I’m gonna ruin a tiny bit of TV for you, because once you notice it you can’t un-notice it.
When a TV show (or movies, I suppose, but I really notice it with shows) wants to let you know that the characters are outside at night, and there’s nature everywhere–or if they want you to know that it’s nighttime and the character is lonely–there’s a specific sound effect the show uses: the hoot of an owl.
I spend a reasonable amount of time outside at night, and I’ll occasionally hear an owl. But nowhere near as often as I hear one on TV.
And I think it’s the same owl-hoot every time. It’s not like sometimes there’s a tawny owl and sometimes there’s a screech owl. It actually might be the equivalent of the Wilhelm Scream: a single sampled owl-hoot from like fifty years ago that gets used over and over.
Thus my question: who’s the owl? At the very least, is there a specific species that’s used? Or is there one specific sample with a specific history?
A quick Google suggests that the classic cinema owl is a Great Horned but, listening to sound clips, none of them have the distinctive long Hoooooo. Maybe I’m listening to the wrong clips. I agree that their shorter Hoo-hoo-hoo call does sound like stereotypical background forest noise though.
In any event, I hope that owl got paid as much as the red-tailed hawk used for every raptor call/scream.
Owls hoot around here most quiet nights. Some of the noisy nights too I’m sure, but even on the quiet nights it’s not that loud most of the time. It’s also a brief ‘Hoo’, no change of pitch or volume, but I doubt these are Great Horned Owls.
I’ve never heard an owl hoot like the stereotypical canned one heard on TV. The ones I hear are more of a gruff, staccato “hoo hoo hoo hoohoohooHooHOOO!”
Another thing I’ve noticed is often when a character discovers tension/danger/etc, you will hear a quiet thunder and lightning in the background. Even if it’s during the day and even if it’s not raining. I guess it’s just short-hand for a dun-dun-duuun moment.