Why Movie Dialogue Has Gotten Harder to Understand (slashfilm.com) 180
"I used to be able to understand 99% of the dialogue in Hollywood films," writes professional film blogger Ben Pearson. "But over the past 10 years or so, I've noticed that percentage has dropped significantly — and it's not due to hearing loss on my end...."
Knowing I'm not alone in having these experiences, I reached out to several professional sound editors, designers, and mixers, many of whom have won Oscars for their work on some of Hollywood's biggest films, to get to the bottom of what's going on. One person refused to talk to me, saying it would be "professional suicide" to address this topic on the record. Another agreed to talk, but only under the condition that they remain anonymous. But several others spoke openly about the topic, and it quickly became apparent that this is a familiar subject among the folks in the sound community, since they're the ones who often bear the brunt of complaints about dialogue intelligibility...
"There are a number of root causes," says Mark Mangini, the Academy Award-winning sound designer behind films like "Mad Max: Fury Road" and "Blade Runner 2049." "It's really a gumbo, an accumulation of problems that have been exacerbated over the last 10 years ... that's kind of this time span where all of us in the filmmaking community are noticing that dialogue is harder and harder to understand...."
When it comes to dialogue unintelligibility, one name looms above all others: Christopher Nolan. The director of "Tenet," "Interstellar," and "The Dark Knight Rises" is one of the most successful filmmakers of his generation, and he uses his power to make sure his films push the boundaries of sound design, often resulting in scenes in which audiences literally cannot understand what his characters say. And it's not just audiences who have trouble with some Nolan films: the director has even revealed that other filmmakers have reached out to him to complain about this issue in his movies.... Thomas Curley, who won an Oscar as a production sound mixer on "Whiplash" and previously worked on "The Spectacular Now," has also seen this type of mentality at work. "Not everything really has a very crisp, cinematic sound to it in real life, and I think some of these people are trying to replicate that," he tells me.
Among the other factors: Curley also says that in general there's also a "bit of a fad" with today's actors for "soft delivery or under your breath delivery of some lines." Another sound designer complains today's more-visual movies are more resistant to closely-placed boom microphones — while a sound editor notes issues are exacerbated by compressed shooting schedules. One "high-profile Hollywood sound professional who wishes to remain anonymous even blamed an abundance of new technologies: "more tracks to play with, more options, therefore more expected and asked for from the sound editors... We literally have hundreds of tracks at our disposal."
And after all that, the article adds, movie theaters could also just be showing the movie with volume set too low.
"There are a number of root causes," says Mark Mangini, the Academy Award-winning sound designer behind films like "Mad Max: Fury Road" and "Blade Runner 2049." "It's really a gumbo, an accumulation of problems that have been exacerbated over the last 10 years ... that's kind of this time span where all of us in the filmmaking community are noticing that dialogue is harder and harder to understand...."
When it comes to dialogue unintelligibility, one name looms above all others: Christopher Nolan. The director of "Tenet," "Interstellar," and "The Dark Knight Rises" is one of the most successful filmmakers of his generation, and he uses his power to make sure his films push the boundaries of sound design, often resulting in scenes in which audiences literally cannot understand what his characters say. And it's not just audiences who have trouble with some Nolan films: the director has even revealed that other filmmakers have reached out to him to complain about this issue in his movies.... Thomas Curley, who won an Oscar as a production sound mixer on "Whiplash" and previously worked on "The Spectacular Now," has also seen this type of mentality at work. "Not everything really has a very crisp, cinematic sound to it in real life, and I think some of these people are trying to replicate that," he tells me.
Among the other factors: Curley also says that in general there's also a "bit of a fad" with today's actors for "soft delivery or under your breath delivery of some lines." Another sound designer complains today's more-visual movies are more resistant to closely-placed boom microphones — while a sound editor notes issues are exacerbated by compressed shooting schedules. One "high-profile Hollywood sound professional who wishes to remain anonymous even blamed an abundance of new technologies: "more tracks to play with, more options, therefore more expected and asked for from the sound editors... We literally have hundreds of tracks at our disposal."
And after all that, the article adds, movie theaters could also just be showing the movie with volume set too low.
More, and plenty of it. (Score:5, Funny)
One "high-profile Hollywood sound professional who wishes to remain anonymous even blamed an abundance of new technologies: "more tracks to play with, more options, therefore more expected and asked for from the sound editors... We literally have hundreds of tracks at our disposal."
