5 ms·

An unspoken concommitant of this: we don't actually know what things sound like any more. For most people, horses sound like they do in movies. But what we hear

by niccl 10y ago

An unspoken concommitant of this: we don't actually know what things sound like any more. For most people, horses sound like they do in movies. But what we hear in the movies is what the foley artists and the sound designers think horses ought to sound like. It is, as a sound designer friend said 'hyper real'. This was brought home to me when I was watching one of the Lord of the Rings movies. Gimli puts on an over-large suit of chain mail and we hear it falling to the floor. The sound is, I think, either a bunch of Slinkies or some small chains. I know what chain mail sounds like, and it wasn't that. I find myself getting really annoyed with movie sound design now because it's so aritficial. </rant>

ryandrake 10y ago
To be fair, this is true for anything where you're a subject matter expert. Movie depictions of horses don't sound like real horses. Movie depictions of computer hacking don't look like real computer hacking, either.
- caf 10y ago
  I wonder if movie depictions of movie-making are accurate?
  - severine 10y ago
    Have you seen "La nuit américaine"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_nuit_americaine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_nuit_americaine
TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
It's "Every non-modern weapon goes ZZZZHING!!!!!" when you draw it syndrome. Tiny daggers, big swords, it's all the same sound. Often it's the same sample. And it's nonsense, because nothing actually sounds like that, outside a sample library. The article also misses the real point of the music - which is that it's quick and easy to write. It's infinitely easier to get paid by filling space with A GIANT SAMPLE, some repetitive minimalist noodling, or GIGANTIC EPIC DRUMS than it is to write the complex full orchestral counterpoint John Williams is famous for. It's also easy to sequence this stuff. You can literally copy/paste the same sections over and over in your DAW. Basically it's filler with a coat of pseudo-classical emulsion to add drama and gravitas. It does the job to meet the budget and create the theme park ride movie experience, but that's all.
l33tbro 10y ago
Your friend is right in that sound designers aren't always striving for kitchen-sink realism. Tentpole film sound design is often subjective and hyper-real, only because it's both meant to denote how something actually sounds, as well as how the sound makes us feel.
ska 10y ago
One of the best and examples of this is the bald eagle. In life, it sounds kind of weedy. In hollywood and TV, it sounds suspiciously like a red-tailed hawk. So an iconic bird has an iconic sound, but it's not real.
buzzybee 10y ago
Movies really are full of falsehoods big and small. Scenes showing car interiors usually involve matte effects so that they don't actually have to drive the car in natural light settings. Fight scenes are dance choreography with foley "thwack" sounds. Daytime scenes are shot at dawn or dusk, where the lighting is most forgiving. Nighttime scenes are shot with ample additional lighting so that the actors show clearly. Dialogue is unnatural and written around plot conveniences according to the strict "three-act" structure. Scenes containing dialogue are typically composed of dozens of different cuts, with long takes and ensemble performances being the exceptional cases. Characters walk through doors that are apparently part of the same location, but are actually completely different sets. And that's describing movies as they were made 40 years ago, before Star Wars renewed film's direction towards pure spectacle. Since "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" it's been possible to make a production that is essentially a live-action cartoon, with actors and a few props superimposed on an otherwise fully CGI world. This is the route that every new blockbuster movie has taken. Even the shots in "Fury Road", which are based on a lot of real vehicles and people doing real stuntwork, have undergone a massive amount of post-processing. Also worth noting is that the particular ways in which "realistic" things are represented change over time as our understanding of the world shifts: Films depicting war scenes in the 50's or 60's might use WWII or Korean War footage as the inspiration, with large units rappelling or parachuting in, adopting a slightly hunched stance and shooting bursts from the hip to liberate(or oppress) a place or people. Films after the Vietnam war are more likely to focus on small groups engaged in wilderness survival, maintaining communications or finding hidden enemies. The two types of film use different effects and foley, and that isn't purely a matter of budget or technology! The whole aesthetic changed, in a more complex way, to reflect the new design goals. When you watch films that are very low budget and keep things simple, they tend to look ordinary, because they don't have all this production gloss put on top; their falsehoods, where they show up, are more the ones inherent to film and to storytelling, and not visibly designed effects.
kibwen 10y ago
> I find myself getting really annoyed with movie sound > design now because it's so aritficial. I don't think this is a modern phenomenon, and I present The Coconut Effect as evidence: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheCoconutEffect http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheCoconutEffect
emmelaich 10y ago
B-Movie makers can be very lazy. Just about every action movie that I watched in the synth heavy 80s had the explosion from the Amiga game "Firepower" Check it out and then try and watch an Arnie Schwarzenegger movie from those days. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8G4ngPXGGgw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8G4ngPXGGgw

by niccl 10y ago

ryandrake 10y ago

To be fair, this is true for anything where you're a subject matter expert. Movie depictions of horses don't sound like real horses. Movie depictions of computer hacking don't look like real computer hacking, either.

