Badmovies.org Forum

This has come up before but it has been on my mind.  There are movie sounds that really are cliches...
The Cat noise.- I have owned many cats and not one has gone "weooooooowwwwwwww" like the do in films.  And in some films the cat is just walking past making this noise.
The Hawk Screech- Every time you are outside and see a bird of prey.
There are more, I'm sure. 

The article that set this otrain of thought rollin'
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=787#more-787

(Thanks to Trek fror the site)
-Ed

EDIT BY ANDREW:  Just taking out the wayward "i" in the thread title.

Cat noise: yes, I've heard it, but only when two cats are about to fight.

Bullet ricochet noise is an overdone sound cliche.

The "sound" of lights coming on is overdone in just about every outdoor sport movie.

How about tires squealing when either (a) wheels are obviously not spinning or (b) on gravel?

The old punch to face sound is overused as well.

On a related note, how about the fact that someone is basically dead but their heart is being kept beating artificially?  It kills me (hehe, see what I did there?) when the family does not fall apart until they hear that "BEEEEEEEEP"  from the monitor, even though that is probably just because the doctor just unplugged the leads or something.  It's that special little auditory clue that "hey, they're dead" that the filmmaker thought WE needed to understand what was going on.

The only one I can think of off the bat is in Disney Cartoons.....It's Goofy's scream.."Yah-hiiiiiiiiii-Hoy-Hoy-Hoy". It's been in many  Disney cartoons, not only used by Goofy. I looked it up and it was done by Hannes Shrolle.

Whenever there is a group of kids playing I hear the same sound effect of kids laughing.

The sound of someone falling on the ground is always the same too.

The monkey sound for every jungle.
-Ed

Fire Igniting!!!

Whenever a source of ignition is seen (match, zippo, cigarette etc) that ignites petrol or whatever, there is that same noise..  And i always notice it because it sounds exactly like one of the noises in "magic carpet" for the pc (:

What about the continued use of the 'theme' (http://pac-man.classicgaming.gamespy.com/Sounds/vcs_18.wav) and sounds from the ATARI 2600 Pac-Man(duhn...duhn duhn...duhn...POK! oooEEPP!)for any and all video game representations in films?   :hatred:

no doubt...."I'm just gonna back the car up into the garage, honey... *eeeeerrrr-screeeech*" lol. so many films go for this effect, even credible 'serious' ones.

What I can only describe is the sound "Skkrrtt!!," which is made when a sword is pulled out of its scabbard. But that sound is only made, when a sword is pulled out of a metal scabbard. Films use it, when a sword is pulled out of a leather scabbard, metal scabbard, wood scabbard, etc.

The same doctors seem to be paged no matter what city and hospital the movie may feature.

And of course there is the Wilhelm scream:
http://www.hollywoodlostandfound.net/wilhelm/

never heard of this.  lol @ all those films using the same scream

Its amazing where some of the stock sound effects will show up. I was just watching Terminator 3 and in the scene where the crane crashes you can hear a cougar roar sound effect that is used in a lot of movies.

Cat noise: I've heard when they were about to do something other than fight also. Used to be a lot of strays around my old apartment building. Fighting or in heat and hooking up, they were noisy little cusses.

Along with the monkey noise in jungles, the peacock calls. Yes they sound exotic, but they pretty much only do it during mating times. There are peacocks on the horse ranch behind where I live. I only hear them in spring and fall, at dawn sometimes but especially in the afternoons toward dusk.

In every Kung Fu movie, when a hand moves through air it makes a sound like a fly-swatter moving through air.  I've watched guys break cement blocks in half and their hands didn't make any noise going through the air.  Yet every time a guy in a Kung Fu movie reaches down to scratch his butt you get the "whoosh" noise.

Another one is the whistling sound whenever something falls from a great height.  In WWII, the Germans put some sort of whistle (or something) on their bombs to make that noise, yet Hollywood seems to have gotten the idea than anything that falls makes that noise.

