Strange Tales - musings of a sound monkey

how many times do we read that description in either a stage direction or script and think, “easy, gunshot, no problem” but here’s some things to consider. I was doing a production of Oliver! recently and not wanting to spoil things too much (seriously, hands up who doesn’t know the story backwards, ……. seriously?) but a major character gets shot by the rozzers towards the end.

so for a start you have the usual sound design considerations: what era is it set in (we assume mid 1800’s as Dickens was not noted for his dystopian visions of the future, his present was grim enough), so a quick google leads us to types of weapons (whether the police were actually armed notwithstanding, but it’s a quick way to move the story on), and then a quick search on those leads us to calibers and ammo and a likely sonic creation starts to form. but……..

there’s a lot going on in that final scene, a lot of crowd-hubbubering and general chaos, and this simple line of “stand back” often gets lost, and without deafening the audience, your authentic gunshot from a small calibre, non-automatic sidearm can just sound like the drummer momentarily lost the will to live and fell asleep on the snare.

So you have to lift the sound above the crowd, a bit of multiple-band compression should sort that, maybe lift the final fx level, maybe a slap-back environmental echo to put it in place in the scene, maybe a touch of limiting………

And suddenly, your polite little hand gun is suddenly twinned with the peaceful little hamlet of Howitzer.

In the end, I opted for a less authentic but beefier sidearm, I used a recording of a Smith & Wesson standard issue modern law enforcement revolver, which did the job beautifully, but left me feeling a little sad for the original sound, so lovingly crafted to fit the scene.

It’s something that you learn really early on in this business, ‘literal interpretation gets you nowhere’, just ask Ben Burtt.