Originally published at: Star Wars sound designer on all those "Wilhelm Screams" - Boing Boing
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The Wilhelm scream has basically become an inside joke among sound guys and film buffs alike. I personally hate it because it completely takes me out of what I’m watching because I start thinking “ha ha they used the Wilhelm scream how clever /s”.
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-sigh-
and the list is under guarantee not complete…
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Agree, once it went from an inside joke to something even casual film fans instantly recognized then it kind of lost its appeal.
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Yes, well, I hear you. I still sort of like it, but that might be because it doesn’t appear in the plodding art films or weirdo indie films I prefer. Having it show up in mindless action films is still fun.
If I’m not mistaken there is a very standard “hawk screech” they use in shitloads of films and TV shows whenever there’s an eagle/hawk/etc on screen. I noticed that when I was kid.
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Yup…
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hawk screech
I’ve noticed it since I was a kid. much more noticable than the Wilhelm scream, imo. it gets used for eagles but someone somewhere said eagle cries sound nothing like that, and it may not even be a hawk, either. it just sounds dramatic so it gets used, because now everyone “knows” that’s what big birds of prey sound like.
@ficuswhisperer ha, ninja’d. so it IS a hawk, although a specific one that gets used for all of them. and, yeah, eagles mainly.
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Seth Meyers had a bit on his “corrections” section a while back where a fan grumbled that his show used the hawk sound effect to represent an American Eagle.
Seth countered with a video of the “voice actor” (an eagle) sitting in the sound booth for the recording of the original clip. On the first take it make its natural warbling sound, then the sound engineer said “That’s not going to work for us… can you do any impressions? Maybe a Red-Tailed hawk?” and the eagle complied with a screech.
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voiced not by the actor in Distant Drums, but was recorded specifically as a sound effect and voiced by Sheb Wooly, of Purple People Eater fame. bizarre.
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i love it. does it take me out of the movie? sure, maybe for a second, but whatever. it’s just fun. we always point it out, too: “Wilhelm! haha”
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I recently re-watched Logan’s Run (1976) and was happy to hear a Wilhelm Scream.
That’s not on this list.
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Besides the Wilhelm scream, one that gets used a lot as well in movies and videogames is the Howie Long Scream
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I cant believe sound designers are not using the Dean Scream more…
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If you ask me, music for, about, or adjacent to 1950ies SF/horror B-movies is a criminally underrated musical subgenre.
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I urgently need that link!
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I am urgently searching. I will report back! Also. I’m a HUGE corrections fan. I have a Jackal mug
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