9 July 2008

Wilhelm Screaming

I sourced sound effects for our 48 hours project (gunfire mostly!) and I found today's Freakonomics post on the Wilhelm Scream, a sound effect which crops up in heaps of movies, really rather cool.

Here's a compilation from You Tube.

Warning: watching this first You Tube clip could affect future movie viewing, as you're watching the action scenes and think "hey, it's that sound effect!" I find that after making a 48 hours movie, I watch TV and film differently, and see it's contrivedness.



Sadly, at the end, they say "please don't sue". If anything is a "Fair Use" this should be it. It's a commentary on movies, and the excepts from copyright materials are used in a way that adds to the greater good and doesn't detract from the original rights holders fair exploitation of their investment and talent. I've recently read Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture which outlines the risks to future creativity of copyright abuses by major studios, and the problems in modern copyright law and practice. Well worth a read.

And for more on the Wilhelm Scream here's a history:


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