Ah, the same kind of thinking goes on behind Linux UI design. This is why 2022 will be the year of...better dialogue sound.
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If you don't want a full proper sound system, get a soundbar. And it MUST be a 5.1 or better. (though there are few 3.1s out there) You need to have the center channel be separated out. The rear surround channels and the subwoofer are optional, but
Re: More, and plenty of it. (Score:3)
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It's the same with digital colouring. It's massively overused now, leading to phenomena like "shithole colouring". No sign of it going away either.
Subtitles on by default (Score:5, Informative)
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I'm got so used to having subtitles on I've got to remind myself to check if the dialogue is ok without them.
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I'm got so used to having subtitles on I've got to remind myself to check if the dialogue is ok without them.
Watch the movie Snatch [wikipedia.org] on DVD with the "Pikey" subtitle track on, which only shows subtitles for the character Mickey (Brad Pitt), and you'll see that sometimes even it doesn't know what he's saying.
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I read that younger viewers are a lot more likely to use subtitles and don't mind them at all. Something to do with how like consume media, mobile devices etc.
It's been great for non-English movies and TV shows.
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"You're already crazy for wasting your life watching the re-factored garbage that passes for cinema story telling these days."
He says in a random drive by act of trolling.
No wonder!!! (Score:3)
Re:No wonder!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: No wonder!!! (Score:2)
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Theaters with low volume? (Score:5, Insightful)
If theaters turned the volume up any higher, the theater floor would be slick with the blood of ruptured eardrums. It's already painful. Loud does not equal intelligible, beyond a certain volume it becomes less intelligible.
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I feel like an old man saying this, but they need to turn the subwoofers way down. Then maybe they could turn the rest of it up.
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I am an old man saying this.
If I watch a movie made in the 70s or earlier, I have no problem hearing the dialog. Newer movies, it's very hard to pick it out of all the background noise. Have the same problem hearing an individual speak while in a big loud crowd. Could be the 55 years of motorcycles, helicopters, and airplanes tho!
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All the years of playing that cannon during the 1812 overture did it as well.
trun up the center channel! (Score:2)
trun up the center channel!
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The subs aren't the problem. Speech is mostly well above that range, in the low kilohertz.
The problem is the same one that affects music - the loudness war. The "wall of sound" effect grabs the attention, but it's hard to make it any individual instrument, or in the case of movies the dialogue.
Re: Theaters with low volume? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Curley also says that in general there's also a "bit of a fad" with today's actors for "soft delivery or under your breath delivery of some lines."
Much of my problem with Dune's dialog was the fact the actors were nearly whispering their lines.
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The Dune I saw had perfectly understandable dialog (well the english parts) but some of the effects and music was so loud that I was uncomfortable. And I'm the guy who's always in the front row of a Slayer concert.
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The audience is now deaf: Simpsons THX [youtube.com]
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Loud does not equal intelligible
Try telling that to the English speaker on vacation abroad.
My personal hypothesis (Score:5, Insightful)
They just want to cover up that the dialogues become worse and worse over time, to the point where if it wasn't for the explosions and effects, we could as well watch a silent movie.
But then, the audience would slumber away long before the end.
Re:My personal hypothesis (Score:4, Funny)
Oh, that'll happen, then the subtitles would look like comic book dialogue. *POW!* *BAM!* *POOF!*
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That would be a good theory if the worst offenders in this regard didn't create complex movies which rely heavily on dialogue in order to be coherent.
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Just because the story would require complex dialogue doesn't mean that the writers have any clue how to write them.
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Except they do. The stories and their dialogue is perfectly fine when you turn subtitles on.
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Why, China doesn't like people talking coherently?
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I'm fairly sure that they'll dub it for the Chinese market anyway, so why bother?
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True, it's been a while since I've seen a decent political thriller...
I guess Michael Bay's explosive braindead movies are a-ok with China.
a "bit of a fad" with today's actors... (Score:5, Informative)
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Actors? It's not the actors who decide how to deliver lines. They are directed to act in a certain way.
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... for "soft delivery or under your breath delivery of some lines." --- You mean like the "bit of a fad" for low-contrast, nearly unreadable text on some websites?
