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Author |
Mumbling in Movies... (currently 2215 views) |
Scar Tissue Films |
Posted: January 16th, 2019, 3:29pm |
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Posts3382 Posts Per Day 0.63 |
Anyone else notice that films are increasingly plagued by actors mumbling whole scenes of dialogue?
It seems to be reaching epidemic levels.
It's a problem compounded by music levels and atmospheric effects being incredibly loud.
Starting to put me off films altogether tbh.
I did a Google and noticed it's a pretty common complaint. |
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FrankM |
Posted: January 16th, 2019, 4:26pm |
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January Project Group
LocationBetween Chair and Keyboard Posts1447 Posts Per Day 0.63 |
What? Mummies? I can't hear you over these explosions and background music... I hadn't noticed this getting any worse lately, but that's probably because my hearing is especially bad at picking voices out of background noise. Now everyone else will know what it's been like for me Everything I watch at home has the closed captions turned on. An alternative or complement would be cranking up the center channel of a decent sound system. |
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Gum |
Posted: January 16th, 2019, 5:00pm |
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Been Around
LocationSome travelling Circus... Posts832 Posts Per Day 0.42 |
Yeah, you’re not alone. I can’t understand a damn thing anyone is saying anymore, it’s like they’re speaking Gaelic or Norse.
That’s why Netflix is king, they have subtitles for everything, which I just leave on now… indefinitely. Except when they do stupid things like release ‘Solo’ in the Canadian French version a week ahead of the English version; I don’t speak French. I thought no worries, I’ll just put on the subtitles, they’re speaking English anyway… subtitles were in French. |
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eldave1 |
Posted: January 16th, 2019, 5:12pm |
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January Project Group
LocationSouthern California Posts6874 Posts Per Day 1.95 |
Concur!!
It makes me wonder, does anyone who makes these things listen to them in a room first - isn't that what effing sound editing is for.
Thank God at home I can watch with captions. |
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stevie |
Posted: January 16th, 2019, 5:17pm |
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Of The Ancients
LocationDown Under Posts3441 Posts Per Day 0.61 |
Maybe caused by too many orphans in the dialogue? |
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eldave1 |
Posted: January 16th, 2019, 5:48pm |
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January Project Group
LocationSouthern California Posts6874 Posts Per Day 1.95 |
Maybe caused by too many orphans in the dialogue? |
Ahhh - yes. |
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Heretic |
Posted: January 16th, 2019, 8:35pm |
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January Project Group
LocationVancouver, British Columbia, Canada Posts2023 Posts Per Day 0.28 |
How many people experience this problem at the theatre?
I've noticed the same thing at home, but I don't remember ever having trouble hearing the dialogue in theatres (of course, half the time that's because they're just too loud throughout).
Curious if the apparent rise in these complaints is due to less-than-ideal home viewing setups and to quality, compression, and format issues with digital and especially streaming files. |
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Reply: 6 - 20 |
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eldave1 |
Posted: January 16th, 2019, 8:43pm |
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January Project Group
LocationSouthern California Posts6874 Posts Per Day 1.95 |
How many people experience this problem at the theatre?
I've noticed the same thing at home, but I don't remember ever having trouble hearing the dialogue in theatres (of course, half the time that's because they're just too loud throughout).
Curious if the apparent rise in these complaints is due to less-than-ideal home viewing setups and to quality, compression, and format issues with digital and especially streaming files. |
I'm beginning the think they just don't give a shit. |
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Scar Tissue Films |
Posted: January 17th, 2019, 7:02am |
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Posts3382 Posts Per Day 0.63 |
I've noticed it in cinemas/theatres (Here's looking at you Christopher Nolan!) but it's definitely more of a problem at home.
It's a combination of several things:
1. Acting. There's a new mumbling style that's become fashionable. It's so prevalent the head of the BBC informed directors to stop actors mumbling because they'd received so many complaints.
It's particularly bad in intimate/key scenes where the actors are imparting the emotional core of the story...and all you can hear. is bmmmff bmmmmf lmmmf.
It's ironic that character based dramas that rely on talking are the worst culprits. They are becoming unwatchable without subtitles.
