There are no “realistic” and “authentic” sounds for movie scenes. This is like attempting to write the Egyptian hieroglyphs: We never knew what they meant because the writing system has been lost and gone extinct. However, we are able to understand a few thanks to the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, a guideline that defines the hieroglyphs.
I believe that in the movie sound scene, our common sense is our guideline; the Rosetta Stone to the authenticity of the sounds. We can never be 100% sure what the sound could be in the film studio, but we can make sounds that are close to the original one by observation and comparison, just like what the Rosetta Stone did. I think these “realistic” sounds for movies are constructed mainly by common sense. However, there is no fixed definition of every movie sound and the sounds can still sound very realistic even if they sound very different. It would be great if there was also a small gap in personal creativity and imagination.
And in this theme, I will find the balance between reality and creativity. What I will do is try my best to imagine how the sounds would be if I were in the scene in which the angles of the shots are my POVs. So I start with finding sounds that are easy to define: The guns.
During one of the lessons, Jessica mentioned that we are so used to the Hollywood gun movie sounds. I agree with her and sometimes I think what I hear is technically not so accurate although as I mentioned above, we cannot make the exact sound but at least we can compare them with common sense or creativity.
Luckily, I have found a website that records what guns were used in different movies and I found the bullet dodge scene in this page:
The Matrix – Internet Movie Firearms Database – Guns in Movies, TV and Video Games (imfdb.org)
With this information, I am able to find more accurate sounds rather than just impactful gunshots that sound the same. Based on what the website said, there are 4 types of guns in the scene:
M16, Beretta 92FS, IMI Desert Eagle Mark XIX, Beretta 84FS Cheetah
Unfortunately, I am not able to find all the sounds. Some of these gun’s review can be found on the web but they are either poor in quality or does not match the soundscape of the scene.
This is probably the most detailed research I have done on this theme, as all the other movements are mainly just fighting moves. I will show more about the project in the next blog.