Why we all need subtitles now?

[FlyingFreak]

Found this video on YouTube.
A journalist discussing with a dialog editor and explaining in lay terms what is going on with audio production in the movie industry.
I think it is pretty interesting regarding our hobby.

 

[sweetchaos]

Step 1. Buy better speakers
Step 2. See Step #1

 

[kemmler3D]

So I guess the upshot is that directors no longer force actors to enunciate, and we have the technology to use the mumbled takes as-is, so they do.

Even with semi-credible speakers hooked to my TV, it can still be hard to understand dialogue on certain shows, honestly. And my wife and I are in our 30s, ears still semi-credible as well...

 

[Blumlein 88]

Other factors count, but the bottom line is the mix sucks. Badly.

I have a pretty good 5.1 setup (no atmos), and some current shows/movies are excellent. Poker Face for instance. Good surround that fits for the spaces shown, groovy music left and right and easy to understand clear dialog all the way around. Others are hard to understand. Christopher Nolan being a stand out I'd like to bash upside the head and smack some sense into him. He isn't the only one. I have no idea what they think they are doing. Bottom line if you cannot hardly understand the damn dialogue someone has screwed the mix. Whether they did a bad job or were instructed to make it that way it sucks. Some of the worst like Nolan do not sound clear in the theater with the latest Atmos playback. When we maybe need loudness for dialogue due to all the other sounds going on we cannot get it, and in music we have too much we cannot stop them from cramming it into. It is messed up.

Watching HBO, they have a feature you can turn on in settings which I wish others would copy. You can set it so it shows sub-titles any time you hit the 10 second reverse button. It jumps back 10 seconds, shows subtitles for that segment being repeated and then they go away. All the playback software needs that.

 

[Mean & Green]

What I find interesting is how modern movies and shows are mixed for theatre with big dynamic range where the experience is considered important, but most modern music is mixed and produced for portable audio with severely compressed dynamic range where the experience is considered bottom of the list.

 

[DVDdoug]

...I didn't watch the video above. (I'm at work.)

What I find interesting is how modern movies and shows are mixed for theatre with big dynamic range where the experience is considered important,

That's what I think, at least with movies. The dialog is fine when the sound is turned-up and the effects are "loud" but when listening "casually" at lower volumes the dialog is too quiet.

Most of the TV shows I watch are news or the History Channel, or Discovery, etc., so there is very little music or sound effects. Also with TV I'm usually just listening to the TV's built-in speakers. I also don't seem to notice the "dynamics problem" if I watching a movie and listening in stereo through the TV speakers.

 

[daftcombo]

Because you can't hear the sound of your movie in the metro.

 

[kemmler3D]

I have no idea what they think they are doing.

R E A L I S M

but also, as the video notes

N O B U D G E T F O R A D R

 

[restorer-john]

The only subtitles I want are for a foreign language film. Ironically, they are easier to understand than any Nolan film.

 

[Keith_W]

That reminds me of Alfred Hitchcock's quote, "if it's a good movie, the sound could go off and the audience would still have a perfectly clear idea of what's going on" and "whenever possible, you show what is happening, not say it".

In any case the dialogue in so many modern movies is so trite that I don't care what they are saying. Just show me the explosions already.

The exception of course are Quentin Tarantino films, who IMO is the last great film maker of the modern era.

 

[luft262]

In a nutshell:

The microphone(s)/recording quality
Downmixing (from for example 128 channel Atoms to 2.0 stereo)
Speaker Quality
Production Choices (prioritizing audio for the theater at reference level vs home consumption at low levels)

All of these types of things come into play and it's why there are audio engineers. Movies have become more complex and are maximized for a theater environment where effects take precedence and you have to listen at near reference level to get the voices at an optimal level.

Getting accurate speakers, setting them up correctly, and using room correction can all help. Also, turn up the volume on the center channel a little.

It's a real problem for a lot of people, however.

 

[FlyingFreak]

In a nutshell:

The microphone(s)/recording quality
Downmixing (from for example 128 channel Atoms to 2.0 stereo)
Speaker Quality
Production Choices (prioritizing audio for the theater at reference level vs home consumption at low levels)

All of these types of things come into play and it's why there are audio engineers. Movies have become more complex and are maximized for a theater environment where effects take precedence and you have to listen at near reference level to get the voices at an optimal level.

Getting accurate speakers, setting them up correctly, and using room correction can all help. Also, turn up the volume on the center channel a little.

It's a real problem for a lot of people, however.

