Lights that go "WHOOMP"?

[Colophon]

@Madgolf

A great example of the whoomp is from The Adventures of Ford Fairlaine:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUt6wI23M9c

17 second mark.

I think Die Hard had the same effect going on too.

That sounds like the old-fashioned camera flashbulb-popping sound – which, again, I’ve only ever heard in movies, but I assume that old-style flashes, which did actually burn, used to make a noise like that.

I think it’s just a case of a lazy “similar visual (bright light flashing on) requires similar sound effect” attitude from the foley guys.

[mangeorge]

@Q.E.D.

There are some very large case switches used on high-current power distribution equipment, typically rated 1000 A and up, like the one shown here. These have very heavy-duty contacts so hefty that powerful springs need to be “charged” by pumping a handle in order to toggle them. You saw a different type of these being energized in Jurassic Park. These make a pretty loud noise when you open or close them. I can see something like this being the inspiration for the sound effect.

I’ve operated those a lot in 12kV switchgear. In some, the spring is charged by an electric motor (actually a drill motor). When you trip one, it goes BANG ying ying ying. Scares the shit out of anyone not expecting it. Ask any newby engineer. What fun.

[Colophon]

Apparently this phenomenon is called the Coconut Effect:

An element that is patently unrealistic, but which you have to do anyway because viewers have been so conditioned to expect it that its absence would be even more jarring…

The best example of this is the sound of horse-hooves. From the days of radio, banging two coconut halves together was the standard way to generate the sound effect of horse-hooves. Anyone who has ever actually been around a horse knows that horse-hooves rarely sound anything at all like that, and never sound more than just a very little bit like that. All the same, that sound became so ingrained in the public consciousness that, even when it later became possible to insert much more realistic sound effects, for many years, the coconut sound effect was still used, because the audience wouldn’t be able to accept horse-hooves making a sound not generated by coconuts…

While audiences have finally outgrown that particular quirk, there are others which persist, such as the Bang Bang BANG effects of guns – particularly the thwpt sound of a gun with silencer (which sounds nothing like an actual silenced pistol), the ping sound made by a specular reflection, the click of a remote control, the loud thump of lights turning on or off, or noisy explosions in space…

[mangeorge]

@Colophon

Apparently this phenomenon is called the Coconut Effect:

There it is. Thanks.

[mangeorge]

Speaking of which;
Years ago when I was about twenty I was sort of watching a then old movie on TV. Two men were sitting in a car at a RR crossing while the train passed. As they were talking you could hear the crossing guard go “dingdingdingdingdingdingdingdingding”.
It took me a second or two to realize what was amiss.
Wish I could remember the movie.
BTW; are quotes appropriate for sound effects?