The Coconut Effect: Difference between revisions

 

 

 

 

 

There are also [[Kung Foley|fistfight noises]] (the 'whump' of a person getting punched in the face, or the exaggerated smack of a boxing glove) that must be certain way or they won't be believed.

 

 

Car and driving noises. "Wildest Police Chases"/"Wildest Security Camera Video"-type programs are big on this. Squealing tires and crunchy crashes are all dubbed in after the fact, especially in the cases featuring security camera footage, which rarely features an audio track.

Mainframe hackers used to refer to this as [http://cosman246.com/jargon.html#green%20lightning green lightning] <ref>or "compatibility logic" when the suits were around</ref> after an unfixed bug in an IBM terminal monitor; the term came from the bug being left in [[Viewer-Friendly Interface|so people would think the computer was "doing something".]]

 

{{examples}}

 

== Media in General / Common Tropes ==

* One of the most recent and peculiar instances of [[The Coconut Effect]] is the addition of [[Lens Flare]] to [[Post Processing Video Effects|computer-generated scenes]]. [[Lens Flare]] is a ''flaw'' resulting from the physical properties of the camera lens, but it is so ingrained in the public consciousness that its absence makes a scene look "fake;" it may be that adding it adds to the audience's [[Willing Suspension of Disbelief]], by implying that the scene was actually shot by a camera (perhaps via the [[Literary Agent Hypothesis]]).

** Traditional animated programming -- [[Anime]] in particular -- often, if not always, includes drawn-in lens flares as well. Exaggerated ersatz lens flare has become fairly pervasive in recent anime.

** It's not even limited to anime - there has been at least a few [[Manga]] out there where the artist has ''drawn'' a lens flare when a character is, say, looking into the sun. People just seem to expect to see flares.

** When using the defibrillator, the defibs must always charge with an audible, high pitch sound. And the defib paddles are always rubbed against one-another when charging. When discharged, the defibs also make a loud SHUNK. Let's not forget that the person using them always says "CLEAR!!"<br /><br />"Clear!" is sort of [[Truth in Television]]. However, in reality, the users will say, "Clear the patient," and then check to see if all persons are no longer touching the patient. A single dramatic "Clear!" followed by no safety check and a zap is pure Hollywood.

** In addition to this, a defibrillator is unable to revive a "flatlining" (asystolic) patient, which runs contrary to their depiction in medical dramas. The heart's electrical system controls the muscles of the heart. A defibrillator is designed to "reset" the heart's own electrical system when it's erratic and causing the muscles to contract wildly (fibrillation, as in ''defibrillator''). If the muscles of the heart are no longer responding to the electrical system (for example, Pulseless Electrical Activity), or if the electrical system is down (asystole), there's nothing to be gained by shocking the patient.

** It does appear that ''[[Highlander]]'' got this fairly right, at least in the series flashbacks. Duncan and co are wearing the correct greatkilt.

* 19th century clothes are usually depicted in dull, dirty-looking colors such as cream or dusty rose (otherwise known as antique pink). Bright colors were in fact both available and fashionable. This is most likely because people are used to seeing clothes in museums, where the dyes have faded and dulled over time.

** Aniline dyes had just been developed, and fashion called for color combinations most modern people would describe as clashing - like bright yellow and mauve.

** Strictly speaking, the toga was ''exclusively'' Roman and exclusive to male '''''citizens''''' (those who could vote and hold office) in the periods most often depicted in fiction; any woman wearing a toga was either a prostitute or an adulteress. The Greeks wore a variety of other garments, including one that looked quite like the "toga" worn by modern college Greeks... and one that could be mistaken for a toga at a distance or by someone with poor eyesight or limited knowledge.

** Dye was relegated to women, which wore a Stola if married and a Chitan if single. Even then these were poor and the colors faded to pastels quickly.

** Fortunately the misconceptions are avoided in the series ''[[Rome]]'', which portrays characters as accurately wearing the ''toga candida'' as noted above, but otherwise wearing colors appropriate to their rank (such as the senators wearing Togas with the appropriate stripe). Peasants wear a variety of colors, as do nobles, when not in a formal environment where the formal clothing must be worn. Of course this is also from the series that researched correct Roman graffiti, so hardly surprising.

