Homemade Sound Effects

Transcription

1 A well-stocked sound-effects kit often looks like a box full of junk left over from a rummage sale... Homemade Sound Effects by Shaun Hunter Try This at Home Take some stiff cellophane (such as a chocolate-bar wrapper), go into the kitchen, and begin to crumple it. Holler in the direction of the living-room that you're frying bacon for everyone, and continue to crumple the wrapper. If your family is hungry, chances are someone will come rushing in to see what's going on. (If everybody's just finished a big meal, the same person might rush in to see if you've gone crazy.) You'll have done what thousands of men and women do every day in radio, TV, and film: you'll have fooled someone with a "sound effect".

2 A Long History People have been using sound effects for a very long time. Tribal hunters mimicked the sound of their prey to confuse the animal! or to convince it that no danger lurked nearby. The ancient Greeks employed a loud chorus of voices in their plays to imitate the sound of thunder, a sign that the gods were angry. It wasn't until sound films ("talkies'') and radio came along, however, that more realistic sound effects became important. Since the motion pictures and radio dialogue had become very true-to-life, audiences expected the accompanying sounds to be authentic, too. Cellophane Sounds Producers and audio technicians found before long that, if a script called for the sound of frying eggs and bacon, it was much easier (and cheaper) to crumple some cellophane near a microphone than it was to smell up the studio with real bacon crackling in a pan. After all, if you see a picture of eggs frying in a pan and hear crackling sounds, you usually don't stop to consider whether or not it's the eggs making the noise, right? Sound-effects teams found that cellophane could also be used to simulate the sound of a campfire. Add a little mooing and some harmonica music, and you've created a "soundscape" of a lonely cowboy s campfire. For more than fifty years, now, that simple little piece of cellophane has been the mainstay of the sound-effects bag of tricks. Bear Sounds A well-stocked sound-effects kit often looks like a box full of junk left over from a rummage sale and sometimes that's where sound-effects "props" (short for "properties") come from! Have you ever heard a snarling bear? All you need to re-create this frightening sound is a glass chimney from an old-fashioned kerosene lamp, although nowadays you may have to prowl around garage sales to find one. Take the thick end of the glass and place it over your mouth. Now snarl and grunt into it in your best bear-«like fashion. Because the shape of the glass duplicates the shape of a bear's snout, your own puny grunts will be magnified into convincing grizzly growls.

3 Sound Effects Weather If you take the cork ball out of a plastic referee's whistle, the whistle becomes a great device to imitate the sound of wind blowing through a crack in a window. If you'd like to add a little "atmosphere" to the whistling wind, include some thunder and rain. The thunder is easy. You need a piece of bristol board about one metre square. Hold it by one end and shake it up and down. Voild! Thunder! To simulate the sound of rain you'll need: an old window screen, a 50 cm X 50 cm piece of glass or aluminum foil (such as a disposable foil roastingpan), and a couple of handfuls of uncooked rice. Place the glass (or foil) on a table and hold the screen horizontally a few centimetres above it. Pour the rice onto the screen and gently shake it back and forth, The shaking of the rice and the grains that fall onto the glass below make sounds like raindrops. If you'd like to create the sound of someone walking in the snow on a very cold day, all you need is a box of corn starch. Just take the box in your hands and squeeze. For every step your brave pedestrian takes, give the box another squeeze. Maybe the person slips and breaks a leg. The grisly, bone-crunching sound can be matched by taking a fresh piece of celery or carrot and snapping it in half. This sound effect can also be used to simulate the "crack" of a tree branch being broken. Coconut Shell Hoof beats Making the sound effect of a horse's hoofbeats can sometimes be tiring, especially if the animal is going on a long journey. To imitate the hoofbeats, you need two halves of a coconut shell. This technique works best if you take out all the white meaty pulp inside. Use the brown husk for the sound effect and the white flesh for a snack. Take half a shell in each hand and hold them hollow-side down. To make the horse walk, tap out a beat with the shells on a small piece of plywood. The rhythm of the beat is very important. Don't tap "left-right, leftright", because that's the way a two-legged animal would walk. To imitate a horse's gait, tap "left-right-left, left-right-left,"

4 (Some people prefer "rig ht-left-right, right-left-right.") If the horse begins to trot, tap faster. If it begins to run very fast, then you'll have to tap still faster yet. If there's a stone bridge to cross, tap the shells on the classroom chalkboard when the horse is on the bridge, and resume tapping on the wood when it's across. For a horse galloping on grass, tap the shells in a shoe box half full of uncooked rice. Dedicated sound-effects creators also blow air out between their teeth and flap their lips, in order to simulate the horse's satisfied snort when it has just completed a tiring run. Not an Easy Job Creating sound effects is not always an easyjob. Do you remember the sound of the laser guns in Star Wars} Well, a real laser, which produces an intense beam of light, is absolutely silent. But if the weapons used in the movie hadn't made any noise, the battle scenes wouldn't have been very exciting. So she sound-effects squad hunted for a noise they thought would be appropriate for a futuristic, noisy laser. What they came up with was certainly unusual. That nasal "beeyou" ping of the Star Wars lasers is actually the noise made by plucking a guy wire from a TV antenna, Creating that kind of sound effect takes a trained professional, however; plucking the wrong wire or plucking it the wrong way can bring the whole antenna crashing to the ground. Sounds Like the Real Thing The Russian composer Peter Tchaikovsky wanted to re-create the sound of a war in music. So, for his "1812 Overture," a piece about the Russian army's defeat of Napoleon, Tchaikovsky used giant drums to imitate the sound of cannons firing. Recently, some orchestras have tried to make the required cannon sounds even more realistic when they perform this music. Some have tried real cannons, others have used fireworks, and many have used tape recordings of cannons firing, But one of the weirdest cannon sound effects Is created by dropping a railway tie onto the stage when the guns are supposed to fire. Audience members at concerts where this seemingly dangerous stunt has been done all agree that the crash sounds like the real thing. And that's the greatest compliment a soundeffects creator can receive,

