Movies and Car Brakes
[ November 4th, 2008 ] By: Charles Smith Posted in » Ramblings
I watch movies occasionally and I’ve just noticed something. Cars in movies either have the worst brakes or some of the highest performance brakes. They squeal constantly, or at least they do when coming to stops in frame. I get that it is a formalist approach (rather than realist), but I don’t think adding a brake squeal sound helps the viewer understand a car is stopping.
This happens in most movies and shows, even the nicest of cars with the richest of owners have squealing brakes (whose owners would probably not tolerate an annoyance like that). Just now while writing this post up I am watching an episode of Californication and as Hank stops his older Porsche the brakes squeal. While it might be understandable that his car would have squealing brakes (he does not take care of it), it still serves as an example.
Hopefully the brake sounds won’t annoy you as much as it annoys me, but I bet you’ll notice it. I should compile some clips of cars stopping in movies. It could be the most annoying YouTube video ever!
November 4th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Either that, or the tires are always sliding when accelerating or braking. Even if it’s a gentle stop and the car is hardly pivoting forward, you hear a distinct screech from the tires. I think the X-files was the worst offender there :P
November 4th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
So our server’s time is off. I guess it needs to be switched to daylight savings…hrmm
November 5th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
They have 3 sound effects for a car engine, too:
1) Honda CVVC
2) V-8 powered musclecar
3) Ferrari Modena
BTW - I have Brembo rotors and Hawk HPS pads… they do squeak all the time ;-)
November 5th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
See high performance brakes squeak constantly. I have been working on finding clips of the squeaky brakes to compile into a video (just swamped with finals etc…)