THIS WILL GROW ON YOU

Did you know ...................................... The Wilhelm scream is a film and television stock sound effect first used in 1951 for the film Distant Drums. The effect gained new popularity (its use often becoming an in-joke) after it was used in Star Wars and many other blockbuster films as well as television programs and video games. The scream is often used when someone is shot, falls from a great height, or is thrown from an explosion.

The Wilhelm scream's revival came from motion picture sound designer Ben Burtt, who discovered the original recording (which he found as a studio reel labeled "Man being eaten by alligator") and incorporated it into a scene in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Burtt is credited with naming the scream after Private Wilhelm (see The Charge at Feather River). Over the next decade, Burtt began incorporating the effect in other films he worked on, including most projects involving George Lucas or Steven Spielberg. (It is used in all of the Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies.) Other sound designers picked up on the effect, and inclusion of the sound in films became a tradition among the community of sound designers.

Research by Burtt suggests that actor and singer Sheb Wooley, best known for his novelty song "The Purple People Eater" in 1958 and as scout Pete Nolan on the television series Rawhide, is likely to have been the voice actor who originally performed the scream. This has been supported by an interview in 2005 with Linda Dotson, Wooley's widow.

The Wilhelm scream has become a cinematic sound cliché, and by 2008 had been used in many instances, including over 216 movies, television shows and video games. Some directors, most notably George Lucas, and Quentin Tarantino, include it in almost every one of their productions.

Click here to listen to the original Wilhelm Scream - > http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/WilhelmScream.ogg