Best Gunshots

The last shooting scene in the movie L.A. Confidential is not overly complex but very accurate and realistic. There are many others worth mentioning but I'll keep my list short. Heat as stated earlier just must be seen to be believed. The assisination of Warren Beatty in the movie Bugsy (Beatty playing bugsy) is so dynamic, simple and such a dry sounding shoot it is truely tragic. And how can we forget the main kill'em all scene in The Usual Suspects, very complex but staged very well.

not exactly guns, but how 'bout arrows? - The Gladiator - This one fits in the realistic, not BOOM BOOM loud category - arrows just dont make that much noise.

Saving Private Ryan?

try the patriot with mel gibson. there is one particular cannon firing that will open your eyes and ears.

Heat Wins Hands Down

The "Heat" shootout was one of the best shootouts, I agree, from a film-making point of view. I even felt sick to my stomach, because some part of my mind was so lost in the show, that I thought I was really there, being shot at! (I was using HD-600 headhpones, and the rear channel information was presented both correctly, and realistically, OUTSIDE MY HEAD...AND DOWN THE BLOCK IN EVERY DIRECTION!!) HOWEVER, my feeling of where the sonic realism of this scene comes from is: the spatial information as I describe above (both from the echo off buildings in the street, and the variety of multiple origins of "direct sound" from the multiple guns being fired...in a sporatically realistic sequence in time. The sound designers were truly heroic in this effort!!)..................But, as for the sound having a dynamic pressure gradient, and contrast between loud and soft, similar to that of REAL gunfire, I stick by my experience with the DTS version of "True Lies" in a public theater over 6 years ago. I know the sound from the DVD's DD 5.1 version is nothing like the DTS version, also. I mean, back then, I couldn't believe the sound wasn't coming from a larger array of front speakers in that theater, than the already efficient group of 3 ElectroVoice, whose hi-frequency horn drivers can reach well beyond 130 dB, from EACH of the 3 front channels. Of course, there is significant harmonic and IM distortion with compression drivers at high playback, but with those shots from handguns in the beginning of the movie, the transients were so quick that I doubt it even had time to heat the voice coils of the compression drivers...even though I'm sure they were getting around 100% of their power handling capability (which is 150 watts RMS, on a horn with resluting sensitivity of around 112 dB/w/m)....during those fractions of a second that each gun was fired, in the snow chase scene.

I agree with the "Heat" gun battle. I heard it on mid-fi equipment with super bright Klipsch speakers. It was great!

How about the shoot-out in "HEAT" where Al Pacino and the cops shoot it out with Robert de Niro and his cohorts?

Fer me it's the Flintlocks in Last of the Mohicians; nothing like period instraments.

if you don't mind moving off the ersatz-yiddish spelling discussion and getting back to the subject of this post: i recommend the 1985 telarc cd, "ein straussfest." it has some great gun shots, in addition to other amusing sound effects. BTW, kitch, i visited a highend audio/video dealer while traveling to boston last week, where i saw/heard a $200,000 ht system playing a broadcast hdtv signal. 'ya gotta see it to believe it; i think it's truly equal to the jazz singer's introduction of sound to film. no cheap, mid-fi krell there, BTW.

redkiwi:not too subtle by half; kitsch:noun, something that appeals to popular or lowbrow taste and is often of poor quality; see, kitschy and thats not why no "s", speaking of which, have you visited one of these high-end tv showroom shrines, yet? with the $30,000 projector, all-krell all the time and the corinthian leather? What's up with that? "Daddy, did you really have to watch tv in black and white?" "Good afternoon, Dr. Smythe-Hastings, be good enough to let Samantha here take you to see the telle-tubbies on our $100,000 display whilst I show this musician ruffian with only $1500 to spend the door." And youse guys want to be treated well by dealers?

Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry after firing.... 5 or 6 d' ya feel lucky ....?

Sorry, I was being a bitch, and obviously too subtle with it.

Redkiwi: there would be if I had any

Actually, the best reproduced "gun shots" I've heard were in the movie "True Lies". This was the DTS version at a public theater. Very dynamic and lifelike, as were the two Harrier jets when they first appear on the screen, flying in formation. The gun fire in the snow chase scene at the beginning of the movie, with the snowmiolbiles, was very high above dialog level, somewhat higher than the gunfire in The Matrix IMO. The loudest gunfire in the Matrix, is the gatlin cannon that shoots the glass out of the skyscraper's window.

There is an "s" in Kitsch.

My Bushmaster AR-15 with 30rd mag. Espescially when I put my index finger in "full auto" mode. Who needs an M-16?