Like most American kids in the 1950's, Ben Burtt went to the movies .. a LOT !! Movie budgets were much smaller back then, and film studios re-used whatever they could - props, sets, footage, sound effects,everything. If you watched the movies carefully, you might have noticed things you'd seen and heard in other movies.
Burtt noticed. He was good at picking out sounds, and especially one scream in particular. "Every time someone died in a Warner Bros. movie, they'd scream this famous scream", he says.
By the 1970's, Burtt was working in the movie business himself, as a sound designer - the guy who creates the sound effects. Years had passed, but he never forgot that Warner Bros. scream, so when he got a chance, he decided to track down the originator of the scream. No one could remember what actor had originally been hired to record the scream, so Burtt jokingly named it after a character in a 1953 movie, Charge at Feather River. The character, named Wilhelm, screams the scream after he is struck in the leg with an arrow.
The Wilhelm scream is now over 50 years old, but if you heard it, you'd probably recognize it, because Burtt, who's worked on every George Lucas film, used it often. "That scream gets in every picture I do, as a personal signature" he says.
So when you hear a Wilhelm scream in a film, can you assume that Burtt did the sound effects ? No - when other sound designers heard what he was doing, they'd insert it into their films as well. Apparently, Burtt isn't the only one good at noticing re-used sounds, as over 66 movies feature a Wilhelm scream at some point.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdbYsoEasio
Burtt noticed. He was good at picking out sounds, and especially one scream in particular. "Every time someone died in a Warner Bros. movie, they'd scream this famous scream", he says.
By the 1970's, Burtt was working in the movie business himself, as a sound designer - the guy who creates the sound effects. Years had passed, but he never forgot that Warner Bros. scream, so when he got a chance, he decided to track down the originator of the scream. No one could remember what actor had originally been hired to record the scream, so Burtt jokingly named it after a character in a 1953 movie, Charge at Feather River. The character, named Wilhelm, screams the scream after he is struck in the leg with an arrow.
The Wilhelm scream is now over 50 years old, but if you heard it, you'd probably recognize it, because Burtt, who's worked on every George Lucas film, used it often. "That scream gets in every picture I do, as a personal signature" he says.
So when you hear a Wilhelm scream in a film, can you assume that Burtt did the sound effects ? No - when other sound designers heard what he was doing, they'd insert it into their films as well. Apparently, Burtt isn't the only one good at noticing re-used sounds, as over 66 movies feature a Wilhelm scream at some point.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdbYsoEasio
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