You want cliched sounds...Just pop in your Indiana Jones DVD's.  I'm sure this was done on purpose but I'm mean, every time Indy punches somebody it sounds like someone slamming two prime ribs together.  And his revolver sounds like mortar shells going off.

The Whilhelm Scream is great!  I found out about it a year ago, now I listen for it in every action, horror and sci-fi movie I watch.  It's used more ofter than you think.  :bouncegiggle:

The ones in the Kung Fu films are hilarious. The "whoosing" sound is one thing but something when guys are fighting and one strikes the other with a blow, sometimes it also sounds like car doors slamming.

One kung fu film had every noise foleyd... walking had a "tap tap tap" sound, turning had "whoosh" etc.
-Ed

Can anyone verify that the sound effects in the opening theme of Ginger Snaps are some of these same cliched effects we're talking about. The girls laughing definitely sounds like one to me.

The one that gets to me every time I hear it -- and it's hard to describe -- is that "rowwlll" sound heard every once in a while on the old TV shows with canned laughter. I dunno if it was originally a sound that a human made, and it somehow became mangled in some sort of magnetic tape hell, but it doesn't sound remotely human, and always makes me think some hideous giant cat-thing is digging on The Brady Bunch or Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C.

In Kung Fu movies: The rustling noise all flapping clothes make when anyone jumps through the air.

I noticed the gun reports in the Indiana Jones flicks, most of the gun fire seemed amped up not just his revolver. Good added emphasis and distinctive from gunfire in most films, but not too realistic at least from the shooter's POV.


Yet I've always found the light noise of just the wind rushing past more effective when something is falling in a film. The quietness seems to add to the drama of the fall. Maybe we should blame cartoons, like the old WB shorts, when characters dropped stuff in those they began to "scream" instantly.

If someone in a comedy throws something offscreen it always hits a cat and makes it yowl.

Thurder always sounds at the exact same time when you see the lightening.

Bird pop always makes a loud "sploich' noise whenever it hits someone.

Cockroaches always make a loud skuttling noise even when they run over carpet.

When a cow appears on camera it will immediately moo.

There is one other sound that I hear in almost every jungle movie or TV episode in a jungle, doesn't seem to matter which continent their supposed to be on either. The strange part is the sound is the call of the kookaburra bird from Australia, apparently the good folks in movieland think this guy hangs out in jungles all over the world.
(http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q122/DENNISDURWARDHAMMOND/UKN26CAHZ36R6CAYJ4UCACAF5BZEFCAL616.jpg)

Yeah, funny how thunderstorms can sneak up on people like that in movies, just all of a sudden be right on top of them so the delay between lightning and thunder is gone.

Between me and the horse farm (it really is too small to be called a ranch as I think about it) is pasture land. There were some donkeys, cows, and even a pair of sheep out there until recently. The cows rarely mooed, snorted and huffed more than anything. The donkeys brayed and hee hawed more often, but not that common without a cause. If you bring them treats and they get to hoping everytime they see you they will get carrots or apples or such, they will bray but they quickly learn. There was a young jack that would bray on his own when he would play and run around and get excited. But nothing like the movies.

I recently learned the reason so many people keep a donkey or two in with their cows and horses is that cows and horses will run from a coyote but a donkey will stand its ground and fight.

 I thought is was because the donkeys were just so darn cute.

This isn't a sound effect, but something that always p**sed me off was when sitcoms were filmed in front of a live television audience that provided a "natural" laugh-track. 

I specifically got annoyed when two characters would kiss and the audience would go "woooooOOOOOOh!" or something like that.  It was even funnier when they made that sound for a character who had just made a dramatic stand - a "woooooOOOOOOh!" usually followed by clapping. 

I miss the low quality laugh-tracks.

