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Topic: Movies With Good Gun Sound Effects

Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

posted 05-03-2012 12:10 PM

Movies are verisimilitude not verité.

If consensus reality dictated that gunshots should sound like farts then that is what the audience will accept as real and that is what will trigger suspension of disbelief.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 05-03-2012 01:13 PM

Group-think democracy and accuracy are two different things. It reminds me of "the customer is always right" myth. That's only true when he's buying a Big Mac at McDonald's. The customer doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground when being right demands a certain level of expertise.

Movies have contrived plots and other stuff. But they need enough accurate details on which to build those contrivances. If accuracy in the little stuff wasn't important movie productions wouldn't hire technical advisers to get details right in police, military, legal, medical and other fields of work.

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Manny Knowles
"What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???"

Posts: 4247
From: Bloomington, IN, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 05-03-2012 01:45 PM

Bobby, I know a few Sound Effects Editors who work on major Hollywood releases. They would argue -- and I know this because I've heard it over and over -- that actual realism is less important than matching the emotional component of the shot/scene/moment.

Scenes with gun play are typically highly-charged "larger than life" moments. As such, SFX Editors will frequently -- knowingly -- use a larger effect.

There's an old saying -- "if he shoots a pistol, use a rifle. If he shoots a rifle, use a cannon."

And another one I heard a lot -- "if it sounds good, it is good" -- I heard that one a lot during the early part of my training because I used to insist on matching sounds to "the real thing," or worrying about things like "what Tom Holman think if he walked in and saw that EQ curve" I just applied -- and wasn't being "emotional" enough about it.

Professional SFX libraries are well-documented -- if you're using a gun effect (from a good library) the metadata will include info regarding what kind of gun is being fired. So, it isn't as though they're choosing sounds without knowing what it really is. They're choosing it because it "feels right" for the given situation.

To argue for authenticity at this level of detail seems silly. When we watch TITANIC, do we insist on watching the demise of the actual ship and the actual passengers?

When we watch ANY movie, do we become irritated when the musical score kicks in? (Because real life doesn't have a symphonic score.)

Do you take issue with the sound of spaceships and laser blasts producing sound in outer space?

Does it bug you that movies have credits -- making it PAINFULLY OBVIOUS that it's a 100% constructed experience?

Would you rather see a play? -- because at least you'd have REAL actors standing before you -- and if one of those characters dies, should that actor never work again?

Do you hate black-and-white movies, because they lack the color of the real world? Or 2D movies...for not being in 3D? Or 3D movies for not having actual volume?

...I could go on and on and on...

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK has lots of great gun SFX. The fight scene in Marion's bar, for example. I haven't read "the other thread" (and I probably won't get to it) so I'm sorry if this was mentioned already.

BTW, when Technical Advisors are consulted for a movie, it's usually pertaining to picture-related elements -- getting a uniform just right, training an actor to hold and "fire" a weapon, or act like a real doctor, or details regarding set design, etc.

Not for sound.

I'd be interested to know if there was ever a Technical Advisor for a sound team on any movie. (And I don't mean "Dolby Stereo Consultants.")

And, finally -- In terms of your use of metaphor -- I don't see much difference between a Hollywood movie and a Big Mac.

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Carsten Kurz
Film God

Posts: 4340
From: Cologne, NRW, Germany
Registered: Aug 2009

posted 05-03-2012 01:57 PM

Your argument is not very straight there, Bobby.

Sure Terminator 2 was a financial desaster because it lacked any serious achievements in suspending the audiences' level of disbelief.

You're sounding like the hobby historian who escapes the 'The Patriot' premiere, claiming that the wrong brass button on the boot of the fifth dragooner from the left makes him sick and destroys his suspension of disbelief.

There is always one in every movie screening.

There are hundreds, if not thousands of quirks in every major movie. Think of Titanic. Who cares.

I have seen so many spaceships being steered by oscilloscopes, I can't count them.
I still had a good time enyoing these movies.

- Carsten

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Manny Knowles
"What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???"

Posts: 4247
From: Bloomington, IN, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 05-03-2012 02:17 PM

quote: Bobby Henderson
Movies have contrived plots and other stuff. But they need enough accurate details on which to build those contrivances.

I think the operative word here is "enough."

The general consensus in Hollywood is that it's "enough" to get the image-related details correct -- assuming they are going for some claim to "authenticity."

Of all sound elements, the one that is most carefully scrutinized is the human voice. We know what it's supposed to sound like. We can usually tell when it's been "messed around with."

Everything else is negotiable.

When the Ark of the Covenant is finally opened in RAIDERS, that's the sound of the lid being lifted off of a toilet tank. Sacrilege?

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Chris Slycord
Film God

Posts: 2986
From: 청주시, 경북도, South Korea
Registered: Mar 2007

posted 05-03-2012 03:14 PM

One thing to also consider with attempting to make something sound authentic is that the audience often has their own idea of what is authentic, often without regard for actual authenticity.

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Rick Raskin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1100
From: Manassas Virginia
Registered: Jan 2003

posted 05-03-2012 04:06 PM

And so it goes with the gunshots in "The African Queen". Today's audiences would probably find them paltry.

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Manny Knowles
"What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???"

Posts: 4247
From: Bloomington, IN, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 05-03-2012 11:35 PM

quote: Bobby Henderson
There's plenty of desolate areas in Oklahoma where you can fire guns, but the wind is constantly blowing here. The mic would need a really fuzzy wind screen to block out a lot of that.

Joe, I know there's nothing I can tell you that you don't already know but...

If you're recording in windy conditions, you'll want to house your mic in a zeppelin, with a windjammer added.

