Week 5- Film Sound Cliche

ANIMALS

• 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)

BIRDS

•  Red-tailed hawk screeching - [Listen to and read about Red-tailed hawks!]

• Whenever we see a hawk or a bald eagle, the sound is always that same red-tailed hawk screeching sound that's been around since the 50's! 

• Always just before/or after some dramatic part of an adventure flick, you will here the screeching of a red-tailed hawk.
  
  
• Whenever a cliff or mountain is shown, especially if it's high, the Red-tailed hawk will screech.
  
  
• The Red-Tailed Hawk scree signifies outdoors and a big, lonely place
  
  
• Owls sound like Great Horned Owl. (a bird, that for the most part seems invisible) [Listen to and read about Great Horned Owls!]
  
  
• 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!]  A Field Guide to Hollywood Bird Songs
  Unnatural acts on movie soundtracks by Robert Winkler
  

BICYCLES

  

•  All bicycles have bells (that sounds)  

   

BOMBS & EXPLOSIONS

• 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!

 

ENVIRONMENT

 

• Castle Thunder
  Until around the late '80s, whenever you heard a thunderclap in a movie, it was probably "Castle Thunder".
  Listen to and read about "Castle Thunder"
  
  
• 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