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Bird sounds in cinema – Confirmation I haven’t just been hearing things!

Someone on Twitter pointed this story out from the Minneapolis Star Tribune. I’m glad they brought it to my attention, as I was almost wondering if I was just hearing things all of these years!

There is nothing quite like the calls from a loon. Hollywood can’t get enough of them, either.

Evidently I’m not the only one who has noticed that Hollywood LOVES to use certain bird songs in movies…whether or not it’s appropriate. Common Loon (any kind of “wilderness), Red-tailed Hawk (the default vocalization for ANY raptor they show in a movie), and Laughing Kookaburra (pretty much in any “jungle” movie scene) seem to be the three that I notice the most.

This piece in the Star Tribune provides a nice list of movies where the Common Loon pops up. I’m glad I wasn’t imagining hearing a Common Loon cry at the end of Avengers: Infinity War!  That one takes the cake as most ridiculous, given that it was happening not just in inappropriate habitat, but on another planet!!  I missed some of these, as in Game of Thrones!

“Infinity War” – Spoiler Free, Bird-related PLOT HOLE!!

Common Loon - Gavia immer

A Common Loon in breeding plumage. Are Common Loons truly alien visitors to our planet? Does Hollywood know something we don’t, because they certainly use Common Loon calls in pretty much any possible movie situation. Even when the setting is on an alien planet.

My son and I just got back from Avengers: Infinity War.  No spoilers here, other than we both really enjoyed it.  But as I SO often do for movies, I have a beef.  A BIRD-related beef, as always.

So…end of the movie, pretty much the last scene.  I won’t say who is in the last scene or what it’s about. I WILL say it’s set on an alien planet.  And when the scene first fades in, what sound do we first hear in the background?  THE CALL OF A COMMON LOON!!!  WHY, Hollywood….WHY!?!?!  Why are you SO freakin’ enamored with the call of the Common Loon that you feel the need to put it into practically any situation, no matter how ludicrous!!?!?

Outrageous!  A travesty!!  Ok, no, I really don’t get too worked up about such things, but as a birder, you DO notice!  C’mon Hollywood, out of an entire universe worth of sounds out there, surely you can broaden your scope a bit and stop always relying on the same sounds, no matter the situation!

Birds in Movies – “Gamenight” gets it right!!

Common Nighthawk Drawing - Chordeiles minor

Drawing of a Common Nighthawk I did a few years ago. They have a VERY distinctive call when flying around at dusk or at night, something that really stands out on the soundtrack when watching a movie! Kudos to “GameNight” for the correct use of a bird call, in the proper time and context!

As a birder, one major pet peeve of mine…Hollywood’s (mis-)use of birds in movies! It seems that Hollywood typically has about 3 different bird vocalizations that are used in any situation a bird is present. One is the ubiquitous Red-tailed Hawk screaming cry, something they use for ANY raptor that happens to even tangentially appear on a screen. Conan O’Brien wasn’t alone when making this erroneous use of a Red-tailed Hawk call, but he WAS called out by birders for his actions!! Bald Eagles are often shown in movies and TV, but the more iconic Red-tailed Hawk call is usually used instead of the real Bald Eagle cry.

The second iconic call that’s heard ALL the time is the haunting call of a Common Loon. Occasionally it’s used in the proper setting and context, but there are SO many times when movie characters are out “in the wild” and the call of a Common Loon is dubbed in the background.  What’s that?  Your favorite character is roaming the forests of the Appalachians? Perhaps it’s a wild setting, but NOT EVERY WILD SETTING SHOULD HAVE LOON CALLS PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND!! This site notes several “misplaced” birds in TV and movies, including the mis-use of Common Loon calls in Murder She Wrote and Raiders of the Lost Ark (presumably while in Peru!!). The Common Loon has also been mis-used visually…something I noticed IMMEDIATELY when watching Finding Dory. “Becky” is the loopy Common Loon that plays a role in the rescue scenes in Finding Dory, along the California coastline. The presence of a Common Loon along the California coast isn’t out of place IN WINTER.  But “Becky” in Finding Dory is a Common Loon in full summer breeding plumage…NOT LIKELY!!

