quote: Joe Redifer

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I'd really like to record that. I have the equipment to do so, but I think that even an indoor shooting range might be too "live".

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quote: Bobby Henderson

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

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quote: Bobby Henderson

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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.

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quote: Manny Knowles

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

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quote: Manny Knowles

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

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quote: Manny Knowles

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

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quote: Manny Knowles

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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.

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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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Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 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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Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 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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Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 05-05-2012, 11:28 PM:
 
Just don't hold your breath in the meantime.
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-07-2012, 08:29 PM:
 

quote: Manny Knowles

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another one I heard a lot -- "if it sounds good, it is good"

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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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Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 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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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-07-2012, 11:23 PM:
 
That's because there are more stoopit people than smart people like all of us!
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-07-2012, 11:38 PM:
 
Randy, what does coins have to do with planes landing?
 

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Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 05-07-2012, 11:51 PM:
 
Oopsie! Wrong link!

Here's the right one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9sHLI_DPW0
 

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Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 05-08-2012, 10:29 AM:
 
One of the captains I used to fly with at Scenic always asked during the approach briefing (if it was going to be the first officer's landing), "Squeaker or Greaser?". A 'squeaker' was like the one's in Randy's link - just the faintest "chirp" as the tires spun up. A 'greaser' was absolutely smooth and silent; with a good runway the only way to tell if you were truly on the ground was to try the brakes.

Some airplanes just land better than others. For instance, I can't remember ever having a "bad" landing in a Mooney 201. The Twin Otter was different - reports of one "good" landing were normal, two in a row was luck, three in a row and someone was lying. For me, night landings were generally my best ones. I've been fortunate to have a couple of greasers in the 'Twotter', but not on the same day. My other landings were more like 'arrivals' - you knew when you were done flying. We don't discuss those.

Back to gun sound effects. Another example of the differences in sound is in an old anime TV series (from the mid-'90s) called "Blue Seed." The difference between the original Japanese gun effects and the effects on the American English-dub tracks is amazing. That could be due to time/budget limits - the Japanese stems sound like old stock library ones; the US ones sound like were custom recorded. But then again, I think most Americans know (or think they know) what a real handgun sounds like, as opposed to most Japanese (gun control is very strict over there - most people today have never held nor fired a real one). I suspect the audience expectations vis-a-vis the sound are very different.
 

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Posted by Bill Enos (Member # 440) on 05-08-2012, 03:48 PM:
 
Act of Valor has accurate sounding gunfire, though it is not lound enough in the mix.
 

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Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 05-08-2012, 06:33 PM:
 
Planes land at "my" airport every day from 5:30 a.m. until midnight. You can see how far my back yard is from the runway. If airplanes squeaked every time they landed, I'd hear it but, in reality, a "squeaker" is a rare event and is typically the result of a bad landing or because something is wrong.

The other sound that signals something bad is when greenhorn pilots on turboprops "beat" their props. They don't keep the engines in sync during the pre-flight runup and they can make a loud beating sound. If it gets really bad, it can rattle windows. From my understanding, it's illegal to do that. Once the pilot notices, he's supposed to throttle back or something. I can't imagine it does any good for the airplane or the passengers, either.

The loudest plane that lands here is the C-130 from the Air National Guard. They do practice runs here. That can get loud and the pilot does occasionally beat his props. But, it's practice so I give them a break. How else are they supposed to learn? Besides, it's the National Guard. I give them a break. Somebody's got to defend the country. Right?

Even the biggest, heaviest planes don't make very much noise when they land. The C-130 occasionally squeaks when it lands hard but, 95% of the time, the most you hear is the whining of the wheels running on the pavement, like the sound a semi truck makes when it's going 85 MPH.

If you listened, you could hear that in the video.

The point, here, is that I have a very different perception of what an airplane sounds like than 99% of the population. What you think sounds real is very obviously a bad sound effect to me. Conversely, what sounds real to me would sound uneventful, to say the least, to a person who hasn't listened to airplanes land every day for the last ten years. However, consensus reality or majority opinion dictates what sounds movie makers will use when they show airplanes landing. If it didn't, the audience's suspension of disbelief would be broken and they would lose interest in that movie or that part of the movie.

The same thing goes for guns. Bobby and I, plus a few others here are self-professed "gun nuts." We can easily tell the sound of a .22 cal pistol from the sound of an M-16 or a 9mm handgun from a .357 cal. Most people don't even know what those guns are, let alone what they sound like.