Thanks for summarizing it up!

 

[JSmith]

easier to understand than any Nolan film

JSmith

 

[stringham]

AV Club had a good article about this:

What? Huh? Why your favorite shows and films sound worse than ever

What? Huh? Why your favorite shows and films sound worse than ever

www.avclub.com

 

[rwortman]

Other factors count, but the bottom line is the mix sucks. Badly.

I have a pretty good 5.1 setup (no atmos), and some current shows/movies are excellent. Poker Face for instance. Good surround that fits for the spaces shown, groovy music left and right and easy to understand clear dialog all the way around. Others are hard to understand. Christopher Nolan being a stand out I'd like to bash upside the head and smack some sense into him. He isn't the only one. I have no idea what they think they are doing. Bottom line if you cannot hardly understand the damn dialogue someone has screwed the mix. Whether they did a bad job or were instructed to make it that way it sucks. Some of the worst like Nolan do not sound clear in the theater with the latest Atmos playback. When we maybe need loudness for dialogue due to all the other sounds going on we cannot get it, and in music we have too much we cannot stop them from cramming it into. It is messed up.

Watching HBO, they have a feature you can turn on in settings which I wish others would copy. You can set it so it shows sub-titles any time you hit the 10 second reverse button. It jumps back 10 seconds, shows subtitles for that segment being repeated and then they go away. All the playback software needs that.

Exactly. I turn my center channel up a few db and some things still have the dialog buried in the muck. Others are fine. I think maybe the mix people have the script. It’s easier to hear if you already know what it’s supposed to be.

 

[pablolie]

Found this video on YouTube.
A journalist discussing with a dialog editor and explaining in lay terms what is going on with audio production in the movie industry.
I think it is pretty interesting regarding our hobby.

I stop watching when the audio mix and the "actors" mumble (clearly not with a theater background).

I don't want technology to fix utter lack of talent. Technology should *reveal* it. [Like Autotune, anyone that ever uses it is banned from my playlists, which increasingly narrows down options of course...)

 

[puppet]

I use them ... and has taken awhile to get used to it. As a downside, I find them distracting. Upside is that I can watch some shows or movies that would otherwise be unwatchable as even "english" intelligibility depends on the dialect. I love British shows but admit that parts of England use some slang that would otherwise go right overhead. Same goes for other countries that produce films or shows without trying to cater to an American audience.

So, using subtitles is a compromise but without them I'd still be stuck in my self absorbed "American" reality. It's enlightening to see how other people around the world interact with each other on their own terms.

 

[fpitas]

 

[LouB]

Damm, I thought it was just me ! I've been complaining about dialog sound for a few years and came to the conclusion it's how the director wants it. Why, who knows is it cool ? Not in my book. A lot times the background noise dogs barking, kids crying, somebody shouting from a closed off room is clearer than the people speaking center screen. Also recently there have been a fair share of movies shot in the dark why in the hell would you waste all that time & money to put out a movie you can't see, maybe another lesson in coolness ?

 

[FrantzM]

Hi

A pet peeve of mine... I've come to always use subtitles. and you @Blumlein 88 , please don't get me started on Christopher Nolan . I believe we are a strange disconnect. People in the movies industry are not too clear on what they have to achieve. I sincerely believe the demands are too often contradictory. There is, what I would call, a Youtubization of video production, a YouTube aesthetics and production philosophy... You have those close-up with wide-angle lenses, those "bokeh" simply for the sake of it, those people talking with a dongle microphone as being their trademarks, etc...
I was reading about this in an ( NYT?) article and this actually predate all of these. Back in the early days of non-silent movies, the microphones were not very sensitive and the actors had to shout a bit, theatre-style to make the dialogue heard and intelligible. Technology improved and microphone became more sensitive and the actors ddin't focus so much on their enunciation and speech s... then came sound effects and ..
I don't believe this to be a case of using better speakers and you will get better dialogue... If it is not mixed properly, better speakers will simply reproduce what is in the signal.. low dialogue level that is drowned by the (very entertaining for me) effects and soundtracks. Sometimes you set a good level where dialogue is good and intelligible then... have to precipitously reduce the entire system level because of the effects...And of course you lose the dialogue... If it is one of the latest Christopher Nolan movies, no amount of gain riding and level handling will make the dialogues clear... @Blumlein 88 ...

I believe this issue will soon be addressed, as it has now become mainstream, and no longer the annoyance for a small group of nerds/outliers.

Peace