* One example of the Coconut Effect that even ''[[Rome]]'' failed to avoid is Ancient Greeks and Romans wearing wristbands. Forearm armour did exist, but was not common; no culture of the Ancient world ever wore the things as standard part of their dress. Armbands and other forms of jewelry were of course worn but they would have looked quite different. Yet, every movie, every TV series and every documentary about the period will show just about everyone wearing wristbands, and will frequently involve scenes showing them in loving detail as they are donned or taken off. All because the early epics of Hollywood were supposed to look exotic, and they needed more ways to display the lavish riches of the Ancients...

* Similarly, movies featuring the ancient Egyptians tend to make the dominant building colors sand or gray (because that's what the tombs and temples look like now, and what the audience has seen in pictures) rather than the bright painted look that archaeologists have known for a long time they originally were. One of the more effective and realistic portrayals was, ironically enough, in fantasy/horror/action film ''[[The Mummy Trilogy|The Mummy 1999]]'' where the backstory setting in Ancient Egypt showed the bright colors.

** The Pyramids are a perfect example of this. When they were originally constructed, they were covered in limestone and gold, so they would have been sparkling white with a gold tip. But they're always sand colored in shows. The gold was actually stolen in the meantime, as was the limestone (which was used for many buildings in Cairo).

** Interestingly, a lot of video games set in Ancient Egypt avert this. Whether that's because the developers ''did'' do their research or because they realized that normal people don't like to stare at [[Real Is Brown|variations of beige]] for hours on end is another question. One intro movie even includes the golden pyramid tips, though in-game, the pyramids are only shiny, shiny white.

** The Sphinx is an even bigger example of this, about 400 years after it was built the body, made of softstone, was starting to deteriorate so the then Pharaoh had it covered in tiles and painted BRIGHT RED, with a blue headdress and gold painted face. This was maintained for centuries and was one of the most common forms of Sphinx, there's also evidence that the face originally had a beard.

* Thunderclaps are usually heard at the same time as lightning, even though we all know light travels faster than sound.

** Amusingly, in ''[[The Sound of Music]]'', [[Julie Andrews|Maria]] tries to comfort the children during a lightning storm by explaining that "the lightning says something to the thunder and the thunder answers back". Of course, the thunder and lightning in the film happen at once, so apparently Lightning and Thunder are talking over each other.

* Swords tend to make [[Audible Sharpness|a metal-on-metal scraping sound]] when drawn, no matter what the scabbards are made of. The first metal scabbards which really do make this sound come from the late 19th century. Scabbards were of leather and wood before that.

** In the ''[[Lord of the Rings]]'' movies swords make a steel-against-steel sound when drawn from leather scabbards. It is alleged that they originally intended to use more realistic sounds, but in a textbook example of the Coconut Effect decided that it sounded "wrong" on film.

** In his Little Movie Glossary, [[Roger Ebert]] describes the application of this cliche to slasher movies as "The [[Alice in Wonderland|Snicker-Snack]] Effect":

* The modern version of the last entry is that people apparently always walk around, even if actively hunting somebody or in battle, with their guns effectively unloaded. They will then apply the up-to-date dramatic noise of cocking the weapon/chambering a round/sliding something (delete as applicable - or even as not applicable since often they could just pull the trigger) before firing.

** A pump-action shotgun is '''always''' pumped before being fired. Even if the shooter had fired and pumped it once already, or pumped it upon loading. Sometimes it's done for emphasis in a "hold up" or "interrogation" scene to show the one wielding the gun means business.

* The view through a pair of binoculars is usually [[Binocular Shot|depicted as two intersecting circles]], whereas the view through a true set of binoculars is one circle, if they have been adjusted properly for the user. This is parodied in the second ''[[Hot Shots]]'' movie, where they are revealed to be looking through a black sheet of construction paper with two intersecting circles cut in it.

