The Wilhelm Scream and the rise of modern sound editing.

You may have not heard of the Wilhelm Scream, but if you’re a fan of the westerns or creature films of the 50’s, watched television during the 60’s or 70’s or seen anything made by George Lucas then you know what it sounds like. BEWARE!! Once you know that the scream you hear is Wilhelm’s you will hear it everywhere!


One of the most overlooked film making disciplines is the tapestry of sound created by the Sound Designer. The soundtrack of a film contains much more than the dialog of the actors and some background music. The Wilhelm Scream is a historical artifact of the development of how sound is used to help movies tell stories.

The scream originally appeared in the 1951 Warner Bros. Gary Cooper film "Distant Drums". In "The Charge at Feather River" (1953), the scream is heard when a soldier named Pvt. Wilhelm is shot in the leg with an arrow, which is how the sound got it’s name. The recording was archived into the studio's sound effects library, and was re-used in many Warner Bros. productions including "Them!" (1954), "Land of the Pharaohs" (1955), "The Sea Chase" (1955), "Sergeant Rutledge" (1960), "PT-109" (1963) and "The Green Berets (1968).

The same recurring sound was noticed by sound effects fan Ben Burtt (who was robbed of an Oscar for his work on “Wall-E”) who later was hired by George Lucas to create sound effects for Star Wars, he found the scream while doing research in the Warner Bros sound library. Ben adopted the scream as a kind of personal sound signature, and included it in all the "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones" films, as well as many others.

Since then, other designers have used the sound in over 150 movies and television episodes including "Poltergeist" (1982), "Batman Returns" (1992), "Planet of the Apes" (2001), "Toy Story" (1995), "Pirates of the Caribbean" (2003)"Madagascar" (2005), "Beauty and the Beast" (1991), "Aladdin" (1992), "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (1981), "The Fifth Element" (1997), Reservoir Dogs" (1992), "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" (2002), Tropic Thunder (2008), "The X-Files," "Angel," and "Family Guy."

One of the great mysteries of The Wilhelm Scream is who’s voice was on the original recording. Studio records are not conclusive, but sound designer and film historian Steve Lee suggests the scream belonged to Sheb Wooley a musician and character actor - but is probably most famous for the song "Purple People Eater," which in 1958 spent six weeks at Number One and sold 3 million copies.

Veteran Sound Designer Mark Mangini ("Gremlins"(1984),"Star Trek"(2009) describes the Wilhelm Scream as in a class by itself, fortunately and a sound designer "in" joke that's finally been outed. Whereas at the beginning of the industry expensive and heavy recording equipment kept the library of sound effects small and somewhat stock, the emergence of lighter more portable technologies gave designers greater choice in the sounds they can use. The trend in the industry now is to create more unique soundscapes and the use of sounds like Wilhelm and other familiar sounds like it are generally accepted that repeating library sounds is bad form, at least in cinema.

Mangini says “Sound Designers now strive to create iconic sounds for their individual projects. You should strive to make the sounds of your individual project resonate with the audience and create unique synergy yet, this goal should not extend beyond a given project. Can you imagine hearing the light sabers anywhere but in a Star Wars film?”

I agree, I love the movies and like the idea that the sound artists are striving to tell new stories with their soundtracks not just referencing old ones. I think that artifacts like the Wilhelm Scream can also open important discussions about how films are made and how sound is used by professionals to tell the best most compelling and original stories possible.

Many thanks to Mark Mangini, Steve Lee and hollywoodlostandfound.net for the images appearing on this post and for documenting this little gem of film history.

More on the Wilhelm Scream:
Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Scream
The History of the Wilhelm Scream - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PxALy22utc

NECC for the ADD & Lights, Camera, Learn workshop this week!

The National Education Computing Conference (NECC) came and went so fast this year I barely had time to blog about it. It was a quick trip to our nation's capitol for me, but I had time to see many friends here on the EdTech frontier. I got to see Carol Anne McGuire's Rock our World presentation and my FlatClassrom collegues Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis. It's wonderful how they're building ties between classrooms around the world!

I got to meet my virtual colleagues at Wilkes University in person, including the Discovery DEN gang. Speaking of Discovery, I caught Hall Davidson's 10 Things to do with Video presentation with Joe Brennan. Hall is a great presenter and is most generous with his handouts and resources.

This was the first NECC in five years without an official AFI presence, and since ISTE saw fit to feature it on the conference streaming site this year, I'm proud to present the AFI ScreenEd session I lead at NECC '08 in San Antonio.

There was too much to see and not enough time to do it all, especially with all of America's history and treasure just steps away on the National Mall. My week in Washington was a blur but a blast!

