Why we all need subtitles now?

[LouB]

The whole "I can't hear dialogue" thing anymore is interesting.

There have already been a variety of explanations put forth, and I think perhaps among the most convincing to me is the huge variety in the type and quality of playback systems people are using, as well as that combo with the various sound formats (and increased dynamic range, different micing techniques from the "older days"..).

Just anecdotally, as someone who does post sound work for film/TV, the dialogue in the mixing theaters is virtually always very intelligible. That is literally job one in just about every mix, and usually all sound is subordinate to dialogue quality/intelligibility. We just had a playback of a couple episodes of a Netflix Series I'm doing and, as usual, most of the notes concerned getting the dialogue sounding clear and natural and intelligible (and then music notes...then SFX...)

I usually watch movies in my own home theater and even though I don't listen loud I never have a problem understanding the dialogue. (It's a good room).

I totally get & agree with your explanation but it's absolutely no excuse for a mumbled up mix. I could careless about dynamic range. I can put on a movie from 10-15 years ago like Terminator 2 which has very clear dialog and special effects that sound great and as far as I can tell great dynamic range. Are you saying your now mixing sound for playback on some ultra expensive gear ? I have a 7.1 system all in that cost about 4K and some of the newer mixes dialog wise are crap. I just don't get it.

 

[tmtomh]

The "Nolan Effect" is definitely a thing, and many movie mixes these days definitely sound like are made with little concern for dialogue intelligibility. I liken it to the shift in rock production that seemed to take place from about the late 1960s through to the '70s: vocals out front and generally quite clear with the instruments in a backing role, to heavier instrumentation and vocals often mixed to be co-equal with the instruments instead of standing out from them.

At any rate, this issue with movie dialogue is one of several reasons that I've never integrated my stereo listening system, with my TV setup into a home theater system. I've always kept them separate, and for my TV speakers I alway have chosen small, relatively inexpensive standpoints that offer very good midrange clarity but don't have a lot of bass. I understand and respect that many people like really immersive movie sound, including surround - but for me, most of my TV/movie sound concern is about characters and dialogue, and with a bit less bass, the mids and lower treble become a lot clearer - and a lot of the male mumbly dialogue becomes less chesty and easier to understand.

 

[MattHooper]

I totally get & agree with your explanation but it's absolutely no excuse for a mumbled up mix. I could careless about dynamic range. I can put on a movie from 10-15 years ago like Terminator 2 which has very clear dialog and special effects that sound great and as far as I can tell great dynamic range. Are you saying your now mixing sound for playback on some ultra expensive gear ? I have a 7.1 system all in that cost about 4K and some of the newer mixes dialog wise are crap. I just don't get it.

No. The issue is we can't do a mix to sound right on every single sound system anyone happens to have. A movie or TV show gets a single mix (or, depending, could be more, for instance M&E for foreign, and some movies get a remix for home media release).

Mixes are still often checked on the "cans," (small speakers that mimic a modest system - used to mimic standard TV set sound), but in the end the problem is
that there are just too many different sound systems around. In the days of CRT TVs there wasn't a huge variability in the sound quality, the options weren't there.
But ever since "home theater" devices became the norm (and TVs came with ever more variable sound quality), it's a total crap shoot as to what people are listening on, how well they've set them up, what little setting they may have "wrong" or sub-optimal.

Then COMBINE that with the generally higher dynamic range and, yes, it's a recipe for these troubles. As I said, the number one concern in mixing is usually dialogue quality and intelligibility. But...once out in the wild in people's homes, so many variables.

 

[MattHooper]

I understand and respect that many people like really immersive movie sound, including surround - but for me, most of my TV/movie sound concern is about characters and dialogue, and with a bit less bass, the mids and lower treble become a lot clearer - and a lot of the male mumbly dialogue becomes less chesty and easier to understand.

Ha. Meanwhile, my gripe is that the SFX (especially backgrounds) are often mixed too low in TV shows and movies.

 

[restorer-john]

The "Nolan Effect" is definitely a thing, and many movie mixes these days definitely sound like are made with little concern for dialogue intelligibility. I liken it to the shift in rock production that seemed to take place from about the late 1960s through to the '70s: vocals out front and generally quite clear with the instruments in a backing role, to heavier instrumentation and vocals often mixed to be co-equal with the instruments instead of standing out from them.