* Even in [[Real Life]], calling a number on a cell phone invariably results in a rapid-fire "dialing" sound effect, despite the fact that no cell phone actually uses touch-tones to dial numbers. This is most noticeable in the first half of the 2000's, though more recent movies/TV shows tend to perpetuate it unless they're shilling to a specific phone company who presumably want their product to be realistically, or at least favorably, portrayed.

** Classically educated people know frogs really go "[[Aristophanes|Brekekekex koax koax]]"

** At least one documentary show had a scene of frogs doing mating calls at night. Sounds included chirps, whistles, a whimper, and something akin to a rapid fire toy laser gun.

* The ubiquitous "ping" sound heard everywhere that submarines are concerned. It's actually a ''very'' specific sound: a signal pulse of the ASDIC -- an early [[World War Two|WWII]] British sonar, widely used by all Allied navies in the war. It was so ubiquitous that it got thoroughly associated with every thing submarine, so it even came to be used where German submarines were involved, and their sonar pulses sounded nothing like that.

* Real bald eagles do not actually make the long, majestic "keer" noise they always make in films. That sound is actually [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33DWqRyAAUw the call of a Red-Tailed Hawk], but because Bald Eagles and some other birds of prey have really lame and silly sounding calls in real life, their calls are usually replaced with the keer to make them sound "better". And of course, this has become so ubiquitous that now if one were to use the right sound, audiences would complain. This is only untrue in the case of nature documentaries.

 

== Films -- Live-Action ==

* In a notable subversion, ''[[Rocky Balboa]]'', the sixth ''Rocky'' film, had realistic boxing sounds inserted during the actual match between Rocky and his opponent. The last few ''Rocky'' sequels before this had grown increasingly dependent on unrealistic boxing sounds, and the more authentic noises spat in the face of that dependency. Accordingly, instead of using the dramatic cinematic effect for the entire ending, the fight was presented like an ESPN pay-per-view event, complete with stats charts, graphical widgets and even the clock during the first round.

** Ironically, [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0497964/ Ring Girls], which is for all intents and purposes a documentary (although "creatively" edited to look more like a reality show), nevertheless added Honk Kong sound effects over all the punching and kicking, completely ruining it for every martial artist (or even fan) out there. It did not make the movie any more popular.

== Live-Action TV ==

* Despite the fact that it purports to have at least something to do with reality, the hit U.S. boxing show ''[[The Contender]]'' features "exaggerated impact" sound effects during the footage of boxing matches between its participants.

* ''[[Battlestar Galactica]]'' did this when the Galactica warped into the upper atmosphere of a planet and immediately burst into flames. Reentry fire comes from the massive sideways velocity any orbiting object has. The ship started from a dead stop, but most people equate falling from space with fire. But they probably did it because [[Incendiary Exponent|fire makes things cooler]]. Potentially [[Justified Trope|justified]] due to possibility that the flames were caused by the near-instantaneous displacement of an enormous volume of air caused by the Galactica's jump.

** Yet ironically enough, they are guilty of this trope, especially when playing back highspeed footage with sound effects added for emphasis.

** As well as when they synchronize the sound of an explosion with explosion video footage from a camera far enough from the point of detonation that a noticeable time delay would be expected.

 

== Tabletop RPG ==

** Averted by Lasguns in the ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' universe, while often huge coconuts in the art, are actually described in the fiction as firing invisible, near-silent beams. The only 'Pew' so to speak is the audible snap of the air ionizing.

*** Though played straight with lasguns given to Guard regiments who come from planets where most readily available weapons use chemical propellant. Guardsmen who expect guns to make a loud bang and flash when fired get fake noises and lights because the familiarity is good for morale. Guardsmen from less developed worlds are used to the relatively silent bow or crossbow and get no special treatment, while Guard regiments on appropriately advanced worlds are already used to las weapons.

** ''[[Grand Theft Auto IV|The Lost and Damned]]''

** ''[[Left 4 Dead]].''

** [[Fallout: New Vegas]] has a major and highly popular [http://newvegas.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=39947 modification] that focuses entirely on simulating low quality or badly damaged film, to make the game look like an old Westerns.

