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167 – Putting Tropes To Rest

Way back in January, the great Mark Mangini penned a little blog post outlining some audio tropes that he was hoping to put to rest.

That post inspired some slack threads, facebook posts, and a good general discussion about how we can be more original and creative when tasked with designing sounds and situations that can have quick and easy answers.

In this not-so-serious conversation Mark gets together with Tim, Teresa and René to break down some tropes, spell out some reasons for going there anyway, and maybe…just maybe…we retire the now infamous Wilhelm.

2 Comments

  1. Hey guys, just discovered this podcast. Loving this specific episode.

    I teach Sound Design for visual media at Berklee College of Music and JUST YESTERDAY gave my “sound design cliches” speech. Every time I teach my class I go at length to encourage my students to avoid cliches, and/or try to make their own. I too am OVER the Wilhelm Scream, so much so that when I teach my class I have a specific editing assignment where the students have to take the Wilhelm and edit/morph it into other sounds. It’s a lot of fun and its specific purpose is for these young sound designers to get it out of their system. I refer to using the Wilhelm as the audio equivalent of saying “tastes like chicken” and thinking you’ve made a funny.

    I hadn’t thought to mention the hawk sound and will add that in the future, but some other sound cliches we can maybe start to get rid of: the “awkward moment” record scratch, the lone cricket sound after a dumb joke, and specifically, the monkey sound from the Sound Ideas library.

    I live in Boston btw and I, too, remember hearing that loon in 1917 and thinking… NO. Also, you only played one of the many awesome sounds loons make. Loons are the champions of bird vocalizations.

    Great episode. I look forward to checking more of these out and sharing this particular episode with my class.

    • As a student who’s heard the above mentioned Wilhelm scream lecture, I can get behind the idea of putting it in the past. The world is full of so many unique sounds that are different every-time. So I really like the idea of making that a part of film making. On the other hand I kind of see how that approach may not be as time friendly in some cases.

      Interesting podcast though, I’m newer to sound design, but I find it fun and exciting 🙂

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