Why do gun sound effects sound so weak and fake in movies these days?

It's the movies :)

Sounds are normally limited on a DVD to 48KHZ and older movies even less. You would have to wear noise cancelling ear defenders at the cinema otherwise and the cops would be around your house if real gunshots were coming from your TV :eek:
 
When Dirty Harry was around....

blujax01 said:
I'm seeing a lot of the TV police procedurals where the M.E. is pronouncing that the CoD was a .22.

They bark like a 9 and the hole in the muzzle end of the Glock (always a Glock) looks like a 9, but for whatever reason, the writers have declared the Hollywood Bad Guy firearm of choice is now a .22.

And when the gun is described as a 9mm it is said to be a "large caliber handgun". :eek:

The poor old dead homeowner? A rusty revolver he had no idea how to use!:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

When Dirty Harry came on, a .44 magnum was 'exotic'. I guess with the shortages not everybody has a .22 nowadays.
 
lemme put my audio engineer hat on and give you an answer.

The sound is edited into the soundtrack.
Reason being, a gunshot is a real bear to record due to its volume.
a condenser mic would eat it after the first real blast, A dynamic might hold the shock, but will lose the nuance in the upper registers.
trying to give it range to make it manageable makes for environmental coloration.

Instead, they pull in canned sound bites to work with.
These tracks are pre mixed to levels that adhere to soundroom standards so as to make them easy to work with. Thus, the gun isn't any louder than dialog, which is also mixed down to the same standards.

Ever notice how the heros gun sounds a bit meaner than the villans? ... sound pools, nothing more.
 
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I believe the sounds on Airplane could be on purpose. The entire movie was a parody. Prop sounds would be part of that parody.
 
Oh, I don't know if I agree with the OP. Saw "Fury" at the theatre and I swear my eyes were crossed when we left. Couldn't even catch a nap!
 
Some of the worst gun sound effects in any movie was in the old James Bond movies. No matter what the target was or what the down range field of fire was the gun shot was always a phoney sounding bang with a ricochet as if the bullet had hit a steel plate.

And all the gun shots sounded the same whether from a hand gun or a rifle.

As far as realism goes I've spent plenty of time around live gunfire both in target shooting and in combat situations and I'm not really sure I want my movie sound effects to duplicate it. It is a big reason why my hearing is mostly gone.
 
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First, I can't believe you all are fretting over something as silly as gunshot sounds in a movie. Anybody who posts on this thread really needs something better to do.

Oh, wait......

Anyway, gun sounds on TV or movies don't bother me much, but I do get kinda curious as to how the heroes and anti-heroes can take physical punishment that would cripple or kill a real human, but still jump up and fight the good fight. Slam someone's head into a steel girder, and they ain't getting up to punish you for it. On an NCIS episode last night, Agent Timmy took a full roundhouse clonk to the back of the head from a golf club, and rather than cave in the back of his skull, it just knocked him out. This stuff is so ridiculous, I gotta wonder about the intelligence of anybody who even watches it.

(again)... Oh, wait.....
Acebow
 
When Warren Beatty made Bonnie and Clyde he wanted the shots to jar the audience. He had blanks fired into 55 gallon drums and recorded that.
 
rwsmith said:
You know what I haven't heard in a long time? A ricochet.
PaCHIIIIIING!
Click to expand...

My son was watching an old western last week, and I sat down to watch with him. So many fake ricochet shots off the rocks it was ridiculous! Old movies....new movies. It's all fake!
 
Doug.38PR said:
Is it just me or do gun effects in movies seem very weak over the past 10 years or so?

They sound more like they're shooting a quick cap gun or fire cracker. People talk louder than the gunfire

Movies used to make gunfire more convincing and attention getting (like in real life) It drowned out and carried above the rest of the noise in the movie and often even had some kind of echo effect.

Warner Bros from the 1940s-1990s always seemed to be the best at it.

I.E. in the 1948 movie Treasure of the Sierra Madre when Humphrey Bogart catches Tim Holt falling asleep, takes his gun away, orders him back into brush in the dark and moves out of view....the loud ring of two gunshots that follow after a few moments of silence leaves you no doubt as to what just happened and even startles you a little.

In the 1972 movie Magnum Force when the motorcycle cop pulls the car of mobsters over and is quietly talking to them, we are startled when he pulls his revolver and the loud effects of a .357 Magnum start ringing out as it guns them down in the car and quietly walks away.

And of course we all know Dirty Harry's famous .44 Magnum cannon sound effect.

The "Diplomatic Immunity" BOOM "has just been revoked" from Lethal Weapon too was quite the attention getter as Danny Glover's M-19 rings out after a neck turn

Paramount isn't bad either.

Indiana Jones entering the Nepal Bar with his S&W firing away at German thugs was effective.

But all movies prior to 10 years ago tried, however they could, to make guns sound like what they were: Loud, carrying over everything and attention getting.

Now they all sound like a wiffle bat hitting the sidewalk.

Even when they "remaster" sound effects for older movies, they make them sound very weak and less realistic. Such as in the dirty harry movies. Sound more like a door slamming shut.

Or the Terminator. The gunshots in the "remastered" version of that sound like popcorn popping.
Click to expand...

The answer to your question is--because they are outsourcing special effects to China--like everything else.:cool:
 
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