation of The Wilhelm Scream Clips 1977- 2007
Video
compilation of The Wilhelm Scream Clips1953
-1999
Even when depicted as
foreigners (including aliens from outer space) all actors
speak and understand a common language (usually English)
unless the film's plot depends on a language barrier.
The same women's recorded
voice is heard in every spaceship, space-station, government
building, etc. announcing something to the effect
of the main computer has been shut down, this ship will
self destruct in one minute.
Baby crying and bad
news
The Godfather: when
Don Corleone is shot, Sonny barges in to his house
and announces this. Followed by baby crying.
Snow Falling on Cedars:
the sheriff announces to a woman that her fisherman
husband is dead. Followed by baby crying
Kids can always whisper
even if their two inchs away from a villian - he won't
hear. If they step on a branch however, the villians
will immediatly know its not some animal, and catch
them.
Scream
Whenever someone
falls off of a cliff or building, no matter how
much damage they take beforehand, they scream, even
if they were shot
through the lungs twenty or thirty times, or were
apparently unconscious.
When villains fall
to their deaths, you can hear their screams gradually
fade out, even if they only fall ten feet or so.
When there's
a police car standing, there are always hundreds of
voices in it's radio.
People's
voices on telephones (and answering machines) always
sound just like their normal voice, except a little
bit more nasal. Their voices are never distorted by
things like holding the mouthpiece too close to their
face or breathing through their mouth.
Character
Acting: A Cockney accent is always as per Dick van Dyke
from Mary Poppins.
MARTIAL
ART
Arm and legs of karate-actors
always make a funny "swish" sound when they kick,hit
or jump, they also tend to scream in a funny way prior
to any fighting-action.
MICROPHONES
Anytime a person speaks
into a microphone, their first words will cause the
mic to feed back.
The first
spoken words must be either 'Testing, Testing' or 'One
Two,One Two'
MOTORCYCLES
Motorcycle engines in
movies can inexplicably change from 4-stroke Otto cycle
to 2-stroke cycle operation.
Motorcycles usually
change from Harley Davidson choppers when engaged in
highway operations to Yamaha Dirt bikes when operated
off-road (as in "Then Came Bronson").
Police Harleys will morph
into Triumph Bonnevilles when operating in tight quarters
(on the ship in "Magnum Force").
MOVING
GRAPHIC
Any moving graphic on
a sports broadcast (esp. NBC) has to use the same "fireball"
sound effect.
MUSIC
When the
star travels to...
London,
we see a shot of Big Ben and hear Rule,Britainia.
Hong
Kong: a Chinese junk and wooden xylophone music
(or a deep gong).
New
York: a traffic jam on Broadway and frenetic xylophone
music.
Paris:
the Eiffel Tower and accordion music.
Radio
When
listening to music on the radio in the car, the
song on the radio never changes during a single
scene. The scene rarely outlasts the song...if it
does, one of the characters will turn the radio
off before the end of the song.
There
are never any commercials on the radio.
It's
always easy to find romantic makeout music on the
radio right when you need it.
PEOPLE
The DJ allways turns
the music down when actors talk in disco and club-scenes
Those tiny people far,
far away in that long shot on the beach should always
sound like they're talking directly into your ear -
no matter how far away they are, even though they're
whispering . . .
People in a wide open
field or dense forest can make their voice echo if they
yell loud enough.
When you get punched
in the face, it sounds like you broke a salami over
the back of a chair
All kisses need to sound
sloppy and wet.
Blood will always squish
when oozing from a wound.
Dreams are always drenched
in a lot of reverb.
People never answer
the door until the doorbell or knocking has sounded
at least three times
SPACE
It is now the modern
era, and thus, sound has been installed in space by
the elimination of that nasty vacuum problem.
There's a deep humming
in space, no doubt about it
Sounds in space must
have some element of a flanger involved
SPEED
OF SOUND
Applies to absolutely
every movie: Some noisy event (crash, shot, explosion)
occurs at quite a distance from the camera. Nevertheless,
the sound is heard at the same instant. The speed of
sound - usually 300 meters per second - here always
is the same as the speed of light. (But
not everyone - Titanic has a long shot as the boat starts
sinking where a signal flare is set off. The sound follows
a good 2 seconds behind)
SURROUND
lmost any huge surround
sound explosion. In fact generally the use of surround
in any action or action-drama film. Everything is everywhere,
with a crystal-clear glistening 20Hz - 20KHz bandwidth.
WEAPONS& GUNS
A fired
gun never recoils.
Guns (handguns, rifles,
machineguns etc) have a really deep "BOOOMMM!!" sound
not a "CRACK!". Also, the there's old cliche about the
number of rounds the average magazine holds, the good
guys almost never run out of ammo, and they seem to
be able to use a handgun accurately to over a 100 meter
range (accuracy of weapons over distance is pretty much
a factor of barrel length - handguns are for CLOSE distances).
All sub machine guns
sound alike and have the same rate of fire
Machine guns
and their rate of fire ... most users of these weapons
can manage to sustain over 10 second continuous rate
of fire (in actuality, you are supposed to fire the
things in short bursts -- after a long burst the barrel
will heat up so much the weapon will jam). Also I have
never ever seen any protagonist change a MGs *barrel*
no matter how long he has used the MG. (the barrels
overheat, and also sustain incrediable wear requiring
these to be changed -- often in battle, the gunner's
mate will carry spare barrels as well as the inexhaustible
ammo supply which weighs next-to-nothing). Esp. WW2
era weapons.
Bullets always ricochet,
and they must travel pretty slow because the "rico"
is 1/2 second later after it moves 50 feet
All
bullets make a distinkt riccoche sound and when flying
past you they make a zip noise when in fact they are
moving faster than the speed of sound and in real life
would produce a whip lash or bang sound
Handguns:
All handguns make a frightening clicking sound when
handled as though to suggest that the parts are loose.
The more advanced the gun (Men in Black) the louder,
and more varried, the clicking. In real life any gun
making noises like that would probably explode in your
hand with the first discharge. Note: All energy type
weapons will power up with a loud hum.
MISC
In the M&E-Mix you
always have to hear footsteps (and cloth rubbing) that
where never heared on the original sound track.
[M&E
(Music & Effects) is a special mix which is done
to prepare for foreign language (dubbed) versions of
a film]
Approaching
Sherman tanks at a range of fifty yards, roaring at
a level that loosens teeth and sphincters alike, are
never so loud as to obscure that "Foleyed"
woollen sweater the officer is moving as he raises his
binoculars. >> Read
about Foley
Film Sound Cliches
A
series of short painful screams performed by an actor
were recorded in 1951 for the Warner Brother's film
"Distant Drums." They were used for a scene where a
man is bitten and dragged underwater by an alligator.
The recording was archived into the studio's sound effects
library -- and it was used in many of their films since.
Sections