caf 10y ago
I wonder if movie depictions of movie-making are accurate?
- severine 10y ago
  Have you seen "La nuit américaine"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_nuit_americaine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_nuit_americaine

TheOtherHobbes 10y ago

It's "Every non-modern weapon goes ZZZZHING!!!!!" when you draw it syndrome. Tiny daggers, big swords, it's all the same sound. Often it's the same sample. And it's nonsense, because nothing actually sounds like that, outside a sample library. The article also misses the real point of the music - which is that it's quick and easy to write. It's infinitely easier to get paid by filling space with A GIANT SAMPLE, some repetitive minimalist noodling, or GIGANTIC EPIC DRUMS than it is to write the complex full orchestral counterpoint John Williams is famous for. It's also easy to sequence this stuff. You can literally copy/paste the same sections over and over in your DAW. Basically it's filler with a coat of pseudo-classical emulsion to add drama and gravitas. It does the job to meet the budget and create the theme park ride movie experience, but that's all.

l33tbro 10y ago

Your friend is right in that sound designers aren't always striving for kitchen-sink realism. Tentpole film sound design is often subjective and hyper-real, only because it's both meant to denote how something actually sounds, as well as how the sound makes us feel.

ska 10y ago

One of the best and examples of this is the bald eagle. In life, it sounds kind of weedy. In hollywood and TV, it sounds suspiciously like a red-tailed hawk. So an iconic bird has an iconic sound, but it's not real.

buzzybee 10y ago

Movies really are full of falsehoods big and small. Scenes showing car interiors usually involve matte effects so that they don't actually have to drive the car in natural light settings. Fight scenes are dance choreography with foley "thwack" sounds. Daytime scenes are shot at dawn or dusk, where the lighting is most forgiving. Nighttime scenes are shot with ample additional lighting so that the actors show clearly. Dialogue is unnatural and written around plot conveniences according to the strict "three-act" structure. Scenes containing dialogue are typically composed of dozens of different cuts, with long takes and ensemble performances being the exceptional cases. Characters walk through doors that are apparently part of the same location, but are actually completely different sets. And that's describing movies as they were made 40 years ago, before Star Wars renewed film's direction towards pure spectacle. Since "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" it's been possible to make a production that is essentially a live-action cartoon, with actors and a few props superimposed on an otherwise fully CGI world. This is the route that every new blockbuster movie has taken. Even the shots in "Fury Road", which are based on a lot of real vehicles and people doing real stuntwork, have undergone a massive amount of post-processing. Also worth noting is that the particular ways in which "realistic" things are represented change over time as our understanding of the world shifts: Films depicting war scenes in the 50's or 60's might use WWII or Korean War footage as the inspiration, with large units rappelling or parachuting in, adopting a slightly hunched stance and shooting bursts from the hip to liberate(or oppress) a place or people. Films after the Vietnam war are more likely to focus on small groups engaged in wilderness survival, maintaining communications or finding hidden enemies. The two types of film use different effects and foley, and that isn't purely a matter of budget or technology! The whole aesthetic changed, in a more complex way, to reflect the new design goals. When you watch films that are very low budget and keep things simple, they tend to look ordinary, because they don't have all this production gloss put on top; their falsehoods, where they show up, are more the ones inherent to film and to storytelling, and not visibly designed effects.

kibwen 10y ago

> I find myself getting really annoyed with movie sound > design now because it's so aritficial. I don't think this is a modern phenomenon, and I present The Coconut Effect as evidence: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheCoconutEffect http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheCoconutEffect

emmelaich 10y ago

B-Movie makers can be very lazy. Just about every action movie that I watched in the synth heavy 80s had the explosion from the Amiga game "Firepower" Check it out and then try and watch an Arnie Schwarzenegger movie from those days. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8G4ngPXGGgw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8G4ngPXGGgw