that whipping sound whenever someone gets whacked in a fight or is that just a studio secret? I find it to be quite frightening.
There are sound designers; artists in their own right, not just editors who pick stock FX at a sound studio. The kind of thing that was done on Raging Bull. The punches you hear are synthesized FX, combinations of things you can't even imagine mixed together and tweaked until they get just what they want. For instance, the simple sound of Indiana Jones' bullwhip is a mix of over a 100 FX.
We get so used to hearing a punch thrown at the movies but is that really what it sounds like, I don't think so.
They're actually taken directly from a sound recording of Willie Monroe-Marvin Hagler I, the whipping sound is Marv's crome dome being beaten to a pulp by the piston-like hands of the Philadelphian. They did indeed later use them on Raiders of the Lost Ark; they're known in the industry as "Worm Effects". :good This is true.
If you were to put Tyson/Berbick or Ali/Williams in a movie it would look completely fake and the same can be said of many other fights.
