Volume 30, No. 33                                            
August 21, 2005
 
Sound Effects

   Sounds crazy, but crazy sounds always held a special attraction for Ben Burtt.  

   When he went to the movies as a kid in the 1950s, he paid close attention, not just to the on-screen action, but the background, too.  He soon noticed one particular sound that kept popping up in flick after flick. ”Every time someone died in a Warner Brothers movie, they’d scream this famous scream,” he said.  So when Burtt grew up to be a movie sound effects man, he decided to track the soundtrack sound!

   It took some digging but he finally found the scream on an old studio reel marked “Man Being Eaten By Alligator” which had been recorded for the 1951 Warner Brothers western Distant Drums.  The well-used yell is in that movie twice:  once in a fight with some Indians and — as the label said, when a man’s attacked by a gator.

   Since nobody knew who did the original scream, Burtt jokingly named it after Wilhelm, a character who utters the dubbed-in cry in the 1953 movie Charge At Feather River when he’s hit in the leg by an arrow.  The “Wilhelm Scream” is used two other times in that film, when a soldier’s speared, and as a warrior rolls down a hill.

   Though the celebrated sound is now half a century old, you’ve probably heard it.  “That scream gets in every picture I do, as a personal signature,” says Ben Burtt.  That includes each of the Star Wars installments.  But it’s not his exclusive trademark.  When other sound designers heard what Burtt was doing, they started slipping the “Wilhelm Scream” into their movies, too.  And film buffs have caught on, finding about 70 pictures that have scavenged the scream.

    Some of those pictures may be in your video collection.  Here are some places you’ll find the Wilhelm Scream:  in Lord of the Rings:  The Two Towers (2002) a soldier falls off a wall in the Battle of Helm’s Deep;  in Titanic (1997) a crew member screams as the engine room floods;  in Toy Story (1995) Buzz Lightyear gets knocked out a bedroom window;  in Batman Returns, the superhero punches a clown;  and in Return of the Jedi (1983) Han Solo knocks a man over a ledge.  That man is none other than Ben Burtt who imitates the Wilhelm Scream in his own voice!

   In the make-believe of the movies, the cry is a harmless code shared by the few people aware of the inside joke.  It’s all in fun.  But it holds a real-life reminder of something more serious.  Just as everyone watching a movie is exposed to the same sights and sounds, our Father has revealed himself to all his creatures, in ways big and small.  He’s done this to persuade us to turn from “worthless things to the living God who has made heaven and earth...”

   As Paul goes on to explain, He provided reminders of his presence from the start “such as sending you rain and good crops and giving you food and joyful hearts.” (Acts 14:15-17.)  Paul also points out the Lord “gives life and breath to everything, and satisfies every need there is.”  Why?  “His purpose was that the nations should seek after [him] and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him — though He’s not far from any one of us.  For in him we live and move and exist.”(Acts 17:25-28.)

   So why do so few people twig to the cry of God’s heart?  Mostly because they’re too distracted by life to see the subtleties of what lies behind the scenes.  Only the perceptive few notice the pattern and prevalence of God’s presence and exercise their spiritual curiosity to trace it to the Source.  But once they really start listening, they find him in countless scenes and scenarios.

   As we hear the voice of God, we must incorporate it into everything we do, making it our personal signature — something we’re known for.  And when that happens, don’t be surprised when others start to follow your lead, or when the people who pay attention to what you do start to notice on their own how the Lord is so present. Of course, the ultimate tribute to the cry of God is when we imitate it in our own voice and in our own way.  Try it.  It’ll have a sound effect on your life.  

By Rick Gamble, published in Cross Current, the weekly newsletter of the followers of Christ congregation in Brantford, Ontario, Canada.  Reprint at will in not-for-profit publications.  To subscribe to this free, weekly newsletter, drop a short note to sgamble@bfree.on.ca