Why do movies/tv use the same canned sound effects (think Wilhem scream) when they can just record the sound on set or even use a different sound effect?

Question

Is there a reason that you hear the same sound effects recycled in so many movies? There must be hundreds of “crowd screaming” sound effects but they always use that same one. Is that sound effect just that good?

In: Culture

Answer 1

i know a little bit about this. movies do hire [foley artists](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foley_(filmmaking)) to record original sound effects for their films, but simply using stock sound effects is a lot cheaper and a lot faster. it’s usually a combination of both. if you need the sound of a police siren or a dog barking, you are going to just use something from the library rather than record something new and original.