film sound tracks
 

Hi everyone

Just wondering about a fairly trivial question really. Why is it in films and sometimes news items the sound of the engine from inside the aircraft never matches the aircraft type? It seems to me that the bell 206 'sound' seems to be the favourite for dubbing on to the soundtrack.

There was a news item on the other night regarding the Hemel Hempstead fires, in part of the clip there was a brief shot of inside the aircraft which was plainly an R44 (probably G-PIXX), but the sound you could hear was clearly a Jetranger!

I know some of you guys work in the film business and wondered if there is any particular reason for this.

Thanks

In films I've always found it's the sound of a Bell 47, particularly when they are trying to start a Jetranger! If my engine sounded like that I'd take it straight back! I put it down to ignorance.

BTW, There's a film out called Supreme Sanction which has lifted the helicopter scenes straight out of Firebirds (or Wings of the Apache, depending where you are). All they did was replace the facial scenes in the cockpit with new people and write an even worse script.

Phil

Like paco says, it was the Bell 47 sound that was most often used in the past. More alarmingly for the informed was the way in which a helicopter lifting into the hover and departing was accompanied by the sound of a Bell 47 winding up, while a helicopter landing would be the same machine winding down...... Never saw any signs of coning up though!!
If you asked a non-pilot type, most of them seem to think that it is perfectly normal.

Heli Sound tracks
 

Film sound tracks ?

Its all down to public perception. We all know the only sound of a crashing plane has to be a Stukka dive bomber.

When making our scholarship DVD, we had to shift the 300C sound track along a mite. Our great British public doesn't appreciate helicopters use max rpm even when landing !!

But for real technical accurancy, tune in to Larry Hagman's Hughes 500 start-up. Perfection to the second, even a little instrument tapping to get N1 moving !! Have a great flying Christmas lads.

Dennis K

Clearly generic sound is often used for helicopters in films etc and it is not always edited accurately, but I'd put a lot of it down to where you put the microphone and what type of mic you use. It is amazing how many different noises you can get out of one helicopter!

One of my favorites, Goldeneye - a black R22 rising out of a Russian spy train, turbine spooling up...

This has always been one of my pet peeves as well. So when I got to work on the John Travolta movie "Swordfish" I purposely cornered the sound guys that were making recordings of the S-64 and asked them to please use the true sound track (the Skycrane has a pretty impressive sound all by itself)and not a dubbed in replacement off the shelf. He said he would try to convince the powers that be but they always seemed to like the whop whop whop of the Huey. Low and behold when the movie was released it turned out to be a mixture of both Skycrane and Huey!

Happy Holidays

Max

Wings of the Apache
:yuk: :yuk: :yuk:

Blue Thunder:

The 206 startup scene sounded exactly like ... a 206!

Have a nephew in the film/advertising/sound industry. Says the average Joe Soap has no clue as to what a heli sounds like so they go to a web site with sound tracks, ask for heli noise of engine or whatever and the first to hand cracks the nod. Then of course they stuff up, forget what sound was used first so put in something else.

Being a bit bit of a bike nutter, the same happens when motorcycles are used. Have heard Ducati 916/999's sounding like single cylinder dirt bikes.

Also get peeved in movies where people are able to stand up in executive jets like the Lear series. And to think these prats get paid gazillions more than we do:yuk:

And notice how many helicopters in the movies are flown from the wrong seat - the left seat in a 206, for instance.