I once saw a wonderful Sennheiser demo where a news reporter is speaking next to a wind generator. With "just the mic" his dialogue was completely indistinguishable, with the zeppelin, it was markedly improved. But with the zep. and the windjammer, it was almost like the engine was in the distant background.

A shotgun mic (pardon the pun) would allow you to zero in on the gun itself, while rejecting extraneous noises. And, with your gain turned down (coz the gun will be so loud), you'll push down the noise floor (unwanted background sounds) as well.

If you're also going to record sounds of "distant gun fire" you might consider recording some of those in stereo.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 05-04-2012 11:16 AM

quote: Manny Knowles
Scenes with gun play are typically highly-charged "larger than life" moments. As such, SFX Editors will frequently -- knowingly -- use a larger effect.

Yes, I know this already. Nevertheless the "larger than life" sound must still have some sort of attachment to reality. If the "hyper-real" thing is pushed too far then the sound effect becomes distractingly fake.

Then there's the issue of "it's been done that way for decades" movie convention of defending something that is flat out wrong -like that "silencer" sound effect that's been used in countless movies and TV shows. It has zero resemblence to how suppressed handgun fire really sounds. None at all. Yet the piece of audio clip art is so familiar that many viewers would probably be surprised when they heard a suppressed handgun fired for real.

Further on that point, plot directions in certain movies and even video games would be ruined if the writers actually knew just how much noise a suppressed handgun truly makes. In real life they're not very quiet. A character couldn't go sneaking around in a building capping people without people in nearby rooms hearing gun's slide "clack" back and forth from the recoil.

I kind of laughed at the early scene in Inception where Leonardo DiCaprio shoots Saito's guards using a suppressed handgun. Leo takes care to catch the ejected brass from every shot to keep the spent shells from hitting the floor and making noise. The problem is his gun's slide would really make a lot more noise than the brass bouncing on the floor.

quote: Manny Knowles
When we watch ANY movie, do we become irritated when the musical score kicks in?

Now you're being silly. But on that point, I think most modern audiences cringe when a movie character breaks into song. They only seem to put up with that stuff when cartoon characters are doing it.

quote: Manny Knowles
Do you take issue with the sound of spaceships and laser blasts producing sound in outer space?

Actually, yes. Even when I first saw Star Wars I already knew outer space was a vacuum where sound wasn't possible.

quote: Manny Knowles
Professional SFX libraries are well-documented -- if you're using a gun effect (from a good library) the metadata will include info regarding what kind of gun is being fired. So, it isn't as though they're choosing sounds without knowing what it really is. They're choosing it because it "feels right" for the given situation.

If the folks who prepare sound effects libraries are going into that much detail then it only makes it look even more embarrassing they can't bother to get something like suppressed handgun fire noise correct at all.

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Manny Knowles
"What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???"

Posts: 4247
From: Bloomington, IN, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 05-05-2012 12:37 AM

I think it's just that it works for most people. It ain't broke, so they ain't gonna fix it.

As far as documentation of SFX, there are other reasons for keeping details but I'm not going to waste time getting into what actually goes on in Sound Editing.

I think I'm done with this thread.

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 05-05-2012 01:22 AM

Mark my words, someday a movie will have realistic sound effects and it will get praised and marketed during the Academy Awards for having realistic sound effects. It probably won't be the first movie with realistic sound effects, just the first one marketed as such. It will get much buzz. After that, many (not all) movies will follow suit. Realistic sound effects will be a new fad.

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Manny Knowles
"What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???"

Posts: 4247
From: Bloomington, IN, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 05-05-2012 11:28 PM

Just don't hold your breath in the meantime. [Big Grin]

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 05-07-2012 08:29 PM

quote: Manny Knowles
another one I heard a lot -- "if it sounds good, it is good"

This reminds me of a Chuck Jones story I read somewhere. They were editing the sound effects of a Road Runner cartoon and there was a Wile E. Coyote cliff fall, as seen from the top of the cliff. Normally, Wile E. would make a loud "CRASHH!!" sound when he hit the ground, but the sound editor (Treg Brown) had accidentally set the level way too low, so Wile E. hit the ground with a very distant-sounding "poof." Treg Brown laughed uproariously because it sounded so odd, and then said "Well I'll fix that." but Jones said "Look how you laughed...it's funnier that way!" So after that, all of Wile E.'s cliff falls (when seen from the cliff-top) had the softer, distant sound.

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Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

posted 05-07-2012 09:40 PM

The way people react to movies is totally subjective, completely disconnected with reality. Even movies that are supposed to be about real subjects are still subjective reality.

It is the consensus of the audience that decides what sounds real with no respect to truth. People literally make up their minds as if they were rolling dice.

It has a lot to do with the way people are conditioned to think. For example, how many movies do you remember where you see an airplane land which makes a skidding sound when the wheels touch down. I can tell you from the real experience of living next to an airport runway that most airplanes do not make that sound when they land and, when they do, it was probably a bad landing that caused it.

The proof: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZT-IB5Pms0

If movies sounded like that video, people would probably think it was fake, even though it was almost completely realistic.
(At least as realistic as I could make it.)

Same thing goes for gun sounds. That which people think sounds real often has little or no relationship to reality. If you put 100% realistic gun sounds in a movie, people probably wouldn't like them.

Many of us actually use real guns. We are intimately familiar with what they sound like but most people are not. Further, I would be willing to venture that the majority of the people who frequent this website are, on average, in the upper percentiles of the intelligence scale.

It makes me feel bad to say it but am often surprised to find out just how "stoopit" many people are.

Unfortunately, I think it is the "stoopit" people that Hollywood caters to most often.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 05-07-2012 11:23 PM

That's because there are more stoopit people than smart people like all of us! [Big Grin]

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