Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1535880
M OT I O N P I CTU R E S O U N D E D I TO R S 35 BY CHRIS ASSELLS MPSE There has been so much written about it, and it's so well known, you'd think it was represented by CAA and had its own publicist. Someone once explained to me the rules about who should use it and who shouldn't. I didn't know that there were unwritten rules and that I should honor the framers original intent. I thought it was fair game, a goofy sound editor joke used by one and all as a nod to fellow editors. So yeah, I used it. All apologies. I was young, I didn't know, and, in my defense, I didn't always just use scream number four. I did however, have a few sound effects that were kind of my own Wilhelms. Years ago, heck, decades ago, I had fallen in love with a sound effect that is in everyone's library, the Red Fox. Was it one of those "PE" or Sound Ideas FX? Can't remember. Certainly wasn't Citi- trax. Anyway, it's a screech that could be mammalian, avian, or even supernatural. It has great natural forest reverb and sounds distant, strange, and scary. I would drop it in every chance I got from Braveheart to The Proposal to Skyfall. It was never so out of place that it raised eyebrows or questions. Nobody except the sound supervisors I worked for and a few fellow editors noticed it or cared about it. I knew, my friends and my family knew and that was enough. Fellow traveler Bob Beemer came up with something weirder and far more audacious. I became his timid co- conspirator. The year 2024 I turned 70, which feels really weird to even think about. In retirement, I do still sometimes have work dreams. Dreams of weird, mutated workplaces, identifiable studios mashed together, editing rooms in strange on- the-lot high-rises accessed by confusing M.C. Escher staircases. Dreams populated by people I know or knew, sometimes with the dead coming back to life. Editing rooms combining Moviolas, primitive computers, and M.O. drives that I've forgotten how to operate. Confusion The Wilhelm Scream.