For example, I once saw a man throw his hat down in anger. He didn’t stomp on it which was kind of a let down.
Kind of a lame example that depending on who you are may make you go, “Uhh… yeah? Duh?” but…
Y’know how Hollywood has been using the same library of stock sounds for like half a century? Wilhelm scream tier stuff? Like, if I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard one of those stock baby noises, or that ape screeching, you know the ones, I’d have a good chunk of change by now.
And if you ever encounter real world examples of some of these things, they never sound quite like those recordings. This is in large part because Hollywood loves pairing sounds of specific creatures or objects with footage of completely different creatures or objects that in reality sound nothing like that (e.g. no, bald eagles do not make that noise at all). So these sounds become reified in your head as “the sounds fake shit in movies make”. The acoustic equivalent of what fruit flavored candies are to actual fruits. Does that make sense?
All this to say, it’s really disorienting when you encounter things in the real world that actually make these noises. Particularly if you aren’t regularly used to being around them.
For me in particular, it’s roosters and horses. My mind is conditioned to assume that the stock noises for these creatures I hear in films and the like are, I dunno, extremely cherry-picked noises from some specific breed or species of the animal that aren’t the ones I’d commonly find around me. Not the case! They really do sound like that! To a spookily accurate degree, too. Being around them feels like someone is pranking me with a soundboard, I almost can’t believe it’s real.
It’s a bit depressing that sound design of film has disillusioned me to the point I’m shocked to hear that roosters in real life actually sound like roosters in movies and on TV, but nonetheless here we are.
I know what you mean. When I visited Hawaii, I was unexpectedly woken up by a rooster crowing in what was surely the most rooster-crowy way possible, right as the sun was appearing on the horizon. When I realized what was going on, it felt a little surreal, like you’re describing, even though it’s a fairly simple/common thing.
Hawaii is exactly the place that made me write this comment.
I was at Goodwill one time and I swear to you I heard a conversation almost exactly like this at the jewelry counter.
employee: hello how’s it going today?
customer: pretty damn terrible
employee: oh, uh… well I hope it starts getting better soon
customer: it never does
Sounds like somebody had a case of the Mondays.
Sounds like a typical interaction in New Jersey.
Was that customer perhaps a melancholy robot with a brain the size of a planet?
Not a movie, but there was a period of time when my parents’ house had them living upstairs, my older brother, his wife, and their young son living in the converted basement, and me temporarily staying in a guest bedroom after I had just gotten out of the Army. And we all worked at the family pizza restaurant together.
It was the perfect TGIF sitcom scenario.
Also, true story, shortly after I moved out one of my younger brother’s friends moved into the guest room because of drama at home and our family gave him enough structure to straighten up and complete high school. It is exactly what would happen after my character got written out of the sitcom in season 4 and a beloved guest character got promoted to the regular cast…
At least he didn’t have to play your character while everyone acts like nothing is different.
Was there a laugh track? :)
Ha, barely. The situation was closer to Roseanne than Full House, but I enjoyed it.
Maybe like 20 years ago, my partner and I were at a couple-friends’ apartment on a hot sweaty summer day. The four of us sitting in a small circle on the hardwood living room floor, smoking a bowl… Nothing but the sound of the flicking lighter, and the squeaky hum of the ceiling fan providing us with some margin of relief from the heat. Ahh…
Then boom. The ceiling fan’s loose screw squeaked its last squeak and the whole fixture fell, heavy-ass motor assembly and all, exactly in the middle of our circle. One of the wooden blades nicked my friend on the way down for a bloody eyebrow. But the heavy middle part, which could’ve killed any of us, landed right in the middle of our little arms-length bowl circle. This wasn’t one of those skinny modern fans you install by yourself… The thing was freakin’ heavy.
“Whoa.”
The most movie-like event for me was when I got a job working on a cruise ship and they sent me and a bunch of other people out to Baltimore for training. When I got there, my luggage never came down the coral thing and I ended up missing the bus to the training facility. A couple others had the same issue and the company had us stay at a hotel nearby the airport for the night. It was me, another guy who was gay, and two girls. We all had dinner together and then went to our single room and the girls were arguing over who’s tits were better because one had implants and the other didn’t. So they asked our opinion and had us feel them up at the same time to compare.
I honestly couldn’t tell the difference. They were both awesome.
Lots of weird sex stuff
…go on…
I somehow got the highest possible score in an English exam without properly studying for it, and I ended up getting voted as the class rep after a single speech.
Was in an expressway pileup and man you sense of time just does go wack. I had somewhat the effect when I was young and we used to walk on the train tracks and we turned around to see a train coming and it seemed like it was ontop of us and we literally lept to the side and actually it was pretty far away we were just surprised by it. got all dirty and scratched up for nothing. Had time to get up and look and see it was a way aways and wait for it. Okay the last thing was not preciesly a movie thing but im just talking about wierd time perception things they sorta immitate with slow motion and such.