At any rate, this issue with movie dialogue is one of several reasons that I've never integrated my stereo listening system, with my TV setup into a home theater system. I've always kept them separate, and for my TV speakers I alway have chosen small, relatively inexpensive standpoints that offer very good midrange clarity but don't have a lot of bass. I understand and respect that many people like really immersive movie sound, including surround - but for me, most of my TV/movie sound concern is about characters and dialogue, and with a bit less bass, the mids and lower treble become a lot clearer - and a lot of the male mumbly dialogue becomes less chesty and easier to understand.

I totally agree with this entire post.

 

[Axo1989]

The whole "I can't hear dialogue" thing anymore is interesting.

There have already been a variety of explanations put forth, and I think perhaps among the most convincing to me is the huge variety in the type and quality of playback systems people are using, as well as that combo with the various sound formats (and increased dynamic range, different micing techniques from the "older days"..).

Just anecdotally, as someone who does post sound work for film/TV, the dialogue in the mixing theaters is virtually always very intelligible. That is literally job one in just about every mix, and usually all sound is subordinate to dialogue quality/intelligibility. We just had a playback of a couple episodes of a Netflix Series I'm doing and, as usual, most of the notes concerned getting the dialogue sounding clear and natural and intelligible (and then music notes...then SFX...)

I usually watch movies in my own home theater and even though I don't listen loud I never have a problem understanding the dialogue. (It's a good room).

The "Nolan Effect" is definitely a thing, and many movie mixes these days definitely sound like are made with little concern for dialogue intelligibility. I liken it to the shift in rock production that seemed to take place from about the late 1960s through to the '70s: vocals out front and generally quite clear with the instruments in a backing role, to heavier instrumentation and vocals often mixed to be co-equal with the instruments instead of standing out from them.

At any rate, this issue with movie dialogue is one of several reasons that I've never integrated my stereo listening system, with my TV setup into a home theater system. I've always kept them separate, and for my TV speakers I alway have chosen small, relatively inexpensive standpoints that offer very good midrange clarity but don't have a lot of bass. I understand and respect that many people like really immersive movie sound, including surround - but for me, most of my TV/movie sound concern is about characters and dialogue, and with a bit less bass, the mids and lower treble become a lot clearer - and a lot of the male mumbly dialogue becomes less chesty and easier to understand.

The beginning of the OP video shows the mildly irritating dude from Vox listening to things on his iPhone (it has the notch anyway, although could be an Android simulacrum) and I'm thinking, ok if you want to listen to a Nolan movie that way and complain about the sound the most polite thing I can do is quote @sweetchaos:

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

I mean Apple make AirPods Pro and Max and Mr Vox has a tech job. Or continue to f*ck yourself and pretend you're a victim not an idiot, personal choice basically. With that off my chest, the video wasn't bad, and the expert interviewee Kendrick was informative and on point.

Now other posters (see above) here have said either 1) Nolan's films are the most egregious examples and they suck or 2) it's basically a case of modern tech: we want naturalism, dynamic range, low distortion and powerful effects including sub-bass in the soundtrack, and the repro system needs to cope.

So the whole thing inspired me to watch Tenet (again) on iPad with AirPods Max.

Spatial audio (aka Atmos) via the binaural down-mix is about as minimalist as you'd want to go. How was it? Just fine. We get dynamic range, low distortion and clearly delineated sub-bass as well as decent spatial soundstage. Dialog intelligibility was just fine with subtitles off. I'm totally ok with Nolan if he wants to set the audio bar higher than the lowest common denominator. For comparison, I didn't have a problem with my stereo system either, but almost no one outside our circle (or the reviled audiophiliacs) will spend that much on speakers et al.

But I'm ok with turning on the subtitles if it's well into thee wee hours and the neighbours are home. And I'm also ok watching/listening to Casablanca or Breathless. But that sound really is shite.

 

[audiofooled]

There are many of Nolan's movies that I love and I have no problem whatsoever with understanding the dialogue. I use my 2.1 DIY system. In my room I get full range sound with great sound stage and imaging and even though everything is only stereo and phantom, I can say that audio is at least carefully mixed. Speech is never masked by any of the ambient noises or loud low frequency effects. When someone is coming in to the scene saying something, his/her voice is nicely panned.
More recently, I watched Dunkirk again. To me, not only speech but everything else about the sound is clear and I really can't fault it. And I tried quiet, as well as "reference" levels. On the other hand, I understand that ambient noises of the movie are such that could easily mask the dialogue and that Tom Hardy is literally wearing one, no pun intended. In recent real life situations I think most of us have, at least once, had hard time understanding people wearing masks. In the movie, I think this is just for the sake of realism.
Anyway, my system is one of a kind so I really don't know what is going on in multichannel reproduction that people are complaining about. But I suspect that it's about the quality and/or setup of the center channel speaker, above all. Possibly it's integration with left and right mains, calibration, room acoustics?
And in theaters, is there even a remote possibility that people bet blasted with so much SPL that they can't even understand each other when they get home?