***Workshop ALERT***
There are still some seats available for my Lights, Camera, Learn! Workshop this Friday at the Los Angeles County Office of Education in Downey. If you have some video projects planned this fall or just want to shoot better vacation video this summer, Come on Down!

In this hands-on workshop, teachers and administrators of all grade levels and subjects will learn how to use filmmaking as a tool to engage student learning. This is a classic 'Door Scene' Workshop, and is appropriate for all levels of learners.

You will learn:
• The difference between a shots and scenes
• Organize and improve filmmaking with Storyboards
• Experience hands-on how to use video cameras

$35
http://ito.lacoe.edu/workshops/registrant_create.pl?workshop=88

My First Class

This week International Polytechnic High School in Pomona graduates it's class of 2009 and with it, the students of I-Poly Video. This year was my first year as a classroom teacher, these were my first students!

The California state sponsored career-track outreach called ROP gave me opportunity to pilot a video class at a high school, which was a big change from the professional development training I was doing at AFI. Piloting a program in this case also meant designing a curriculum with engaging projects. I was lucky in that my class was motivated, adaptable and creative. Qualities any career counselor will tell you are critical keys to success. So, I had that going for me...which was nice.

So, the kids were learning to be filmmakers and I was learning to be a teacher. We had a lot of fun this year. Here's what we came up with.

Filmmaking is part of the curriculum at I-Poly, every student makes a movie as part of their study of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. So, I wanted to start by building on basic skills. Learning the different shots what they look like and how they are composed is key and I used a project called Shooting Gallery to get the students working as a crew filming a series of storyboards and then right into editing.


Good lighting is a most often overlooked aspect of production. Because the human eye does such a good job adjusting to different light levels we don't think about it when we shoot and then wonder why our video looks so bad. I introduced the concept of 3-Point Lighting to the group with a video project to shoot a simple lighting set-up and then deconstruct each of the elements, Key, Fill and Back Light. The challenge going forward was getting the students to continue to use the techniques in their future projects. As an assignment in isolation I still think they did fine and did see better looking videos after.


I've written on this blog before about the 'Thousand Words Project', which builds better editing skills by using transitions and the Ken Burns Effect for maximum storytelling effect. If you've ever seen someone using and overusing flashy effects and transitions you know how distracting they can be. I'm sure there is a valid narrative use for the exploding star wipe, I've just not seen it yet. We did two rounds of Thousand Words at I-Poly this year and I could see a marked difference in skills between projects, the students seemed to really enjoy the creative aspect of essentially a technical assignment.


Building basic production skills was only a part of a ROP program. Employment skills like resume building and industry specific entry level job skills are also mandated by the state. The students have to know how to handle themselves on the set and in the office. Since the first job any of them is likely to have would be with a local production house or reviewing hours of raw tape for a reality show I wanted a project that would model the most realistic, tedious and thus marketable skills. The class created syndication promos using episodes of the Discovery Channel series PLANET EARTH. First they got to know their assigned episode by building a byte-log of interesting clips from their episode complete with time-code, then they wrote three scripts for the promo; 30, 20 & 10 seconds each. Finally, they assembled each version. I think these projects will be the most impressive in their portfolios.


They later went on to script, storyboard and produce original local market commercial spots.


These kinds of career/technical classes benefit from the voices and experiences of people working in the industry. Beyond the experience of the instructor, guest speakers are common. I had the problem of convincing a professional to make the 50 mile drive out to Pomona for a late afternoon class. I knew there had to be an easier way to bring some of real Hollywood into my class. I found the solution in my own DVD collection and an activity called Annotated Screening. I chose a number of movies to screen with the directors commentary track for the class. Then I would use the class discussion board to post general questions about what the class learned about the filmmaking process from listening to the filmmakers. Presto! Filmmaker in the classroom minus the mileage reimbursement! We did annotated screenings of Pirates of the Caribbean, The Matrix, Edward Scissorhands and 2001:A Space Odyssey. The online discussions were lively and fit nicely into the student's social networking routine. One of my favorite moments was during the discussion 2001 when a student commented "From this movie, I now get a bunch of jokes on The Simpsons."

Eventually, the students started to work individually and in teams to document various school activities and to produce PSAs on important topics. This week the producers of I-Poly video walk the stage with their High School diplomas and ROP certificates of completion.

George Lucas is often quoted saying 'Films are never completed, they are merely abandoned', I kind of feel the same way about this work-in-progress pilot course at I-Poly. Only time will tell if any of my students will find careers in an uncertain economy and a swiftly changing entertainment industry, regardless they've made me proud.