2. Sound not being optimised to TV screens/Soundbars etc...though it's a problem on even really expensive surround sound systems. Even if you set individual levels, raising the sound of the central speaker and turning down the surround...the mumbling just gets louder, not clearer...
3. Music and Effects that are mastered to be as loud as possible and override all the dialogue.
I find I have to watch a film with remote in hand: Dialogue scenes need to be up in the thirties to hear, scenes with music have to be as low as 8 to be bearable. There's just a massive discrepancy between the two.
This might be a symptom of the "Loudness" problem with modern music...the complaint that all music is mastered to be as loud as possible at the expense of dynamic range so it stands out on the radio.
4. Plain old bad sound mixing. Directors and editors who know the lines inside out are not realising the dialogue is incomprehensible or they are simply not taking the time to mix the levels properly...it's not something that effects old movies...so it's clearly a problem in the modern process.
Whatever is causing it, it's a problem that's getting worse.
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eldave1 |
Posted: January 17th, 2019, 11:45am |
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January Project Group
LocationSouthern California Posts6874 Posts Per Day 1.95 |
I find I have to watch a film with remote in hand: Dialogue scenes need to be up in the thirties to hear, scenes with music have to be as low as 8 to be bearable. There's just a massive discrepancy between the two.
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YES! Me and wife watching movie. WIFE Could you turn it down, please? Moments pass. WIFE Could you turn it up, please. Rinse and repeat. |
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FrankM |
Posted: January 17th, 2019, 12:11pm |
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January Project Group
LocationBetween Chair and Keyboard Posts1447 Posts Per Day 0.63 |
YES!
Me and wife watching movie.
WIFE Could you turn it down, please?
Moments pass.
WIFE Could you turn it up, please.
Rinse and repeat.
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Just get a second remote. Nothing could possibly go wrong. |
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Gary in Houston |
Posted: January 17th, 2019, 12:52pm |
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January Project Group
LocationTexas Posts1306 Posts Per Day 0.32 |
Can you guys give some specific examples of this, because I guess I haven’t noticed it. But I also play movies at about rock concert volume levels on my Telly. |
| Some of my scripts:
Bounty (TV Pilot) -- Top 1% of discoverable screenplays on Coverfly I'll Be Seeing You (short) - OWC winner The Gambler (short) - OWC winner Skip (short) - filmed Country Road 12 (short) - filmed The Family Man (short) - filmed The Journeyers (feature) - optioned
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Reply: 11 - 20 |
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Scar Tissue Films |
Posted: January 17th, 2019, 1:15pm |
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Posts3382 Posts Per Day 0.63 |
I first noticed it in Brokeback Mountain.
Heath Ledger was just mumbling all the way through.
It currently infests every BBC Drama. The worst was Eddie Redmayne in Birdsong.
It's a problem in almost all Christopher Nolan films...usually just some actors.
Tom Hardy is perhaps the main culprit. In a recent series, Taboo, he was almost impossible to understand.
Rampage in A Team.
I started the thread after watching about three films in a row that were like this, with the last: A low budget film called the Ballerina, taking it to ridiculous levels. The actors mumbled and whispered through the main emotional scene that described the backstory. Even if you were sat next to them, you wouldn't have been able to understand it. I had to go on Wikipedia to read what the plot was about so I could essentially ignore the actual film.
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eldave1 |
Posted: January 17th, 2019, 1:18pm |
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January Project Group
LocationSouthern California Posts6874 Posts Per Day 1.95 |
Just get a second remote.
Nothing could possibly go wrong.
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Funny! |
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Reply: 13 - 20 |
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eldave1 |
Posted: January 17th, 2019, 1:21pm |
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January Project Group
LocationSouthern California Posts6874 Posts Per Day 1.95 |
Can you guys give some specific examples of this, because I guess I haven’t noticed it. But I also play movies at about rock concert volume levels on my Telly. |
Colin Farre - In Bruges. Great movie if you watch it with close caption. Undecipherable if you don't. Bohemian Rhapsody a great example of the volume thing. |
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