Nevada Film Office: The “coconut effect” is a term used to describe sound effects, special effects or design elements that are unrealistic but need to be included because its absence would be noticeable to viewers.
The coconut effect is named after the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail in which two coconut halves were used to generate the sound effect of horse hooves clopping by banging the two halves together. The production lacked the budget to afford real horses so knights pretended to ride invisible horses while coconuts were used to complement the visual action.
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This kind of sound is my favorite thing about the potential avenues that sound design careers can go down. We talked about this idea of the coconut effect more specifically in my props class at the start of the year. The idea that old technology should look old and worn even though the items onstage would have been bright and new for the characters as, for them, it was new technology came up for both Way Out West and Detroit while I was in that class. For the sake of the production, it is easier and better for the audience if we as designers go with what they would expect to see even if it is not accurate in order to avoid taking them out of the action. Sound also does that by recordings sounds using very odd objects instead of taking the sound live when it is deemed necessary for things like horse clopping, physical fighting, and button pushing.
The notion of foley art is so interesting to me because it plays on our expectations more than reality. Most recently, I was on run crew for “It’s in the Bag,” which had a live foley artist on stage the whole time. Her instruments and accessories were sometimes direct: a small wooden door, shoes for footsteps. But the ones that intrigued me the most were the ones I did not expect. I had not previously heard of the term “coconut effect” before this article, but it makes perfect sense now that I do. Living in the digital age, our minds have come to expect certain beeps and rings all the time. With a single beat, we can come to recognize a company, a logo, a commercial. Watching the video within this article with the use of coconuts in mind did in fact alter my perception of it, but it still seemed to fit.
This is honestly so funny to me. How have audiences come to be so used to sounds, like coconut horse hooves, that do not mirror their true form in real life? I personally wonder how other foley artists, unlike the one in the video who makes his sounds more authentic, feel about creating inauthentic sounds for the purpose of pleasing a conditioned audience. I thought the video was really interesting. As a foley artist, it seems you need keen attention to detail to layer sounds and appropriately incorporate every facet of a sound. You also have to be very creative. I had no idea that sticking something inside the turning spokes on a bike would create the sound of fairy wings! Noticing little things like this in day to day life seems like an important part of creating sounds for film that many people do not even think to wonder about.
I’ve found foley art really cool for years, and I could actually see myself having tried to do it myself professionally (or doing it eventually, who knows what will happen). I think solving the puzzle of what will make the sound you need to create is interesting. Plus I’ve always loved videos of watching foley artists work. There is just something that amuses me about someone looking very intense and serious while breaking a stick of celery in half. This particular video also showed the principle of “when possible, use the real thing” which also applies to scenery in many contexts. Though, to be fair, especially with foley art, sometimes you need to make a sound that is more dramatic than the real thing and therefore you actually need something different. I find it interesting that people will find the more realistic sounds strange or lacking yet don’t even notice that metal doesn’t scrap metal when a metal sword is pulled out of a leather sheath.
I love things like this, and I’ve always found the coconut effect to be interesting. I noticed when I was very little that there seemed to be an awful lot of sword ‘shiiing’s in movies even when characters did things with swords that would make much less or even no noise at all, like removing the sword from a scabbard, or even just swinging one through the air. I think I first noticed this phenomenon in The Princess Bride, but it’s bothered me in so many movies that I’ve seen since then. That being said, most people, probably including me, have come to expect a sword to make a metallic ring as It slides out of its sheath and to make nice metallic pings when it hits another sword. If they weren’t in there I would probably feel like something was off. Same thing with horses galloping, water dripping absurdly loudly, punching sounds, and all the cute little computer noises that are so weirdly unrealistic.
I found it really interesting how we as audiences expect noises to be there even when they shouldn’t be- sound effects often need to be exaggerated to get across their particular effect, and that’s what we’ve gotten used to and come to expect. Reading the article, I was reminded vaguely of a literature debate called the Tiffany Problem- the name Tiffany has historically been used since the Middle Ages, but fantasy and historical fiction authors can’t use it even though it would be historically accurate because it sounds too modern and audiences would think it seemed “wrong”. In the case of sound effects, the equivalent would be sacrificing authenticity, like the example of the sword making a metallic scrape on leather, for the sake of sounding “right”. I think it’s interesting how this idea translates to several departments- a prop that is legitimately accurate may not look right and need to be modified, for example. I think it’s interesting how we this shows us that we aren’t trying to make a documentary, we’re trying to transport the audience into the world of the play, and that we need to play to their expectations in order to do that.
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