"According to Sir Kenneth Branagh, roughly thirty Dunkirk survivors, who were in their mid-90s, attended the premiere in London, England. When asked about the movie, they felt that it accurately captured the event, but that the soundtrack was louder than the actual bombardment, a comment that greatly amused writer, producer, and director Christopher Nolan."

Please don't get me wrong, I believe you all saying about this Nolan thing, It's just me having no problem with it. To me, his movies are well worth watching. Dunkirk is a movie about war that never gets ugly. In Tarantino's movies, dialogue is pristine and the greatest, before things inevitably get ugly.

 

[FrantzM]

Hi

Was agreeably surprised by "Wakanda Forever on Disney+. Dialogue was in my system extremely well mixed and the General soundtrackwas there ins pades when needed. Even during the most intense actions scenes dialogues remained clearly and intelligible ...
Good movies BTW.

I like some Christopher Nolan Movies, dialogue intelligibility is an issue in many of these, perhaps the worst is Tenet. The actors mumble for the most part, and there is a low frequency droning that goes on, seemingly, during the entire movie...

OTOH I agree with you, it would not be an hyperbole to qualify "Dunkirk" as a Masterpiece.


Peace.

 

[audiofooled]

I like some Christopher Nolan Movies, dialogue intelligibility is an issue in many of these, perhaps the worst is Tenet. The actors mumble for the most part, and there is a low frequency droning that goes on, seemingly, during the entire movie...

I see what you're saying, I guess his techniques are on a thin line between understanding his artistic intention and having confidence that audio system at hand is actually reproducing it. I mean, during those particular scenes, are you supposed to easily understand the dialogue or is it intentionally subdued by the surrounding effects and unimportant for the plot (because later on there will be lines that will let you know what you need to know, but no sooner than that). I agree that this can be frustrating for the audience and I think that this guy explains it pretty well:

Basically, it seems that Nolan doesn't care if you're not watching his movie in the best, well calibrated movie theater. And in case you're there, you don't get the benefit of a volume control.
To me, at home, the presentation is such that all the (phantom) effects, as well as dialogue are floating mid air with a spatial XYZ so that nothing is masked by anything else and easy to address my attention to. No matter how loud the effects are, in a psychoacoustic way they are somehow steered clear, so If I want to hear what they're saying, I hear it. I'm not saying that this is better than a surround system but at least I don't have any of the center channel problems.

About the movie Tenet, I get his intention when it comes to audio, but it's the other things I dislike, as also explained by the same guy in this other video:

I guess weird concepts are hard to communicate and I like "Inception" and "Interstellar" much better. Sorry to steer away from the subject.

 

[jsilvela]

Saw the recent movie Amsterdam (I highly recommend it) in a stereo system (2 B&W towers).
And for comparison, watched specific sections on my own system (3.1).

The dialog was very clear in both systems, most of the way through. But there were 3 scenes where I had to go back and replay, and finally put the subtitles on to make sure I had understood properly.
Happened on both systems. On the trouble scenes, the actors were speaking with low voice to someone on the side, and the sentences were not short.
So, not much lip reading to help.

Another director that can make movies with unclear dialog is Michael Mann.
E.g. in "Collateral", "The Insider" and "Blackhat", the audio is naturalistic. I speculate that there is very little audio post-production there.
And Mann's movies, IMO, benefit from this. Very atmospheric audio. Sometimes at the expense of clarity.

I guess cinema has moved farther and farther away from theater's "project to the audience!". For good and bad.

 

[LightninBoy]

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 found this video interesting (thanks for sharing) but frustrating in the way most journalism is when it comes to technical topics. No depth. Talk to only one expert. Don't follow up on critical claims.

The bottom line is that this is a *choice* movie producers are making. I think that fact was buried under a bunch of technical details that help explain the process of dialog mixing but does nothing to explain why dialog clarity has gotten *worse* while all the technology to capture, mix, produce, and reproduce dialog has gotten better.

Tenant was one of the worst movie experiences I have ever had because of the sound mix. I watched it in a modern cinema where I've seen many blockbuster movies and never before had any issues with dialog. The claim that Nolan is simply mixing for the best theaters is BS. He's making a choice to prioritize bombast over dialog, and its a stupid choice.

