16 replies to this topic

[Wade]

Most of us are familiar with the Wilhelm scream, that oft-used sound effect that became an in-joke in Hollywood.

Well, what of the sound effects that have repeated in the Bonds? I know of at least three:

1. The machine that goes PING: There's the high-pitched radar tone that appears whenever a henchman is looking at a screen, tracking a jet or a bomb, etc.

2. The whistling bomb: I first noticed it at the end of LALD, when Bond's explosives were going off in Kananga's poppy fields. There's an inexplicable whistle, almost like a flute, as one of them explodes. And it repeats twice.

3. The phlegmy scream: I think I first heard it at the beginning of MR, when Bond yanked the parachute away from the pilot, who screamed this congested scream on the way down.

Are there nicknames for these or others? I enjoyed finding them for years and am sad now that the new people on the films have brought in their own tricks.

[AMC Hornet]

I don't know the nicknames of any of these effects, but here are a couple of repeating sounds I've noticed:

A mechanical whine as a CCTV camera turns, or a gadget pops out of its compartment (eg the bullet shield on the Q boat in MR);

Both Stromberg and Drax had telemetry readers that went "beeeeep beep-beep-beep" repeatedly.

BTW that gutteral scream appears in The Wild Geese as well, when the guys on the stone bridge get hit with napalm. Apparently it was originally recorded for someone getting shot off a horse in some old western.

[Mr. Blofeld]

3. The phlegmy scream: I think I first heard it at the beginning of MR, when Bond yanked the parachute away from the pilot, who screamed this congested scream on the way down.

I like to call it the "Gobinda scream", after its most prominent use...

[Wade]

I like to call it the "Gobinda scream", after its most prominent use...

Excellent!!

[Zorin Industries]

Yep - NECROS's scream is that of GOBINDA's.

And the crunching metal of DRAX's crumbling space station is the same sound as CARVER's crumbling Stealth Ship.

[DamnCoffee]

The 'beeping submarine' sound from The Spy Who Loved Me has been used a few times, as well.

[Dan Gale]

Hooray, everyone is stooping to my level of nerdage!

Yes, the whistling explosion has long been a staple of UK sound effects. It's history I can't tell you but it goes as far back as Thunderbirds in 1965. I think certain effects got reused as Eon shipped the dubbing out to the same companies. If you listen to how Diamonds Are Forever used to sound in mono (before the DVD remastered the sound) you'll hear they're only used two explosion sounds for the entire oil rig climax! (slight exaggeration but time and again, the whistling explosion and a wood splintering explosion were used, even when metal helicopters were exploding.) The stereo remix has changed all that.

There's a lift noise I've heard time and again in old Brit TV shows. Also Bond's PPK made the same sound from pretty much 1977 - 1989 (a sound which is used in MANY shows and films, Batman 1989, The Avengers 1965, Goldfinger, it was even used as an explosion sound for the helecoptors killed by Little Nellie in YOLT. (There's also the classic Hollywood 'castle thunderclap' that you've heard a million times used as explosions during the self district of the volcano. It shouldn't work but it does.)

Moonraker through to TLD the sound effects were compiled by a chap named Jean Pierre LeLong and I can only assume he used the same sound effect library: why create a new one when it's already on tape? I don't think he assumed we'd be examining his work this closely twenty years later!

Cringingly there's a glass smashing sound effect in YOLT ("Impregnable?") and LALD (as Pepper gains his "carboat") which is straight out of the BBC sound effect library. You'll have heard it a billion times on radio and on Rentaghost! It stands out like a sore thumb from the rest of the mix.

[jaguar007]

If you have not checked this out, you should

http://www.youtube.c...feature=related

[Dan Gale]

If you have not checked this out, you should

http://www.youtube.c...feature=related

Thanks for the plug!
Best reply I got from that YouTube film was "Duh, they're all played by the same stuntman!"
I couldn't tell how serious they were being.

[DaveBond21]

Yep - NECROS's scream is that of GOBINDA's.

The same scream was also used for Zorin's business associate who had to "drop out" of the airship discussion, in AVTAK.

[The Shark]

Yep - NECROS's scream is that of GOBINDA's.

The same scream was also used for Zorin's business associate who had to "drop out" of the airship discussion, in AVTAK.

Also the same for Krest's goon after being thrown off the plane.

[Dan Gale]

There's a stock diving aircraft sound which was in Moonraker, FYEO (for the helecoptor and Gonzales' plane), Octopussy (In the climax) and LTK as Bond steals Krest's plane. Wasn't used at the start of G*ldenEye so one of M. LeLong's effects I guess.
And as mentioned before, there's the creaking metal sound that appears in Moonraker and a few others. The sound of the tanker hitting the cliff face just before it's hit by Perez's Stinger in LTK is another familiar sound but I can't recall where else Ive heard it.

[Dan Gale]

The sound of the tanker hitting the cliff face just before it's hit by Perez's Stinger in LTK is another familiar sound but I can't recall where else Ive heard it.

Oh, wait. Yes I can - it's the helicopter hitting the iceberg in AVTAK.

Ps: I cannot spell helicopter (helecoptor? helicoptor?)

Edited by Dan Gale, 02 July 2010 - 09:52 AM.

[Dan Gale]

Here the whistling explosion several times over in this film.
http://www.youtube.c...e=youtube_gdata

[Zorin Industries]

It's an oddly interesting realm this one... I had some sound effects used in a film I did once and I hear those sound effects everywhere now. I think it was sitting in the edit for days on end... these sounds stuck with you and I hear them to this day.

[Mr. Blofeld]

Yep - NECROS's scream is that of GOBINDA's.

The same scream was also used for Zorin's business associate who had to "drop out" of the airship discussion, in AVTAK.

Also the same for Krest's goon after being thrown off the plane.

Also used again, in the very same movie, for the KGB agent whom Zorin drops into the path of a fan blade!

[captnash2]

the klaxon that goes off when bond set off a security breach alert.