When consuming media in any shape or form, especially the Hollywood variety, I am always fascinated by how the natural world is portrayed, utilized, and hilariously misrepresented, especially sonically.
Let’s start with the classic sound of an eagle’s iconic screech. This sound is often produced during movie and show scenes where there is wilderness or some sort of outdoor desolation involved. In other instances, the world-famous bald eagle is seen flying or perched, and the familiar piercing “Eeeeeeeeegh!” sound is heard. Funny enough, the bald eagle and other eagle species don’t sound anything like that at all.
Typically, the classic Hollywood eagle sound is actually the audio of a species of hawk. Interestingly, hawks are notably smaller and perceived as lesser than the mighty big eagles over the world. Yet eagles calls are ironically meek and cutesy sounding, with little “beeps” and “eeps” often heard as their method of audible communication. However, we seem to resonate more with the powerful hawk screech, so this sound is often dubbed onto eagles or wild settings on the big screen.
Then there’s the classic jungle sound of the laughing kookaburra. This is an Australian bird with a uniquely maniacal call, which sounds like a chattering that eventually morphs into an absurd laughing sound. Search through YouTube for the sound and I guarantee you will remember hearing this in films before.
Admittedly, I can’t recollect which movies or shows used this sound off the top of my head, but I have heard it too many times to count. Lush rainforests and dark jungles are often paired with the remarkable call of Australia’s laughing kookaburra.
The funny part is how many of these scenes take place in rainforests that are not in Australia, where this remarkable bird strictly resides. Movies involving the Vietnam war, people lost in the Amazon or even North American settings have utilized this bird’s raucous call to ignite a sense of intense jungle wilderness.
Speaking as someone who has heard this call hundreds of times in the land down under, I can admit that the laughing kookaburra’s call does make your primal side tick when you hear it. At least I got to hear this bird with geographical authenticity.
On the other hand, there’s the moaning camel that was made into a violent tornado. Yes, you read that correctly.
In the famous 1996 movie Twister, the tornadoes made a terrifying low groaning sound that made theatre seats and household walls rumble. From a sound engineering perspective, they succefully made the tornado sound like a living monster.
However, the sound geeks at the time got a helping hand from camels. It is a known fact that they took the audio of a grumbling camel and slowed the sound down to create a menacing, bass-heavy groan that paired so well with the tornadoes of this classic film.
Around the same era came Jurassic Park, where the dinosaurs had to be paired up with audio that best depicted what we think these animals sounded like. One of the sound staff, Gary Rydtstrom, was tasked with capturing the imagination and fear of the audience by applying sounds to the velociraptors, tyrannosaurus rex and the like.
Get ready for this, as it may ruin a childhood classic of the time – those dinosaur noises were applied by taking audio from geese, horses in heat, a Jack Russell terrier, and the grunting of mating tortoises.
Now, I’ve seen and heard tortoises mating - I used to have to tell people that “they are not wrestling” when I worked at a zoo. Many were entertained or disturbed by these noises, and I can guarantee you that not one person knew at the time that this was the sound of the famous Jurassic Park dinosaurs.