Consensus reality must dictate what sound effects are used for scenes with gunshots just the same way it dictates what sound effects are used when airplanes land.
 

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Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 05-08-2012, 09:49 PM:
 
Um, a "squeaker" landing is definitely an intended event - it most definitely is not a mistake, though I admit many squeakers happen by accident. Most of the landings on that YouTube link are squeakers - that quiet "chirp" sound as the tires almost instantly spin up is a squeaker. I guess I need to listen to some movie landings to catch the sound being referred to here. Is it some kind of longer skid sound, like when some dufus lands with their feet on the brakes?

Out-of-sync props are the sign of an amateur, except during run-ups. During piston-engine run-ups the prop governors and feather lockouts are individually exercised and checked, so the props will be out of sync for a few seconds. Same thing during turboprop run-ups in order to test beta-range and feather functionality. But once the power is pushed up for takeoff, someone (i.e. the Pilot Monitoring or the Flight Engineer, if available) should be making some quick fine adjustments to set takeoff power and sync up the props during the takeoff roll.

Remember the WWII-era TV series "Baa Baa Black Sheep"? They had a Japanese pilot character called "Washing Machine Charlie" that would buzz the Black Sheep Squadron's field late at night with his props WAY out of sync, just to wake them up and piss them off.

Yeah, the C-130 is a loud beast. So are Viscounts (man I'm old), Metroliners, Aero Commander turboprops, and Mitsubishi MU-2s. They all use engines that idle at around 90% RPM - not very nice for the neighbors! They are all machines that turn jet fuel into noise.

Sorry - back to gun sounds.
 

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Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 05-09-2012, 02:03 AM:
 
Yes, they make loud sound when running up the engines and testing the props but that's not bad. It makes a "woosh" sound. They do it two or three times for each engine. It only takes half a minute for them to do it. It's not really that bad.

I only hear the props beating a couple of times a year. You just know it's a greenhorn at the controls. Only one time did I hear the C-130 do it. He literally rattled our windows.

Like I said, it's the Air National Guard. Those guys are the ones that defend the country and they have to get their training somehow. I give them a break just for that reason.

Back in the late 1980's there was a class action lawsuit against the airport. The F.A.A. ended up paying to have all the houses in this neighborhood insulated. We got one of those houses. You can't even hear the single engine planes land at all. You can hear Dash-8 turboprops and the Canadair jets a little. A C-130 sounds no louder than a truck driving by. The only times it gets any louder than that is when they screw up.

Then, again, if I didn't think airplanes were cool, I wouldn't live near the airport. Even so, you can only really hear them when you're outdoors.

I agree, the wheels make SOME sound when they touch down but it's more like a quick "chirp." This runway has some kind of textured pavement (for traction?) and the wheels make a whining sound as they roll but that's different.

The sound I'm talking about is that classic "Screech! Screech!" often used in movies and TV shows during the 1970's. I seem to remember it being used a lot on "Hawaii Five-O." (The original show, not that bunch of pretty boys they have on TV, now.) The effect was practically cliche.

I can see where they would need some kind of sound effect to signal the audience so they know that the airplane has landed. From experience, I know that real airplane landings sound nothing like that but a real sound effect wouldn't have the impact a real landing sound does.

Since movies and TV shows aren't real, anyway, it doesn't matter very much.

Just like the airplane landing sound effect, the average audience member expects to hear a cliche gunshot sound effect to "signal" that a gun has gone off but that sound often bears little or no relation to a real gunshot sound.
 

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 05-09-2012, 03:39 PM:
 
The airplane tire screech noise is indeed quite a cliché. The opening of Die Hard is one of few movies where it seems plausible (you see dust come up when the 747's wheels contact the runway).

Another one: movies almost always sync the sound of a distant explosion with the explosion. I can forgive that (along with explosions in space making sounds). In real life the speed of sound really throws off the sync between the flash and the boom. Kind of like lightning. Come to think of it, movies typically sync the flash of lightning and thunder together too. In real life the immediate flash-bang effect only happens when the lightning strikes real damn close. And that will flat out startle the hell out of even the mostly steely minded of people.

quote: Randy Stankey

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The loudest plane that lands here is the C-130 from the Air National Guard.

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quote: Randy Stankey

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Just like the airplane landing sound effect, the average audience member expects to hear a cliche gunshot sound effect to "signal" that a gun has gone off but that sound often bears little or no relation to a real gunshot sound.

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