Birdsongs in movies (1 Viewer)

prestoy

Member

• Jul 23, 2003

• #1

Inspired by the thread on birds singing on a golf course, I'd like to ask if anyone have had similar experiences like this one:

A while ago I watched a norwegian movie showing on TV. In a scene obviously shot at mid-winter (jan-feb) in a dark confier wood, and with a snowdepth at about a meter, the whistling sound of a Golden Plover was heard loud - absolutely in the wrong habitat and season! Until this scene I thought the movie was OK, but after that incident I completely lost interest.

I've had similar experiences with other movies as well. Maybe I should start a consulting service called "CredibleBirdsongs" or something and enter the movie industry ;-)

 

Edward

Umimmak

• Jul 23, 2003

• #2

Shadows and Fog by Woody Allen (not one of the maestro's better films it has to be said). Film set in an unnamed European city but in the background you can clearly hear a Great Northern Diver, obviously used for its eerie qualities.

E
(med vennlig hilsen fra Island!)

 

Alastair Rae

London birder

• Jul 24, 2003

• #3

Originally posted by prestoy Maybe I should start a consulting service called "CredibleBirdsongs" or something and enter the movie industry ;-)

Click to expand...

Hey, that was my idea! (Or great minds think alike). You'd think given the budget on films, they'd have somebody the sound editor could consult.

 

robinm

Registered User

• Jul 24, 2003

• #4

On a slightly different note I remember that a few years ago CBS in the USA had to admit that they were adding bird song to the background of golf tournaments. They only admitted this after birders pointed out that some of the songs heard were impossible for the locations of the tournaments.

Be sure your sins will find you out!

 

V

very boring banned member

New member

• Jan 8, 2004

• #5

Bille August's awardwinning Isabel Allende-filmatisation The House of the Spirits happens in S America with european birdtracks. It really ruins a movie experience, when the soundscape is not produced equal to talented actors like Jeremy Irons, Meryl Streep and Glenn Close - and one of the movie orchestrators is Nick Glennie-Smith , who membered the pioneering pop band Gentlemen Without Weapons, that made a pop record Transmissions by using animal voices as band instruments!

 

Andrew Whitehouse

Professor of Listening

Supporter

• Jan 8, 2004

• #6

I've been told that the new film 'Cold Mountain' is amusing for birders to watch because it's supposed to be set in the American Civil War but was filmed in Europe (Rumania I think) and has lots of European birds singing in the background.

A film I remember as being particular good for birdsong is a Russian one called 'Burnt by the sun' (it won an Oscar I think). I certainly clocked Thrush Nightingale on that one.

 

Woody

Well-known member

• Jan 8, 2004

• #7

TV is a worse culprit:

It's nightime lets add a tawny owl hooting even if it's set in Ireland.

Any hawk or vulture in any desert anywhere in the world makes the same call as a redtail.

The best one has to be 'The Lost World' with Bob Hoskins, somewhere in deepest, darkest, South America close to the lost valley of the dinosaurs a lone chaffinch sings his song...

Woody

 

B

Bluetail

Senior Moment

• Jan 8, 2004

• #8

But they sometimes get it right. In the 1967 version of "Far from the Madding Crowd" (which no doubt will be popping up again on British TV now Alan Bates has died) there's a (traditional) harvest scene with a Quail calling. Nice touch, that.

Jason

 

S

streatham

Well-known member

• Jan 8, 2004

• #9

I read an amusing article on this whole topic by a local writer: http://pages.cthome.net/rwinkler/hollwood.htm

 

H

helenol

Well-known member

• Jan 8, 2004

• #10

You'd think given the budget on films, they'd have somebody the sound editor could consult.

Click to expand...

Being married to someone "in the industry" I know that the sound budget is not always huge. The sound department and music department budgets are two different things. Having said that, it doesn't really matter what the budget is, it depends on the "calibre" of the sound editor. If they have anything about them, they will ensure the sound matches the species being portrayed in the scene, usually by going out and doing a recording of said subject, or doing some "sound design", or consulting someone in the know.

Alternatively, if there is a lot going on "sound wise" in post production, and the bird or whatever is of no real consequence to the scenes, then they probably felt justified in using another sound to cover it.

This particular film may have had time contraints on the post production therefore eliminating the possibility of the above and forcing them to just grabbing something out of the sound library. Some people in the industry can usually tell when a library sound has been used in a film. Believe me, it's not much fun watching a film with them, it's like a busmans holiday!

 

L

Lawman

Active member

• Mar 6, 2004

• #11

The American Robin in London on Mary Poppins is a good 'un!

 

Strix

Well-known member

• Mar 6, 2004

• #12

I saw Seabiscuit a while back, and I seem to remember a flock of starlings with the "caw caw" of crows.