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Bird calls in movies (1 Viewer)

Frozzbird

Frozzbird

Well-known member
In the 1962 movie Cape Fear
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cape_fear1960s.jpg I find it really strange that the predominant bird call is the Aussie Kookaburra.
It is clearly used when they are in the Florida swamps.
I am wondering why they used an obviously well known Australian bird instead of a native one to the location.
Also ,.,if the Kookaburra is in fact in the Florida swamps has it become an introduced pest or was it's call just used in the film?
 
No, they aren't found in Florida, it's just one of those sounds that have worked it's way into standard background music/sounds in a lot of different movies/tv shows regardless of where they are set. Indianna Jones and the old Tarzan movies are two that spring to mind, but I know that there are many many more.
 
Whenever you hear a frog in a movie it is always the "ribbit" the ribbit is only made by one species of frog that is found in Hollywood. Maybe it was the first bird sound they came across *Shrugs*
 
Another favorite is the wail of the Common Loon. I must have heard this in scores of sound tracks over the years, including those for movies set in Louisiana bayous & other improbable places. Yet another is Red-tailed Hawk screams. I don’t think there’s been a western movie made where shots of circling vultures don’t have Red-tail screams dubbed in. And California Quail: few movies filmed in Hollywood, wherever set, don’t have the “where are you” call of the CQ somewhere on the sound track.
 
Yeah, kookaburra's calling are in a lot of movies, which I think is kinda call but also somewhat annoying :p

The call of the red-tailed hawk is used for practically any eagle call in a moive, especially bald eagles.
 
I just had to post this because I've heard it in movies and games and I don't know if it's a real bird or a made up sound.. but I was watching the moving Rescue Dawn and I heard it in the background a few times..

It was filmed in Thailand but I don't know if this bird is from that area?

I've been searching on and off for maybe 4 years with no luck.
 

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fugl said:
Another favorite is the wail of the Common Loon. I must have heard this in scores of sound tracks over the years, including those for movies set in Louisiana bayous & other improbable places. Yet another is Red-tailed Hawk screams. I don’t think there’s been a western movie made where shots of circling vultures don’t have Red-tail screams dubbed in. And California Quail: few movies filmed in Hollywood, wherever set, don’t have the “where are you” call of the CQ somewhere on the sound track.
Click to expand...

For years I thought Chaffinch song was artificial only, after I saw a segment of "how they do it" as a child and they made that final upward sound with a machine in order to simulate bird song in a radio show.
 
It is a well-known fact that every moorland is riddled with the call of the European Curlew. The Kookaburras are mostly used as the sound that the viewer is supposed to associate with monkeys!
 
fugl said:
Another favorite is the wail of the Common Loon. I must have heard this in scores of sound tracks over the years, including those for movies set in Louisiana bayous & other improbable places. Yet another is Red-tailed Hawk screams. I don’t think there’s been a western movie made where shots of circling vultures don’t have Red-tail screams dubbed in. And California Quail: few movies filmed in Hollywood, wherever set, don’t have the “where are you” call of the CQ somewhere on the sound track.
Click to expand...

I live in England and watched the film "Loch Ness" and there were Loon sounds all the time, erm ? We call these "divers" over here in the uk. The red throated diver makes a completely different call and the black throated diver tends to be much further North and is a rarity in scotland. It sounds really silly on Loch ness lol cos it is really commercialised as is Loch Tay and I have never ever heard Loons from any of em. He He obviously they dub em on without thinking.
 
Hi Andrea. I've had great views of black throated divers very close to Loch Ness.

Rich
Andreashrike said:
I live in England and watched the film "Loch Ness" and there were Loon sounds all the time, erm ? We call these "divers" over here in the uk. The red throated diver makes a completely different call and the black throated diver tends to be much further North and is a rarity in scotland. It sounds really silly on Loch ness lol cos it is really commercialised as is Loch Tay and I have never ever heard Loons from any of em. He He obviously they dub em on without thinking.
Click to expand...
 
any one familiar with the Sharpe books by Bernard Cornwell will probably watch the various TV mini series that arose from them. Predominant bird song was Hoopoe, remarkably correct for a TV show.....
 
mikecl said:
I just had to post this because I've heard it in movies and games and I don't know if it's a real bird or a made up sound.. but I was watching the moving Rescue Dawn and I heard it in the background a few times..

It was filmed in Thailand but I don't know if this bird is from that area?

I've been searching on and off for maybe 4 years with no luck.
Click to expand...
I think that's a Screaming Piha from South America:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screaming_Piha

http://www.xeno-canto.org/browse.php?query=Screaming+Piha+(Lipaugus+vociferans)+82&species_nr=uizzbr
 
I've seen films / TV shows set in Ireland with a night scene in a wood where they've dubbed in Tawny Owl calls - other than one individual bird in a specific location in Co. Down, we don't get Tawny Owls here.
 
My personal (least) favorite was a nature documentary on giant pandas in China. There were dubbed in bird calls: eastern phoebe and wood pewee.
 
Watching an Irish based film last night, The Race, some of it filmed around where I live, I heard marsh tit, non existent in Ireland and swifts screaming around farm buildings. The latter was very improbable considering the film was made during November!

Si.
 
Monahawk said:
Watching an Irish based film last night, The Race, some of it filmed around where I live, I heard marsh tit, non existent in Ireland and swifts screaming around farm buildings. The latter was very improbable considering the film was made during November! Si.
Click to expand...

The perils of shooting on location are many. Outdoor locations for many Hollywood films from the 1930s onwards contain bird sounds from California, but the scenes are often supposed to be in the eastern US or in Europe! The 1937 film Prisoner of Zenda with its 'British Hollywood' cast, includes a calling Red Cardinal....

Sometimes an 'atmospheric' sound track is added to a film - El Cid, set in Spain, has some interesting Italian vagrants sounding off (some studio scenes were shot in Rome)!
MJB
 
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