The Passing of a Legend

One of my heroes just died. Charlton Heston passed away at age 84 this past evening. He was most definitely one of the few remaining true stars of the silver screen - a group of people that has almost completely left us. He had class, high morals, and he was even married to the same woman (Lydia) for 64 years.

His acting accomplishments are well documented, but I have to say that I believe it takes a larger-than-life man to play the roles of Judah Ben Hur (for which he won an Oscar), Moses and John the Baptist. The man that can pull off all of those roles in one lifetime without it going completely to his head deserves everyone's respect.


Some of my favorites of his other roles include: George Taylor in "Planet of the Apes", Stewart Graff in "Earthquake", Capt. Matthew Garth in "Midway" and Robert Neville in "The Omega Man" - a movie that Will Smith just remade entitled "I Am Legend". He also had the small but important role of Henry Hooker in one of my all-time favorite westerns, "Tombstone".

He was a man's man, not just because of the roles he played, but because of what he stood for. He was an Air Force veteran, a social activist in his latter years, and in 2003, he won the Presidential Medal of Freedom, this nation's highest civilian honor.

As I said, there aren't many genuine Hollywood stars left. I am however thankful he came along to fill the need Hollywood had for a true hero.

Charlton Heston has left an opening for the next genuine Hollywood hero. Who can possibly fill it?

A Few Highlights From The WB Ranch

A horrible self-portrait of me in front of the "Friends" fountain and other buildings. I'll get a better one sometime.


A now defunct WB television icon.


The Walton's house, now being dressed to be a Chinese restaurant for a new series titled "State of Mind", premiering on Lifetime in July. (seeing this house as a possible location for a Chinese restaurant took a lot of imagination in my opinion, but I know it won't look anything like the Walton's house when it's ready.)


The Walton's barn. It is a total facade. Around the other side, is just a bunch of boards holding it up.

Hollywood Lost and Found

This is kind of a natural segue from the previous post, because Steve Lee's "Hollywood Lost and Found" website contains links to several great vintage film locations.

"But that's not all."

Besides the info on locations, his site has lots of Hollywood history documented there concerning: film sound, movie props, trivia and tributes, etc. It's just a good resource for Hollywood info that is hard to find elsewhere.

You may remember my "Wilhelm Scream" post some months ago, well, this is the site I stole (but gave credit for!) most of my information. As a matter of fact, that post is what got me aquainted with Steve in the first place.

So, check it out.

Vasquez Rocks

We went hiking yesterday at Vasquez Rocks Natural Area Park. It's about 20 minutes from our house, and free, so right there two major requirements for us are met.

We love to hike. We have some great trails and hills within walking distance to our house. But, I also love going somewhere you can literally see the scenes from movies run in your head as you walk around the place.

For instance, we went up the large rock (pictured above) where Kirk fought the Gorn in the Original Star Trek episode "Arena". (obviously pictured below) We ate our lunch up there. Thank goodness, no aliens came.


The park is about 750 acres, and LOTS of rock formations and trails, so you could spend days going through it all. The thing you have to watch out for is, usually when you get to the top of something, your four-year-old will demand to be carried back down. Just an FYI.

Here is a partial listing of movies that were shot at Vasquez.

World 3-D Film Expo II

I just heard about this recently. If you're in the LA area, you should think about taking in part of this festival. It's taking place at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, Sept 8-17th.

I'm planning on going on the 16th. The line-up that day is incredible.

For instance: there is an animation segment showing lots of 3-D classic cartoons, and one of the special guests will be the one and only Jerry Beck. He is one of the foremost authorities on classic animation alive today.

Also, the movie "Charge At Feather River", where the "Wilhelm" scream got it's name, is showing. I can't wait to see (and hear) that!

Thanks to Steve Lee for informing me of this great festival!

The Wilhelm Scream

I'm about to let you in on a fun- yet sacred - sound editor tool. It's called the Wilhelm Scream. Basically, it's a distinct sounding scream, and if you've seen ANY adventure-type movies in the last 30 years, you've heard it multiple times.

(08-01-06, corrected per Steve Lee - Wilhelm scream authority)
The Wilhelm scream was recorded wild, on a sound stage (perhaps even a production stage). The only recorded slate was very laid back as well... "Man getting bit by an alligator, and he screams." It first was heard in the 1951 Warner Bros film called Distant Drums. It was directed by Raoul Walsh and starred Gary Cooper. (The above picture is actually from a 1953 movie entitled "The Charge at Feather River", in which the character's name is Wilhelm, thus the name of the scream. I guess the character's name in the 1951 film wasn't interesting enough?)


SInce then the scream has made it's way to several features, largely thanks to Ben Burtt. He has faithfully used the scream in all of the Star Wars movies, the Indiana Jones movies, and many more. Many other sound editors have used the scream as well. Ben Burtt has declared that he has finished his Wilhelm use and will let it rest.

I've have worked with many great re-recording mixers, including Gary Summers. He has mixed several Oscar winning films, and he has four Oscars of his own. His philosophy towards the Wilhelm scream is "that the character it's synced in for, MUST be airborne." (see the Lord of the Rings trilogy for examples)

To hear this most excellent scream, click HERE.

For a comprehensive history on the Wilhelm, click HERE. And here is a pretty thorough list of the movies the scream has been used in.

A lot of this info was stolen from Steve Lee and his Wilhelm page.

Dede Allen

I'm a sound editor/designer, but I am also interested in editing picture. So, I've been studying everything I can find about the art of cutting film/video and learning my Final Cut Pro software.

Last night I went to a Los Angeles Final Cut Pro Users Group, (LAFCPUG) event featuring film editor Dede Allen. She is 80 years old now, and she still works from time to time. Her most recent film was in 2004.

Her biggest films she has edited would have to include:
The Hustler (1961)
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
Little Big Man (1970)
Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
Reds (1981)
The Breakfast Club (1985), and many more.
You can see more of her filmography at www.imdb.com

Her career has spanned around sixty years so far, and it seems everything she's touches turns to gold.

At the event, they showed several clips from her movies, and then discussed each one. It's very cool to hear someone speak about film when they've been in the business for over half of our industry's history.

One interesting thing she shared was, "go to as much theater as you can and learn story and scene, because that's where you'll really find out about the three act form and learn about (character) performance - even though it's very different on film."

Looney Tunes Golden Collections

I'm currently working at Warner Bros Animation. My duties bounce back and forth between cutting dialogue for the Saturday morning line-up, to creating sfx for special projects and animated show pilots, to restoring audio for the WB classics.

Right now, I'm on a project that has roots back to the early 30's. I'm supervising the restoration of audio for the Looney Tunes classic cartoon shorts. We're working on Vol 4, but this is only my second volume to be involved with. Each Volume has about 60 classics and a bunch of featurettes that describe the restoration processes we had to go through, and there are some great featurettes on the directors like Chuck Jones, Friz Freling, Tashlin, Clampett, and McKimson too.

Audio restoration is tedious and full of red tape, especially when you're at a major studio with film vaults all over the country, but I couldn't ask for material that's more fun to work on. If you haven't checked out any of the released Volumes yet, do it! I'll wager there isn't a person alive (okay, at least in the US) that doesn't know and love many of these cartoons.