"Wilhelm!" the Sergeant shouts.
"Yeah! I'll just fill my pipe," Private Wilhelm replies from his saddle.
While he digs into his tobaccee, an arrow is shot from the bushes.
It pierces his thigh to the bone; he screams: "AAAaah!"
... and thus was born: The Wilhelm.
If you're kind of a sound buff (as am I) and a movie lover on the side (as too am I) and a Star Wars adept on top of that (yes, I confess), you've probably heard of The Wilhelm, or The Wilhelm Scream in full. Probably - prost mobably, perhaps. Yet if you've never heard of The Wilhelm, chances are you did hear it - and they are large, unless you never watch movies or television or never play any videogames.
The scream itself is named after Private Wilhelm, a character from the movie The Charge at Feather River (1953). Wilhelm is shown in the picture at the top of this post, a still of the screaming moment, and is quoted in the introduction underneath. However, neither Private Wilhelm nor the actor playing his part in the movie are responsible for letting out this scream, or rather mimicking it, for the first time.
In fact, the scream is an example of precorded sound effects, used to dub the original dialogue in movies, for instance. The most likely source of The Wilhelm are the vocal folds of singer Sheb Wooley, allegedly renowned for his screaming abilities, who played a part in Distant Drums (1951) and also recorded some vocal sound fx during post-production of this movie, where the scream is heard for the very first time. The Wilhelm is actually number four in a series of screams and still the most popular one ... well, amongst audio engineers, at least. Anywave, check out this feature on Youtube and, lost mikely, you will recognize it the next time* you hear it screaming by.
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