 

[Blumlein 88]

I found this video interesting (thanks for sharing) but frustrating in the way most journalism is when it comes to technical topics. No depth. Talk to only one expert. Don't follow up on critical claims.

The bottom line is that this is a *choice* movie producers are making. I think that fact was buried under a bunch of technical details that help explain the process of dialog mixing but does nothing to explain why dialog clarity has gotten *worse* while all the technology to capture, mix, produce, and reproduce dialog has gotten better.

Tenant was one of the worst movie experiences I have ever had because of the sound mix. I watched it in a modern cinema where I've seen many blockbuster movies and never before had any issues with dialog. The claim that Nolan is simply mixing for the best theaters is BS. He's making a choice to prioritize bombast over dialog, and its a stupid choice.

100% agree. I watched Tenet in a theater and asked for my money back because I couldn't understand enough dialog to keep up with the movie. I was given a pass for a future movie. People need to do this more.

I later watched it at home streaming where I could put on subtitles. I didn't think it was a very good movie even then, but I couldn't say from the theater experience. Plenty of movies sound just fine at home, but too many are simply not well done for dialog intelligibility. I've yet to figure out what kind of artistic statement or added benefit having muddled dialogue is. Unless I hear that he has changed I'll never pay money to see a Christopher Nolan film again for just this reason.

 

[LouB]

I found this video interesting (thanks for sharing) but frustrating in the way most journalism is when it comes to technical topics. No depth. Talk to only one expert. Don't follow up on critical claims.

The bottom line is that this is a *choice* movie producers are making. I think that fact was buried under a bunch of technical details that help explain the process of dialog mixing but does nothing to explain why dialog clarity has gotten *worse* while all the technology to capture, mix, produce, and reproduce dialog has gotten better.

Tenant was one of the worst movie experiences I have ever had because of the sound mix. I watched it in a modern cinema where I've seen many blockbuster movies and never before had any issues with dialog. The claim that Nolan is simply mixing for the best theaters is BS. He's making a choice to prioritize bombast over dialog, and its a stupid choice.

Exactly, I tried to say it in an earlier post (#19) but you said better ! It's a choice & mixing for "best" theaters is total BS. "Too many systems to mix for", "people can't set up there system","dynamic range" ect. are nothing more than excuses for a bad dialog mix. There are a lot of movies made that have good dialog, fantastic sound tracks & special effects. If a producer or director wants good dialog they will get it.

 

[FlyingFreak]

My interest watching the video I posted was, as @Mean & Green mentioned back in #5.

Movies seems to follow theater capability of sound reproduction (and homes?) while music seems to follow the diminishing capabilities of ever smaller everyday devices such as bluetooth speakers and earbuds. I never thought about it.

I was also interested hearing about the mic issues. Not working in the industry, I never thought about the needs for actors to speak clearly and loudly (like the would in a theater) because of what the mics could record and how far they were. Now, they have super sensitive micro mics on every one plus others around and directors can choose to work with 'mumblers' the likes of Tom hardy, which would have simply not been possible.

I wonder if those trends are going to last. At some point we thought movies were going to be taken over by streaming platforms. Seems less clear now.

 

[Inner Space]

Not working in the industry, I never thought about the needs for actors to speak clearly and loudly (like the would in a theater) because of what the mics could record

Depending on circumstances, between 30% and 100% of movie dialog is replaced via ADR, where the relevant actor lip-syncs in a perfect, silent booth, into a studio mike. There's really no issue about capturing sound on location - anything iffy is routinely replaced. The problem with domestic replay usually comes from a streamed multichannel mix being poorly processed or downmixed in the TV or the AVR, and the universally poor standard and deployment of center channel speakers.

 

[Axo1989]

I found this video interesting (thanks for sharing) but frustrating in the way most journalism is when it comes to technical topics. No depth. Talk to only one expert. Don't follow up on critical claims.

The bottom line is that this is a *choice* movie producers are making. I think that fact was buried under a bunch of technical details that help explain the process of dialog mixing but does nothing to explain why dialog clarity has gotten *worse* while all the technology to capture, mix, produce, and reproduce dialog has gotten better.

Tenant was one of the worst movie experiences I have ever had because of the sound mix. I watched it in a modern cinema where I've seen many blockbuster movies and never before had any issues with dialog. The claim that Nolan is simply mixing for the best theaters is BS. He's making a choice to prioritize bombast over dialog, and its a stupid choice.