The third call that’s heard in EVERY jungle scene is the laughing call of a Kookaburra. They’re a bird found in Australia, but listen to any jungle scene supposedly set in Africa, South America, or southeast Asia, and you’ll STILL likely hear the wild calls of a Kookaburra.

Given how often birds are mis-used in movies, I always get a bit of satisfaction when I see a movie that gets it right!  Tonight my wife and I went to see “GameNight“, starring Justin Bateman and Rachel McAdams.  It’s a really funny movie!!  We both greatly enjoyed it.  The only time birds were evident (and surely ONLY to me, among the movie crowd) was a scene late in the movie.  It was a setting in a relatively dense urban setting, on a bridge over a large river and fairly out in the open. Large buildings could be seen in the surrounding area, and it was night. As the scene played out (I won’t spoil the movie for you here!), I could CLEARLY hear Common Nighthawks giving their typical flight calls.

PERFECT!! You often DO hear Common Nighthawks as they fly through the night skies in and around urban areas, picking off flying insects in flight with their massive, gaping maw.  One of the places I’ve heard them the most is at the airport here in Sioux Falls. They typically use rocky areas to breed, and the rocky roofs that many urban buildings use work perfectly for their purposes.

WELL DONE GAMENIGHT!!  You get a rare GOLD STAR for proper use of a bird in a movie!!

“Longmire” disappoints! Episode 43 TOTALLY unbelievable!

Barred Owl - Range Map

Do you see Barred Owls in any part of Wyoming on this range map?

I’m not a huge Netflix junkie, but there are a few TV series that I have watched in their entirety.  Recently I’ve been watching “Longmire”, a series focused on (fictional) Absaroka County in Wyoming.  It follows the Absaroka County Sheriff’s Department, with the sheriff himself being “:Walt Longmire”.

There are four seasons of the show on Netflix, and 43 episodes.  Last night I watched the last one, episode 43.  After devoting the time to watch the entire series, after following all the individual storylines, after waiting in anticipation how some of those may play out in this episode, my impression of the entire series changed on a dime with the very first sound of episode 43.

When episode 43 starts, the scene is set at a medicine woman’s house out in the middle of nowhere, in the ‘mountains” on a Crow Indian reservation.  The first sound you hear as the scene fades in from black…an owl calling.  I’ve been birding 15 years now. I can identify anything by sight.  I’m not the world’s greatest birder in identifying things by sound, but it certainly sounded like the distinctive hooting of a Barred Owl that opened up episode 43.

The problem?  There are no Barred Owls in Wyoming!!  It’s never quite clear where the fictional Absaroka County is supposed to lie in Wyoming, but it doesn’t matter as there’s no region in Wyoming where the species is found.

43 episodes.  43 hours devoted to a show.  RUINED by careless sound editing.

Somehow, someway, I managed to struggle through the remaining 59 minutes of the show.  During that time there’s another instance where you hear the hooting of a Barred Owl.  OK, no, it really didn’t “ruin” the show for me, but it is irritating when you’re watching a movie or a TV show and there’s an “inappropriate” bird sound.  It happens a lot.  Note that if you see ANY kind of hawk or eagle in a movie, the accompanying sound is very likely to be the distinctive cry of a Red-tailed Hawk.  Sure, it’s a cool sound, a sound that helps to set the stage for a “wild” scene.  But c’mon!  When I see a circling Bald Eagle on the screen, I don’t want to hear the accompanying cry of a Red-tailed Hawk!!

Be careful, Hollywood!  We birders are watching!  Inappropriate bird sounds in entertainment could be Hollywood’s undoing!  A revolution is brewing, a revolution led to disgruntled birders who want REALISM in their Hollywood entertainment!!

 

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