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Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:05 You sit down to watch a movie, maybe you're looking for something that reminds you of childhood. Harry Potter might be a good choice.
Speaker 2 00:00:13 Damn is the Potter. We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts corner.
Speaker 1 00:00:20 The night bus drives through the winding streets of the Wizarding world. And then suddenly it comes to a stop that's when you hear it, But maybe it isn't Harry Potter. Maybe you just start a new girl and you see Jess going to pick up her stuff from her ex-boyfriend's house.
Speaker 4 00:00:39 She's going to be okay in there,
Speaker 1 00:00:43 But wait, no, it wasn't new girl or Harry Potter. You want to watch it was free Willy or monsters. University of Hellboy. This cat sound is used a lot often when a cat isn't even a part of the plot of the movie. So why choose the sound? Hasn't this poor cat had enough.
Speaker 4 00:01:03 One. It's kind of funny, you know, and, and too, it has this sort of frequency of chaos. So you add these other things in and it, and it, it Springs and imagination. You're ready. You hear something off screen and you imagine a cat running away. So it's, it's something that, um, is also a little bit of a cliche.
Speaker 1 00:01:22 That's Tom Myers. He's a sound designer and mixer at Skywalker studios and has worked on films, including Kong skull island up Wally star wars, episode three, to name a few, but you don't have to be a sound designer to pick up on this recurring sound. You just have to all watch TV.
Speaker 4 00:01:40 Once you brought it to my attention, I was like, oh yeah, I have heard that a bunch of times,
Speaker 1 00:01:44 These recurring sounds and media aren't uncommon. There's a lengthy history of film sound tropes, including the infamous Wilhelm scream, ah, or the misplaced loon noise. And if you do a quick search for these online, you can find out about them pretty quickly through a variety of sources, but for this cat crash noise, it isn't quite the same. Well, there's some internet banter and forums discussing the sound. There's no definitive history of it, or much explanation of why it's used TV, consumers and TV characters alike have had to simply guess
Speaker 3 00:02:26 It was just a cat. Let's keep moving. Holy crap. What is up with that? Cast someone throwing it, not keep moving because there is an insane cat down here. Well, what about the zombies back-burner Troy, this cat has to be dealt with.
Speaker 1 00:02:47 So why is this sound so widely used?
Speaker 4 00:02:50 There are certain frequencies that you rely upon that that sort of make people's, you know, the hair on the back of their neck stand up there. Those sounds like a cat sound. The higher frequency sounds are ones that make us feel uncomfortable. It's like the, you know, the, the violin strings in, in psycho Normal dialogue is around one K one kilohertz. And as you get up into four 4k or, you know, six or something like that, which is where those cat frequencies are, it's, it's sort of makes your, your shoulders stand up and the hair on the back of your neck stand up. So those are, there's a physical reaction that people have to, to various frequency. So, and that comes in to sort of play with that. And that's the cat thing is perfect. And it goes with the sort of crashing glass and sort of similar frequency,
Speaker 1 00:03:47 But beyond the frequencies of the sound and its impact on the audience, this cat crush noise is it's kind of like an inside joke for sound designers and avid viewers.
Speaker 4 00:03:57 So my guess is it started out as, um, something that was supposed to be scary and then got used enough times in enough movies where they it's like, uh, you know, lightning crash or something like that as these horror tropes that are things that are used over and over again. So my guess is it, after a while, like a lot of cliche, it started out as something real and then became cliche and then became humorous. It just is something that, that sound people have become sort of aware about. And it was initially it's something that people just did to amuse themselves or other sound people, and then other people directors and stuff became aware of it. And so they started to use it and request it. And then audience members started to become aware of it.
Speaker 1 00:04:45 That crash sound effect may not be used seriously to scare an audience anymore, but it's unlikely to completely die out with the life it's taken on outside of creating fear.
Speaker 4 00:04:53 It is something that has, has been around and it's something that we've used, but it's not something that I was always conscious of. But, uh, but now maybe I'll, um, I'll take it in a couple of spots
Speaker 1 00:05:08 For WMUR news. I'm Helen Bradshaw.