That video supports Axo's corollary to Betteridge's law of headlines: if a headline starts with "why" then the story won't answer that question.

I never saw Tenet in a theatre, so don't know how that would have gone down. But I'm a sucker for oddball sc-fi so I'd probably love it anyway. My guess is the combination of timey-wimey stuff with obscured dialog in a mainstream big-budget release falls into one of those uncanny valleys. But really, people going backward and forward in time in the same physical space, that was epic. We should have seen that coming after Memento, surely.

 

[audiofooled]

Depending on circumstances, between 30% and 100% of movie dialog is replaced via ADR, where the relevant actor lip-syncs in a perfect, silent booth, into a studio mike. There's really no issue about capturing sound on location - anything iffy is routinely replaced. The problem with domestic replay usually comes from a streamed multichannel mix being poorly processed or downmixed in the TV or the AVR, and the universally poor standard and deployment of center channel speakers.

I agree. And to set aside all the Nolan rant around this thread and elsewhere, (and modern movie mixes in general), there are some fundamental flaws in home theater reproduction regarding center channel speakers and many of them really suck. Erin made a video with some data to support it. Although the data itself is nothing new to the people here at ASR, I couldn't agree more with what he says from 31:59 to 34:10:

Combine this (poorly matched timbre of mains and center) with setup, room acoustics and calibration issues, and you may even get poor on axis performance at MLP. Speech intelligibility is a delicate thing. If one driver is "saying" one thing, the other slightly different, the box a third, reflections a fourth, and the brain is expecting the speech to come from the mouth of the actual performers on screen, what does that leave us with? Yet another circle of confusion?

 

[Blumlein 88]

I agree. And to set aside all the Nolan rant around this thread and elsewhere, (and modern movie mixes in general), there are some fundamental flaws in home theater reproduction regarding center channel speakers and many of them really suck. Erin made a video with some data to support it. Although the data itself is nothing new to the people here at ASR, I couldn't agree more with what he says from 31:59 to 34:10:

Combine this (poorly matched timbre of mains and center) with setup, room acoustics and calibration issues, and you may even get poor on axis performance at MLP. Speech intelligibility is a delicate thing. If one driver is "saying" one thing, the other slightly different, the box a third, reflections a fourth, and the brain is expecting the speech to come from the mouth of the actual performers on screen, what does that leave us with? Yet another circle of confusion?

I don't use one of those wrong headed horizontal center speakers for these reasons. Even sitting dead center from a good speaker too much dialog is not understandable.

 

[Axo1989]

I don't use one of those wrong headed horizontal center speakers for these reasons. Even sitting dead center from a good speaker too much dialog is not understandable.

The last two posts are interesting. When I last had to buy a DAC I chose multi-channel to allow for a surround system, but so far I still use stereo. With a small-medium listening room that setup (≤ 2.5 m stereo triangle in ~4.5m wide room) delivers excellent stereo image (including "solid" centre image, to use the vernacular) with a reasonably accomodating (2-3 person) sweet spot. But there's no extreme L/R seats or multiple rows to consider.

Going back a way I recall some films didn't do the down-mix very well and the centre went AWOL, which sucked. But I think that was certain DVDs and dodgy rips and certainly before the days of ubiquitous streaming, and hasn't happened lately. Given that I'm not experiencing issues even with these "unintelligible" films we've discussed, I'm wondering whether to even aspire to a physical centre speaker (unless I change to significantly wider room at some stage).

I kind of want to do the surround thing at some stage, or at least have that option, so who knows.

 

[Hipster Doofus]

new problem or old problem?
I started learning about this issue when my son mentioned it, so of course I came here to see if it was on the radar of this gang of knuckleheads. It was. So I watched a few video commentators on the topic. Then it got complicated as many issues were presented. Then in my old man way i wanted it boiled down.

so here are my random thoughts on the universe.

1. it seems like there is a lot more content out there then before, not all of which is well produced.
2. Perhaps this was a problem even in the golden age.
3. People now watch things on subway trains, at work, at the park, inside and outside.
4 . People listen on all kinds of equipment.
5. All of us are still as old as our lips but older than our teeth.
6. Video commentators need more things to write about. Like us.
7. We all need generalizations to help talk to other people. Like ….active cultures in yogurt help in the absorption of iron…does it?..my neighbor takes that as gospel.
8. We live in a noisier world. Next time the power goes off and comes back on and you smile as all the house hums to life again.
9. All the new Netflix movies are in foreign language anyway.

that’s enough, time to go back to real problems, like what’s for dinner.