** [[Stubbs the Zombie]] had film grain as the default.

** In the same way that animated studios take efforts to replicate shortcomings of real cameras, video games often go to great lengths to get the washed out effect of an overexposed shot (or a really bright light source), which is dubbed "HDR." In fact, HDR is what photographers use to ''get rid'' of that effect.

*** This is tone mapping. HDR is a technique to preserve the apparent brightness of an object when its light interacts with objects. For example, in a non-HDR render, the sun when reflected off water will somehow lose enough brightness that if it were real, you could stare at it with no consequence. In an HDR render, the sun's reflection is still the brightest thing (more or less) in the scene.

{{quote|''People associate shotguns with powerful, close-range weapons ... So a shotgun blast [in the game] will punch through walls and armor just fine, even though buckshot is known for its lack of penetration in the real world.'' -- '''[http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/video-games/4255750 RSV2 game designer Philippe Theiren]'''}}

** Granted, if one has the appropriate license one could buy or create shot specifically made to do just that.

** Nokia addressed this by using the vibrator to gently shake the phone when a "button" is touched.

** Talk to any serious typist and you'll find just how important physical and auditory feedback is... it's why some people will shell out $70-$100 for Model M keyboards.

** As well, if there's ''any'' delay between the button press and the system responding, without a visual or auditory response, it's not immediately obvious that the button-press has been registered, and many people - especially savvy computer users - don't trust the computer to actually be doing what they asked it to do, so they'll press again, which starts the process over.

** [[Mass Effect]] addresses this by stating that a man typing on a holographic keyboard usually wears gloves which provide feedback. A real hacker implants chips in his fingers.

*** Harley Rumble is the sound of an ''inefficient'' engine design - practically all 45 degree V engines from Harley, starting in the 1930s, were prone to vibration by design, mostly due to V angle and the way the cylinders fired. They dragged on until the modern age (finally gave up when the Twin Cam was introduced) exactly ''because'' [[Self-Demonstrating Article|people associated vibration and specific sound with power and traditional Harley image]] and shunned more efficient and quiet designs.

** The American M1 Abrams main battle tank was sometimes nicknamed "Whispering Death" because its gas-turbine engine makes a very different (much higher-pitched) noise than the diesel engines of most other armored vehicles, causing soldiers to fail to hear the tank coming during exercises in the 1980s.

* You know that smell of medicated creams? That is actually added, because it gives people the impression that it works. Ironic, since most people find it unpleasant, but they add it anyway because people don't think that something medicated can be working if it doesn't have that smell.

** Also, many cosmetics that are supposed to clean up oil and dirt have a tingling sensation when you use them. That is thanks to an added ingredient that they put in to make people feel like it's working.

** Natural mint flavoring has no color, but consumers have come to expect mint-flavored foods to be colored green. Only gourmet mint foods will abstain from doing this, allowing consumers to feel proud that they don't need the coloring.

*** The exception is peppermint sweets, which are usually white.

** Strawberry-flavored food is always colored pink.

** Most consumers expect raspberry flavoring to be red, but [[Reality Is Unrealistic|strains of dark blue raspberries]] exist, leading to some (often brightly) blue-colored raspberry flavors.

** Flour is bleached in part so that it looks appealingly white. Naturally it would be a yellowish color that might look unwholesome to some consumers (especially now, after years of conditioning). Also to differentiate it from corn meal

** After slaughtering, meat becomes greyish, as the blood is drained from it. It is coloured red with nitrates, which are actually unhealthy in large doses. In Finland, however, uncoloured "grey-salted ham" has been around for a while and has become a hit.

*** This can prove quite a shock in a cadaver lab or dissection. Anyone who has taken even elementary school science knows [[Color Coded for Your Convenience|muscles are nice red, arteries a brilliant red, veins are blue, and nerves are yellow, right?]] In vivo, muscles are a dark red and most of the other tissues are dull colors. In a prepared cadaver, the muscles have lost their blood and are a very sickly pale grey, while most of the other tissues come in various shades of grey, dull-brown, dark brown, and yellowish beige. Likewise, bones in labs are never, ever that nice, bleached white many shows use.

