Thursday, January 12, 2006
Scream, Wilhelm, Scream!
The Wilhelm Scream, in brief:
Like stock footage, stock sound effects have popped up for years in movies. Common stock sounds include car crashes, thunderstorms, cat's calling, etc.
Apparently, the Wilhelm Scream is has taken on a life beyond stock sound effects. Apparently, many sound editors always try to work it into their movies, regardless of the plot, the relevance, or the circumstances.
It's like an in-joke between sound editors. Meanwhile, movie lovers down through the ages have been hearing the Wilhelm Scream over and over and over again without realizing it's cult-like significance.
A brief list of movies that have featured the Wilhelm Scream would include:
The Wild Bunch
A Star Is Born
Batman Returns
Reservoir Dogs
Titanic
Toy Story
And on and on and on... In a way, the joke's on us.
Click here for a more comprehensive list of movies featuring the Wilhelm Scream.
Click here to hear all two glorious seconds of the Wilhelm Scream.
Click here to hear an entertaining NPR item about the Wilhelm Scream phenomenon (the page is here).
¶ 8:27 PM
The Wilhelm Scream, in brief:
In 1951, the Warner Bros. film "Distant Drums" directed by Raoul Walsh starred Gary Cooper as Captain Quincy Wyatt, who leads a group of soldiers to stop some Seminole Indians from threatening settlers in early 19th Century Florida. During a scene in which the soldiers are wading through a swamp in the everglades, one of them is bitten and dragged underwater by an alligator.As is usually the case with the making of a movie, the scream for that character was recorded later...
After "Distant Drums," the recording was archived into the studio's sound effects library, and was re-used in many Warner Bros. productions...
In "The Charge at Feather River" (1953), the scream is heard when a soldier named Pvt. Wilhelm (played by Ralph Brooke) gets shot in the leg by an arrow. Originally released in 3-D, the film used the "Distant Drums" scream recording two other times as well.
... when Ben Burtt was hired to create sound effects for Star Wars (1977), he had an opportunity to do research at the sound departments of several movie studios. While at Warner Bros. looking for sound elements to use in the space adventure, he found the original "Distant Drums" scream - which he called "Wilhelm" after the character that let out the scream in "Charge at Feather River."
Growing in familiarity with fellow sound editors, especially with its use in the hugely successful "Star Wars" series, the Wilhelm Scream has become a favorite with ... sound editors ... the recording has made it around the sound community through editors who appreciate its history.
Like stock footage, stock sound effects have popped up for years in movies. Common stock sounds include car crashes, thunderstorms, cat's calling, etc.
Apparently, the Wilhelm Scream is has taken on a life beyond stock sound effects. Apparently, many sound editors always try to work it into their movies, regardless of the plot, the relevance, or the circumstances.
It's like an in-joke between sound editors. Meanwhile, movie lovers down through the ages have been hearing the Wilhelm Scream over and over and over again without realizing it's cult-like significance.
A brief list of movies that have featured the Wilhelm Scream would include:
The Wild Bunch
A Star Is Born
Batman Returns
Reservoir Dogs
Titanic
Toy Story
And on and on and on... In a way, the joke's on us.
¶ 8:27 PM
Comments:
Wow, I blinked for a minute and you'd reviewed 46 films! And don't tell me you didn't like White Chicks!
I'm adding Emily Rose to my list of movies to see and Eric Schweig to my list of interesting faces. As always, thanks.
I'm adding Emily Rose to my list of movies to see and Eric Schweig to my list of interesting faces. As always, thanks.
Yeah, I guess I blinked too, and I was checking daily and finding only cowboys.
I've seen a number of films and can't place that scream. I guess it sounds different with music and other background noise, and I wonder if they sometimes alter it up or down an octave.
I'd love to see a post about stock music used in trailers. After a while I forget which movie some of these classical pieces first debuted in, and they become "generic sweeping epic #37". I think music from Braveheart, Dances with Wolves, and Last of the Mohicans has been reused in other films. The theme to Stargate SG1 was used in the trailer for Sky Captain. And just yesterday in the middle of a trailer for Ultraviolet they used a very recognizable march from the Matrix.
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I've seen a number of films and can't place that scream. I guess it sounds different with music and other background noise, and I wonder if they sometimes alter it up or down an octave.
I'd love to see a post about stock music used in trailers. After a while I forget which movie some of these classical pieces first debuted in, and they become "generic sweeping epic #37". I think music from Braveheart, Dances with Wolves, and Last of the Mohicans has been reused in other films. The theme to Stargate SG1 was used in the trailer for Sky Captain. And just yesterday in the middle of a trailer for Ultraviolet they used a very recognizable march from the Matrix.