As for me, I had the life-changing experience of being a teacher and developed a deeper respect for those who do this job everyday! Pray for a miracle in education funding this year...I'm just getting the hang of this!

America's Promise Alliance Impact Academy, Washington D.C.

I'm in our nation's capitol this week to participate as a speaker at Colin Powell's youth outreach organization America's Promise Alliance. This conference is called an Impact Academy and will bring together more than 150 young people with leaders from the nonprofit, business, politics and journalism sectors to discuss the challenges facing children and youth today and how they can work with the different sectors to empower their peers and increase the nation’s high school graduation rate.

I and my Film Your Issue colleague HeathCliff Rothman will be presenting a basic visual literacy session to students interested in filmmaking. Conference participants will be challenged to return to their communities with ideas around using the arts to serve young people in need, community action and advocacy, career exploration, living healthy lifestyles and successful strategies for leveraging school-based programs to support peers and community.

Video Blog Carnival and Keynote Update

I was thrilled last week to participate in the Video in the Classroom Blog Carnival over at Mathew Needleman's Creating Lifelong Learners. Along with some choice postings from this blog, I was in the good company of other blogging educators passionate about using video in the classroom including Kevin Hodgson, Dan Meyer and our friend Joe Brennan shares his famous 'Makin' Movies' presentation where you might find me and my Google Teacher Academy video making a cameo appearance. There are also some tricks for downloading YouTube videos and some valuable links to some royalty free production resources. Article submissions are being accepted now for next Blog Carnival in June. Support the cause, share your knowledge!


Just a quick reminder that I'll be the keynote speaker at the San Gabriel Valley CUE Tech Fair this Saturday!
I'll be presenting a couple of new lessons ideas for both students and teachers. I'm looking forward to seeing all my friends in the event. Registration includes breakfast & lunch, presentations, vendors and hands-on sessions.
Saturday, May 2 Village@Indian Hill Conference Center
1460 E. Holt Avenue, Pomona, CA
http://www.sgvcue.org/events/09techfair.html

Get A Job! Career Essentials with a Rock-a-Billy beat!

I'm teaching a career-track TV/Video class at a local high school as part of California's State Regional Occupational Program (ROP). In addition to the basics of production, the curriculum calls for units on career building; resumes, portfolios, interview skills etc. I'm finally over the trauma of the mandatory sexual harassment unit.
I was looking for something to show that class that would make the career essentials stuff as riveting in the classroom as it is in real life and I came across GET A JOB a little gem from the 1980's.

Brad Caslor's 1985 animated classic is technically an "educational film" dealing with self-motivation, preparing a resume, contacting people by phone and mail, getting ready for an interview and the interview itself. More than that it's a brilliant homage to Bob Clampett, Tex Avery and other extreme animation of the 1940's. Thanks to the miracle of YouTube this out-of-print nugget exists to help get your kids ready for the work world!

Workshops, Keynotes, Advanced Degrees and Vampire Movies....Oh my!

Mark your calendars. I have a few speaking and workshop dates of note:

I'm scheduled to be the keynote speaker at the San Gabriel Valley CUE Tech Fair.
My first keynote invitation, I'll have something special for the presentation. If you are in the greater LA area, try to make it.
Saturday, May 2 Village@Indian Hill Conference Center
1460 E. Holt Avenue, Pomona, CA
http://www.sgvcue.org/events/09techfair.html

If you are planning to attend NECC this summer in Washington DC, I'll be presenting a Lights, Camera, Learn! workshop as a pre-conference session with my friend, colleague and fellow Google Certified Teacher Ken Shelton.
Seats are still available for this 1-day intensive on June 27, 2009.
Registration info.

Also of note, this term I started teaching an intermediate filmmaking course online for Wilkes University in Pennsylvania. Wilkes' Professional and Graduate Studies program has partnered with Discovery Education to offer an MS degree in Instructional Media completely online! I and my Chicago colleague, Joe Brennan have been recruited to write and facilitate courses for this program. If you are looking for a good distance learning degree, I recommend checking out the Wilkes program.
Program info.
http://wilkes.edu/instructionalmedia

I'm working with LA County's Education Office to set a date for a 1-day Lights, Camera, Learn! workshop in June. Stand by for more on that.

I have to give a shout-out on a new book, Twilight: Director's Notebook by Cathrine Hardwicke. This surprisingly entertaining and informative book bills itself as 'How we made the movie', and contains a nice breakdown of the adaptation and production process with photos, script drafts, design sketches and storyboards. It reads like a scrapbook and manga novel about making a vampire movie. It demystifies filmmaking for the young neo-goth pre-teen budding filmmaker in your life. I love stuff like this!