Raiders guns discussed in new book

[Mark Brody]

I'm reading a book called Gun Guys by Dan Baum. One chapter of the book talks about guns in movies, and he mentions a discussion he had with the folks at Stembridge about Raiders of the Lost Ark. As a sidenote, Dan Baum has a S&W 1917, himself.

"We sold off a lot of good stuff," Syd said. "Mel Gibson's guns from Payback and Lethal Weapon, that shiny .45 from Titanic, Harrison Ford's ray gun from Star Wars and his revolver from Raiders of the Lost Ark

"I remember the sounds those guns made in Raiders as well as I remember anything about it," I said. "It was the first time I noticed gun sounds had gotten good in movies."

Syd brightened. "I worked on that! I flew up to Skywalker Ranch with Ben Burtt, who did all the sound for that show. I had a Thompson up there, and we fired it next to a cement wall. Not at the wall, but next to it, so you'd get the noise off the wall. That's how we got that big sound. And the scene in the bar, the big shoot-out? What they wanted was to re-create a Warner Bros. 1930 ricochet. Ben always said that Warner had the best ricochet sound. He didn't know how they did it. So we're out there trying to re-create it. We get out on a dirt road, a straight road. We put up hay bales with a slot down the middle, an alley, and we set up microphones all along the way. I'm inside the slot with a Smith & Wesson 76 submachine gun, firing single-shot at the road, trying to glance bullets off the ground at the right angle to get that whine."

[micsteam]

That is truly awesome !!! Great info, thanks for sharing.

[IndianaRedmon]

Great material you posted there. Thanks for sharing.

[Canada Jones]

Is that all there is in the book on Indy? That ricochet was one of the coolest sounds in the whole film IMHO.

[Charybdis]

I am always amazed at how they come up with some of these sounds...very creative and inventive minds...

[Canada Jones]

I am always amazed at how they come up with some of these sounds...very creative and inventive minds...

agreed. And there were such great sounds in Raiders - like the jungle at the start. unforgettable.

[Michaelson]

My personal favorite was the sound made at the opening of the Ark...achieved by the recording of the removal of a commode tank lid in a mens room.
Regards! Michaelson

[Mark Brody]

I love that toilet sound too!

I think Indy was mentioned briefly at the beginning of the book. I'm only about halfway through the book, and so far, what I posted is the only bit of Indiana Jones he really talks about in detail. The book is about his journey across the country interviewing various gun enthusiasts (target shooters, hunters, machine gunners, concealed carriers, etc.) just gathering different perspectives on guns. The author identifies himself as a liberal Jewish Democrat from the East coast who loves guns. It's an interesting read if you like guns, and thankfully, it's not especially political - it's more of a non-academic anthropological study of gun guys.