On the lunch long time ago, I was complaining to my colleagues about surprisingly expensive pizza: “20 euros for the pizza! In some countries you would get a blowjob for that kind of money!” Few minutes later, another colleague joined us and I immediately told him: “This is 20 euro pizza!”. He answered: “What?? Did you get a blow job with it?” One female colleague noted: “I see you both visit similar kind of … restaurants”.
That sounds straight out of Seinfeld, I read “Did you get a blowjob with it?” with Kramer’s voice hahahaha
Had a shotgun put to my head and marched into a house of gang members because I dared to try to pick my sister up from a party. Got yelled at and threatened, and left without her.
Came back a little while later to try once more and found ems/police/fire all over the place. That same person with the same shotgun blew someone elses head off after I left.
I had a friend with me, we elected not to stop the second time. A day later the police questioned us, we were subpoenaed to testify, and both got threatened by gang members for years.
Good times.
…and what about your sister (he asked, trepidatiously)?
She was fine. She left after the shooting and got a ride home. We don’t talk anymore. She accused me of raping her when we were kids while she was in a troubled teen facility (I got to fly to Utah and talk to a room full of shrinks as a teenager!) got my whole family believing and accusing me… Until 10 years later when she did the same to our dad.
I feel for her, she’s had it rough but I’ve almost died, been ostracized and demonized by my entire family and the emotional shit that came with it as a teen. But she can get fucked.
She later (several years) went on to get arrested and convicted of selling coke, as well as conspiracy to sell. Got out, invited the police in while she had meth out on the table after calling them about methallucinations.
Well, this wasn’t a fun story at all.
Hard agree, and what’s worse is that I didn’t then, and even now 30+ years later don’t see it as a traumatic. I know it is logically but I don’t feel it.
Things leading up to it were that much worse, and the later years didn’t start to get better until recently.
It sounds like you lived through some rough situations; it is a tough climb out but I am glad to hear things have gotten better for you. Keep climbing, friend!
Sorry, friend. I’m glad things have gotten better.
She got eaten by a grue.
I could only hope!
Damn. This is almost the plot of Primer.
Whoa, you are right!
I wouldn’t know where to start, a lot of what I’ve been through seem out of movies. Like the time my friends taught their pet talking bird the Wilhelm scream, or the time I tripped a thief, or being held at someone’s place like it’s Scooby Doo. What counts? Of the things I remember, I guess I’ll take a whim and say the third one. Wasn’t pleasant.
About 15 years ago I was giving a presentation at a technical conference. This was me giving a presentation in front of a room full of about 50 other engineers. At this point in my career this was still pretty new to me, so I was nervous. It was getting time for my presentation and I needed to do a last minute pee before I did my presentation.
I went to the bathroom, peed in a urinal, and then went to wash my hands. I pushed down the bathroom faucet and it exploded sending up a geyser of water about air a foot or two into the. Now had I really been on a TV show, my pants would have been soaked in the crotch area, but luckily in real life I stepped back and didn’t get wet. However, this was the perfect setup for a young nervous engineer giving a technical presentation to be thoroughly embarrassed. Luckily I’m either not on a TV show, or I’m not the main character.
In the early 2010s, Cape Girardeau, MO was chosen as a location for some of the filming of Gone Girl. I lived there and it was the talk of the town. People were running into Ben Affleck at the local Andy’s and shit.
Meanwhile they put out a casting call for extras. I didn’t care about it but of course my girlfriend and her cousin went psycho about it and signed us up. We waited in line with at least a thousand other people only to finally get up there, and all they did was take a headshot and send us on our way. The girls were all disappointed that there wasn’t anything else to it while I the introvert just laughed about it.
Until I was the one they called back. Not only that, but it turns out they picked me to be a stand-in for Boyd Holbrook. I spent a week hanging out on David Fincher’s set, occasionally doing work while trying to avoid getting in trouble for doing things like accidentally sitting in Rosamund Pike’s chair. Then one of the assistant directors’ mother died and he had to leave, so they “promoted” me to production assistant. At one point I was sent to look for and found David Fincher’s missing iPhone.
Fucking surreal man. But I’ve got the 20th Century Fox W-2s to prove it.
Is Fincher a kind person? He’s certainly talented. Thanks for sharing this story.
Unfortunately I didn’t get to have a conversation with him. But he did seem nice.
Been in several car accidents. Rolled a car down a hill. Was hit by a car and went over the bonnet, roof and landed on my feet behind the car bruised but OK.
Got run over by another car dislocated my knee and my heel burst open, the lady in the car gave me about 20 chocolate penguin biscuits for the shock, then I got on a bus and went to my mates house for a joint.
Done illigal bridge swings off of railway bridges and damns and abseiled away from the cops.
Climbed onto the roof of a moving steam train dressed as Indiana Jones walked along the carridge then climbed back in through a window, scaring the crap out of the people in there.
Then met the girl of my dreams, had kids settled down (a little) and lived happily ever after.I saw a lady slip on a banana peel irl outside of the Disney store in Dublin, Ireland. I didn’t even know it was possible. I felt really bad bc I couldn’t go help her up because I was laughing so hard and had to go into the Disney store so it wouldn’t look like I was laughing at her. I was just more shocked that it actually happened.
