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Doug Grindstaff - Creator of Star Trek Sound Effects - Has Died


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Not exactly music, but definitely audio related.

 

"Doug Grindstaff, a five-time Emmy Award winner who created communicator beeps, Tribble coos and other sound effects employed on the original Star Trek, died July 23 in Peoria, Arizona, his family announced. He was 87.

 

"Working with Jack Finlay and Joseph Sorokin, Grindstaff created the background sounds and effects used on NBC's Star Trek. These sounds included red alert klaxons, the whoosh of Enterprise bridge doors opening/closing, heartbeats, boatswain whistles, sickbay scanners and communicator beeps and the acoustics that invoked phasers striking deflector shields and transporter materialization (and dematerialization).

 

"I worked on one scene where [Dr. McCoy] is giving someone a shot. Gene says, 'Doug, I'm missing one thing. The doctor injects him and I don't hear the shot.' I said, 'You wouldn't hear a shot, Gene.' He said, 'No, no, this is Star Trek, we want a sound for it.' "So I turned around to the mixing panel and said, 'Do you guys have an air compressor?' And they did. I fired up the air compressor, squirted it for a long enough period by the mic, went upstairs, played with it a little bit and then put it in the show. And Gene loved it.

 

"Grindstaff said he created Tribble coos by manipulating the sound of a dove."

 

Full article at The Hollywood Reporter - https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/doug-grindstaff-dead-star-trek-sound-effects-maestro-was-87-1130648

 

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I think most of the people that do sound effects and foley work on TV and film go their whole lives with no one but industry people knowing the quality of their work and the contribution they make to their art forms.

 

It's right that you posted this here...The name of this forum is "Sound,Studioand Stage after all...

 

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Where I realized just how much they do is by watching the deleted scenes. Typically those only have dialog, no music, no sound effects. In the article it talks about painting a picture with sound, and these guys really do that. So much is added when all of those missing elements are put in.

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Where I realized just how much they do is by watching the deleted scenes. Typically those only have dialog' date=' no music, no sound effects. In the article it talks about painting a picture with sound, and these guys really do that. So much is added when all of those missing elements are put in.[/quote']

 

True....Watched a thing on PBS several years ago about how much work goes into Foley work on films. They have come along way doing it digitally now I guess but watching them do the sounds for a fight scene in a bar was really an eye opener. These folks were literally smashing up things on a sound stage while watching the rushes.

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I saw that PBS - at least I think it was PBS - show on Foley. Just fascinating - at least as interesting as the Prop department. For sound-aware types like musicians, more interesting maybe.

 

All those little things - the sound of shoes in an echoey hallway - the cars keys when some poor soul is trying desperately to get in the car before the [skinhead, mad wolf, IRS agent, Russian thug, 40 billion army ants, etc.] get to them. The give-away crack of a small branch when sneaking through the woods - the alien eggs opening in Alien - the engine turning over but won't start - the gavel in the courtroom - running horse hoofs - velcro ripping open, just endless. How to organize the sample set on the hard drive? 50 terabytes maybe?

 

I would think the fun ones would be where there's no guide to what the sound should be and it's all imagination. Like what does it really sound like when a fighter pilot ejects the plane? Or when The Hulk sneezes? Or all the cables on the Brooklyn Bridge snap? Or when Scarlett Johannsen unsnaps something...anything :)

 

nat

 

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