5 Recipe for a Western Ingredients 1 coconut country and western music played on a harmonica; for example, "Red River Valley" several small carrots matches cellophane Instructions 1. Cut coconut in half. Scoop out flesh. Save shells. 2. Turn on harmonica music. 3. Begin to tap coconut shells on desk, remembering to beat properly for horse trotting. 4. After one minute, make "horse snort" sound in mouth. 5. Make rustling sounds of clothing, and begin to tap coconut shells erratically. 6. Stamp feet 7. Stop tapping shells. 8. Snap in half several small carrots, one after another. 9. Light match. Pause. Blow out match softly. 10. Begin to crumple cellophane; continue crumpling. 11. Yawn, pause, then sigh aloud, 12. Begin to snore, 13. Continue crumpling for one minute, then gently crumple more and more quietly, then stop. 14. Stop snoring, 15. In one minute, stop harmonica music. Yield: One cowpoke going to sleep beside the campfire at the end of a hard day on the range.

6 Homemade Sound Effects on the Internet It's Never a Quiet Week, Anywhere, When Tom Keith 1$ Around October, 1998 You can hear examples of the different sound effects by either clicking on the title in the descriptions below or clicking on Its corresponding letter in the image. Sound Sequence: Click to play all the effects A-K, one after another, (Real Audio 28.8; See How to Listen) Door (A), to be opened, dosed, and slammed, with multiple locks, each with a different sound, Keith checks the door before each show to make sure it's ready to open and close on cue, Wingtips (B) picked up at Salvation Army. Used to make footsteps by pressing the heels of the shoes together and rolling toward the toes, Taped box of cornstarch (C): When squeezed, sounds like someone walking through squeaky fresh snow, Styrofoam picnic plates (D): When broken in half, they sound like breaking wood. Telephone (E): Dialing, ringing, etc. Roller skate (F): Hakes the sound of an elevator door opening when rolled across the rugged keys of an old typewriter. Need soldiers to march? These wooden legs (G) sound like a whole battalion marching in step. Doorbells (H): buzz or chime. Coconut shells (I) in box of small gravel: A coconut shell in each hand, when crunched one after the other against the gravel, sounds like horses' hooves. Glass-breaking box (3): Toss a wine glass at the angle iron on the bottom and hope you hit it. Crash box (K): Adds drama to a fall. Matched with car horns and breaking glass, it makes a great car accident, SINCE 1976, SOUND EFFECTS WIZARD TOM KEITH and his collection of homemade props have been earning huge applause from A Prairie Home Companion audiences for seemingly impossible sound-effects feats such as a pig jumping off a diving board Into a vat full of jello.

7 Homemade Sound Effects Read the article, "Homemade Sound Effects." When you are finished reading, answer the questions below. 1. In your own words, summarize the article, "Homemade Sound Effects." 2. What is the main idea of this article? Explain your thinking.

8 3. Select the best answer for each of the following questions. a) Explain the use of quotation marks in the following sentence:...and you've created a "soundscape" of a lonely cowboy's campfire. 0 They are used to indicate a made-up word. 0 They are used to indicate dialogue. 0 They are used to indicate that the author does not agree with the term. 0 They are used to indicate the title of a story. b) Explain the use of the dash in the following sentence: A well-stocked sound-effects kit often looks like a box full of junk left over from a rummage sale - and sometimes that's where sound-effects "props"...come from! 0 It is used to introduce items in a list. 0 It is used to introduce additional information that has been added to a sentence. 0 It is used to create a compound word. 0 It is used to introduce an author's change of opinion. c) Explain the use of parentheses in the following sentence:...that's where sound-effects "props" (short for "properties") come from! 0 They are used to surround a list of examples. 0 They are used to surround an idea that disagrees with the information before it. 0 They are used to surround an explanation that the author has inserted into a sentence. 0 They are used to show dialogue. d) Explain the use of the colon in the following sentence: You'll have done what thousands of men and women do every day in radio, TV, and film: you'll have fooled someone with a "sound effect." 0 It is used to indicate a format greeting in a letter. 0 It is used to shoe that dialogue is coming up in the sentence. 0 It is used to replace a comma. 0 It is used to separate two complete sentences where the second sentence summarizes or explains the first.

9 4. "Homemade Sound Effects" is a nonfiction article. List three characteristics that show that this is nonfiction writing. For each characteristic, give an example from the article to support your answer. 5. What is the purpose of the underlined words, such as "Door (A) " and why are they written in a lighter colour? 6. From reading this article, we get to know some things about people who create sound effects. Name three important characteristics of these people. Describe something they say or do to show they have these characteristics.

10 7. Use information from the article and your own ideas to explain why sound effects are an important part of radio, television, movies, and video games. 8. What information might a modern sound-effects producer working in the film industry wants to add to this article? Explain your thinking.