**** Rats used in high school lab dissections sometimes have dyes injected into their veins and arteries to give them the blue and red colors everyone expects.

** Similarly, Bell System engineers discovered long ago that feeding the speaker's voice back into the earpiece prevented users from shouting into their phones. This feature, called sidetone, actually had to be carefully calibrated; too much and users will speak too softly. Most cell phones are on the soft end of the extreme, which is why people on cell phones in public are often so obnoxious.

** Talking on the phone without comfort noise usually results in a "hey, are you still there?" after nearly every sentence.

* Pulsing progress bars, spinning wheel graphics and similar graphical tricks used in computer operating systems and applications, sometimes referred to as "customer assurance widgets". They're there to convince you that something's happening - that your files are actually being copied or the computer's working hard in some way. Perhaps the most famous example of this is the strobing bar that has appeared for years on the various versions of Microsoft Windows as it boots up. The progress of the bar doesn't actually ''mean'' anything, but people - particularly those of a non-technical disposition who make up the bulk of computer users, to the bane of technical support staff everywhere - tend to get antsy when they're stuck watching a computer apparently not doing anything for several seconds. Conversely, eschewing the graphical interface and running from a command line in most OSes will produce little to no visual indication that the computer is actually doing anything at all, even when it's running hell for leather under full processor load.

** This actually goes back to the days before computers became mainstream. In the olden days when computers only existed in labs and were attended by white-coated priests, it often took the primitive systems of the day several hours to perform a single operation. If a scientist didn't sit in front of the terminal the whole time, what usually ended up happening was that some idiot would come along, try to use the machine, be unable to because it was busy, assume it had crashed and reboot it, screwing everything up. Graphical progress representations curbed this trend and improved productivity, despite the fact they effectively doubled the time it took to perform the operation because of all the processor power they used (this was back in the day when a "megabyte" sounded big, remember).

** Similarly, the progress bars in web browsers are largely meaningless, since there’s no way to predict how long it will take for all the parts of a page to load. Generally, they jump forward a certain amount when the page starts loading, then asymptotically approach full in random bursts while data is being received. One version of Safari got rid of the placebo progress bar and replaced it with a spinner, but it was brought back by popular demand.

* In modern Continuously Variable Transmissions (C.V.T.s) the car does not have traditional gears. C.V.T.s have some form of cone, belt, chain, or "universal gear" which smoothly transitions to the appropriate power ratio among a seemingly infinitesimal progression of available states. However, many people feel that the lack of discernible gear changes made the car feel underpowered or flawed. This led many automakers to incorporate the option of simulating the bump of gear changes that aren't really there.

* [[British Newspapers|UK broadsheet newspaper]] the ''Financial Times'' was originally printed on pink (ie. unbleached) newsprint because it was cheaper. In time, white newsprint became ubiquitous and therefore the cheaper option, but by then everyone expected the FT to be pink. The modern newspaper is printed on white paper that has been dyed. So first the paper is bleached, then it's dyed to look unbleached.

* The trope here goes even deeper. Really-high-end electric pianos ''weight the keys differently'', with the higher keys on the right side with less weight, and the lower keys on the left side with more weight. The rationale is that this gets the keys even closer in feel to a real piano, which do require less weight on the high notes because of the smaller impact needed to hit a shorter string... except that, well, high-end grand pianos have ''weights in the high keys to equalize the key weights''.

* Annoyed by loud lawn mowers on the weekend? It's possible to make them much quieter, but then they don't sell because people think the louder ones are more powerful and do a better job.

* The "stage accent" that American actors use when ''portraying'' actors (or making fun of themselves) hasn't been seriously used for at least a century, and in most performances they're advised ''against'' using it. Why does the stage accent still persist? Partly because it's fun, and partly because audiences [[Reality Is Unrealistic|don't expect actors to talk normally]] [[Viewers are Morons|even in contemporary plays that are clearly stated to take place in a specific area]].

* Modern ATMs make almost no sound. The clicks and whirrs of machinery that you hear in modern ATMs are usually sound effects that are added to give the user confidence that it is working.