The Wilhelm scream is a stock sound effect that has been used in at least 400 films and TV series, beginning in 1951 with the film Distant Drums. The scream is often used when someone is shot, falls from a great height, or is thrown from an explosion. The sound is named after Private Wilhelm, a character in The Charge at Feather River, a 1953 Western in which the character gets shot in the thigh with an arrow, and is believed to be voiced by actor and singer Sheb Wooley. This was its first use from the Warner Bros. stock sound library, although The Charge at Feather River is believed to have been the third film to use the effect. The effect gained new popularity after it was used in the Star Wars franchise, the Indiana Jones films, and animated Disney and Pixar films such as the Toy Story and Cars series, Up, Monsters University, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and Hercules. Many other blockbuster films, television programs, cartoons, and video games have also made use of the scream.
History
The Wilhelm scream originates from a series of sound effects recorded for the 1951 movieDistant Drums. In a scene from the film, soldiers are wading through a swamp in the Everglades, and one of them is bitten and dragged underwater by an alligator. The scream for that scene was recorded later in a single take, along with five other short, pained screams, which were labelled "man getting bit by an alligator, and he screamed." The fifth scream was used for the soldier in the alligator scene—but the fourth and sixth screams recorded in the session were also used earlier in the film — reportedly when three Native Americans are shot during a raid on a fort. Although takes 4, 5, and 6 are the most recognizable, all the screams are referred to as "Wilhelm" by those in the sound community. The Wilhelm scream's major breakout in popular culture came from motion picture sound designer Ben Burtt, who discovered the original recording and incorporated it into a scene in Star Wars in which Luke Skywalker shoots a Stormtrooper off of a ledge, with the effect being used as the Stormtrooper is falling. Burtt is credited with naming the scream after Private Wilhelm. Over the next decade, Burtt began incorporating the effect in other films on which he worked, including most projects involving George Lucas or Steven Spielberg, notably the rest of the subsequent Star Wars films, as well as the Indiana Jones movies. In February 2018 it was announced Star Wars will no longer use the Wilhelm scream, with The Force Awakens being the last film in the series to use it. Other sound designers picked up on the effect, and inclusion of the sound in films became a tradition among the community of sound designers. A scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom features a man being eaten by a crocodile accompanied by the scream. Sound designer Gary Rydstrom included the effect for his 2006 directorial debut in Pixar's short, Lifted. Research by Burtt suggests that 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. Burtt discovered records at Warner Brothers from the editor of Distant Drums including a short list of names of actors scheduled to record lines of dialogue for miscellaneous roles in the movie. Wooley played the uncredited role of Private Jessup in Distant Drums, and was one of the few actors assembled for the recording of additional vocal elements for the film. Wooley performed additional vocal elements, including the screams for a man being bitten by an alligator. Dotson confirmed Wooley's scream had been in many Westerns, adding, "He always used to joke about how he was so great about screaming and dying in films." Despite the usage of the sound, no royalties are paid. Additionally, the sound can be heard in the video game Red Dead Redemption during gunfights. It is also featured in Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto IV, Grand Theft Auto V and in ', when a random character kills himself. In ', the scream can be briefly heard after a trio of soldiers fail to land a jump in their Warthog during the beginning cutscene of the mission "Tip of The Spear." In Borderlands 3 it can be rarely heard when hijacking a vehicle. Additionally, the scream can faintly be heard in a Halo 4 trailer. The sound was also heard in the movie Paul, which is an homage full of Easter egg references to many science fiction film franchises, including Star Wars, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Star Trek, Back to the Future, Alien, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Ice Age and more.
