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How to make a realistic gunshot?

R

Roam

I am going to have a couple of gunshots in my film and I was wondering whats the best way to make a gunshot sound real? I was thinking of going out to the forest and record some gunshots and put it in the film, but it sounds to dangerous. Any one have any tips on this?
 
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If you really want gun shots to sound right, you also need to factor in where the shots are located. If it's a shot in an alley, you'll have some echo. If it's a shot in a field, you still might have an echo, but a different kind of echo (longer waves). You also have different sounds for different weapons...a rifle sounds different than a hand gun...a .22 sounds different than a .45.

All Police departments have firearms training and trainers, so if you want to record your own, call the police and ask them if you can go to their range with a range officer. They should have the kind of guns that you'll be using in your film, and can recreate the shots for you. The most you'll probably have to pay them is a thanks in the credits. If it's an indoor scene, try to find an indoor range.

Chris
 
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Often times it also helps to layer multiple sounds to build up a gunshot sound... Movies are larger than life, and a big part of the reason that Hollywood gun shots look and sound so cool is the amount of excess information that's crammed into the audio for a single shot. For example, a big .45 revolver might use the actual sound of the revolver and perhaps some other caliber gun(s) and maybe even a cannon..

<rant>

Sound design is one of the areas that can be most rewarding when working on a film, and it often takes a good deal of creativity to recreate the sounds you're after. Think outside the box, and play around with different options until you find the best fit for your film... and it's also important to note that when you're actually doing the mixing, headphones won't cut it -- nor will standard computer speakers really.. At the very least you should invest in a nice set of studio monitors, because they will have much better (much more accurate) sound reproduction than will big-box-store-special computer speakers, and headphones no matter the quality simply don't offer the same aural experience one would have from most viewing environments. If your film is destined only for Youtube, feel free to ignore this, but if you want to have it shown on the big screen, putting the extra time, effort, and perhaps money into a good solid mix is very important -- realistically it's more important than the image quality.

</rant>
 
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Will is right. I'll simply add, it isn't really the "REAL" sound that you're after, it's the sound that the listener PERCEIVES as real. A dried coconut knocking on wood sounds a heck of a lot more like a horse walking than a horse walking does to many ears.

Chris
 
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cibao said:
Will is right. I'll simply add, it isn't really the "REAL" sound that you're after, it's the sound that the listener PERCEIVES as real. A dried coconut knocking on wood sounds a heck of a lot more like a horse walking than a horse walking does to many ears.

Chris
Click to expand...

"What, ridden on a horse?"

"Yes"

"You've got two empty halves of coconut, and you're bangin' 'em together!"
 
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Honestly, sound editing strikes me as being even more complicated than understanding cinematography and camera use.

For example, as stupid as this sounds, I don't think I would have immedietly considered that the gun shot might have to sound different depening on where it's coming from. I realize how much that deals in common sense, but I really don't believe I would have taken that into instant consideration.
 
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Sound design is an art all it's own, and the people who are really good at it are well paid... it's not surprising you wouldn't necessarily consider many aspects of it because a) you're not one of those full time sound design people, and b) you're probably like (sadly) most of the low/no-budget filmmakers and wouldn't ordinarily give anywhere near the attention that's given to the cool camera moves, etc, to the audio.

It's the sad truth of things.. most low & no budget film makers are more concerned about trying to achieve a particular look than capturing and mixing good audio, when ideally if it were the other way around there would be a much larger portion of these films that was actually enjoyable to watch. :)

Wow, I'm ranty tonight.. hehe
 
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Just a little note here... A few years ago, I went out to a couple of different locations with quite a few different kinds of weapons in an effort to record the different gunshots.

I was in areas where it was definitely safe and I had help but the recordings were crap. One or two were passable but certainly not anywhere near being close to what you'd hear in a film.

I highly recommend going with prerecorded gunshots... Quite a lot available on the web too. Maybe something here can get you started...

http://simplythebest.net/sounds/MP3/sound_effects_MP3/mechanical_mp3.html

http://www.royaltyfreemusic.com/sound-effects.html

filmy
 
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I absolutely agree... recording loud percussive sounds like gunshots and explosions is quite challenging, even if it means paying for prerecorded sounds, in the long run you'll have much higher quality material to work with, and much less headache..

I'm a big fan of the Sound Ideas general series, and Digital Juice has a lot of good stuff too. Digital Juice is usually running some sort of promotion or another so stock footage and sound effects can generally be found for a good price from them.
 
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Will Vincent said:
Sound design is an art all it's own, and the people who are really good at it are well paid... it's not surprising you wouldn't necessarily consider many aspects of it because a) you're not one of those full time sound design people, and b) you're probably like (sadly) most of the low/no-budget filmmakers and wouldn't ordinarily give anywhere near the attention that's given to the cool camera moves, etc, to the audio.

It's the sad truth of things.. most low & no budget film makers are more concerned about trying to achieve a particular look than capturing and mixing good audio, when ideally if it were the other way around there would be a much larger portion of these films that was actually enjoyable to watch. :)

Wow, I'm ranty tonight.. hehe
Click to expand...


But you also make a good point, so it works out.

Heh.
 
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Will Vincent said:
Digital Juice is usually running some sort of promotion or another so stock footage and sound effects can generally be found for a good price from them.
Click to expand...

Digital Juice also has DVD's you can buy with tips on Audio and how to use and make sound effects. Each lesson is no more than 5 minutes long. I've learned a tremendous amount in just buying the DVD series.
 
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