The sound effect I've always hated is the that really annoying scream that's like "NNNNRRRRAAAAAAWWWWWW!"  I think it was on Mortal Kombat, but I know for a fact it was on The Medallion, and Jackie Chan's character actually made the scream.  It's also on countless low budget movies and commercials.  I don't even know what it's called, but I've heard that no one knows the actual origin of the scream.  It just showed up in one movie and has been around since. 

I also kind of hate the roar that Jaws made in Jaws: The Revenge.  It's been used quite a bit in horror films, but JtR really made it despicable.

that godforsaken scream track, i particularly remember it from the "Ahhh! real monsters' cartoon ot the end of the intro. ive heard used a million times and i hate it.

God, that one laughter sample drives me nuts. It's so easy to recognise.


Am I the only one who finds it insanely stupid that even today in movies, where games have reached the point where they're almost cinematic, you'll see somebody playing on a videogame and it'll be making 'bleep bleep zap zap' sounds like something from the Atari 2600?

Sometimes it's really wierd, because they'll be holding like a PlayStation 2 controller or something, and it'll be making sounds from Pac-Man.

There's one that I always hear and that's the one of a crowd of people gasping in surprise.
It's usually used on TV shows.

WHen someone is typing on a computer, each keystroke beeps. 
-Ed

Bed squeaks whenever somebody's having sex.  Does everybody in Hollywood have a bad mattress?

Ooo...good one.  Similarly, how about when text is appearing on the screen (someone on the OTHER end is typing), it makes a typing, or other, sound.

In WAR GAMES, the text sound effects were cool.  In all other movies, they are just teh lamers. 

I even heard it on a promo for one of the CSI series not to long ago when someone fell (or was pushed, whatever, I hate those shows) off a building. Totally distracted from anything else they tried to get across.

As for old style video game noises, do the producers have to license the use of sound effects just like they would music? Or maybe it's the same as using lookalike products or blocking parts of logos of real products that aren't paid product placements. Are the Atari 2600 noise free to use or in lots of sound effects compilations that post production studios use? When I hear the wrong noises, I just pretend they're playing an emulator of old school games. Why anyone would want to still play Pac-Man 2600 style I have no idea.


Nope. Donkeys cost money to care for and feed the same as other livestock, unless the owner has money to burn those jackasses are there for a reason. Donkeys and dogs don't mix either, that's one of the reasons I didn't get my dog back from my friends when I moved here. I'd never forgive myself if that little Jack Russell Terrier (a breed that acts like it's a bigger dog than it is) got through or under the fence and met up with a donkey. I saw that cute friendly playful jack I mentioned turn stone cold and ready to kill when the neighbor's barky but harmless dog got his attention one day. The dog was across the fence and on the other side of the road still in it's yard, lucky for her.

 

 :bouncegiggle: :bouncegiggle:

I swear I'm going to make a hacker movie and every time someone is typing away at a computer, I'm going to use this...even if they are already connected online.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9ZQgaHpM9I (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9ZQgaHpM9I)

Don't forget about 2600 Donkey Kong; its sound fx get a lot of use too.

I was shocked that a movie with either a Tandy 4000 or a Comodore 64 (with cassette drive no less) was used promenntly in EVILSPEAK (With Clint Howard) He stole the Military Academy's big ass computer and dragged it down to the creepy cobweb infested, torchlit basement (in 1981... guess the military spent all their money on the one computer instead of lightbulbs)

Anyway, every time Clint started typing, something very unique and odd happened, there was no "beeping" or "booping" computer SFX what so ever. All we  heard was the sound of the keyboard clicking away..  And this was in 1981!!!

Silenced firearms having the pew pew or phttt sound when in in reality it sounds like firecrackers going off movies where all gunshots regardless of the caliber sounds the same Euro crime and action movies as well as westerns are notorious for this.

Lasers: They’re either high-pitched whistling, as in War of the Worlds or those “Pew Pew” sounds from Star Wars.

 :bouncegiggle: :bouncegiggle:

Rest in power, Raff: we miss you.