I was thinking more along the lines of having every scene being 75% or more black shadows. The amount of darkness in movies is pathetic. They spent all that money to create the scene then make it nearly pitch black so you can't see any of it. Are they trying to cut costs?
Whatever (Score:3)
I didn't understand anything in this summary. But anyway, I thought it was to do with audio compression. Oh well.
Centre channel wasted (Score:3)
There is supposedly a whole channel (centre) for the dialogue, and still they (producers and directors) are muddying the mix up because of _reasons_. Hilariously tragic. The pushback from sound department should be harder, but audience is still too happy to have enough actual push or they just do not care. No change visible in the near future I fear.
Re: Centre channel wasted (Score:2)
More channels (surround etc) were inteoduced to have a better sound. Now that is being annulledâ¦
A common pattern (Score:2)
As the technology to address a problem improves instead of solving a problem it often stays the same or worse as people demand more.
When power generation improved instead of removing power shortages we created more electricity intensive devices.
Modern car safety features have enabled more dangerous modern driving habits.
And now, improved microphones, speakers, and digital sound editing capabilities, have caused filmmakers to push sound quality in a way they never would have previously.
Certainly, this time f
Interstellar's sound design was shit (Score:3)
Yes the vocals were subpar but the music was mixed so loud and grating that nobody could hear anything.
Critics raved and gave awards to the sound designer because it was so edgy and mysterious!
This is why nobody goes to the movies anymore.
The Realists have ruined film. Some of your favorite movies are closer to stage than real life. It's a story for gods' sake.
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Interstellar sounds okay in a theatre with perfectly calibrated sound, if you sit in the sweet spot.
For the 99.9% of viewers not in that position it sucks.
Subtitles FTW (Score:4, Informative)
This has been a problem for years. I can't remember the last time I didn't watch a movie without subtitles on, outside of a theater.
Authentic dialogue? (Score:5, Informative)
Among the other factors: Curley also says that in general there's also a "bit of a fad" with today's actors for "soft delivery or under your breath delivery of some lines."
This is what I thought the article would be about, especially after the critical success of HBO's The Wire. The tendency is towards more authentic dialogue & natural speech contains a lot of utterances that are difficult to hear in any dialect. David Simon, the writer & producer of The Wire, hired speech & dialect specialists to re-write much of his scripts to turn them into more authentic Baltimore dialogues. Loads of people who loved the series admitted that they had subtitles on in order to understand it.
But yeah, if the sound editing 'hides' the speech, that can't help. I've noticed that in a lot of more recent films & TV series, the volume of the speech compared to ambient sounds is pretty low. If you turn up the volume to hear the dialogue better, the sound effects can be deafeningly loud.
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Maybe its because the editors and directors don't think the actors have anything to say worth listening to.
You wouldn't do Shakespeare this way; Shakespeare wrote in a dialect which is barely intelligible to modern audiences so actors trained to present Shakespeare, like Ian McKellan or Patrick Stewart, wring every bit of intelligibility out of a line through enunciation and projection, even when they're acting in movies. If you read Romeo and Juliet, much of it seems almost gibberish, but the very same l
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Not just actors. One of the current gen Z pop singers, Billie Eilish has what I would describe as a remarkably weak voice. Put the current crop of vocalists next to the likes of Freddie Mercury or Whitney Huston (pre-cocaine) and compare.
ST:D is an example of both (Score:5, Insightful)
I've noticed while watching Star Trek Discovery I can't understand what the actors are saying sometimes, too. It's a combination of actors talking under their breath/muttering their lines, and the center (dialogue channel) being mixed too cold. I'm also convinced the common software algorithms used in streaming media players all do an absolutely shitty job of downmixing the Dolby multi-track audio (however many speakers it's up to these days) down to stereo. So, unless you're watching on a home theater setup where you can individually raise the volume of the center channel, you're stuck with a mix that's impossible to hear when the actors are talking and way too loud when things start exploding.
Re: ST:D is an example of both (Score:2)
Something is wrong with either that show or Paramount+, because the audio sounds too compressed.
I'll look up to catch the subtitles because I missed something and swear to god thought they were in a suit using suit intercoms or something, and they'll be standing right there on the bridge. Every episode is like this. I really don't think it's an intentional effect, unless the scene actually has everyone in space suits.
Re: ST:D is an example of both (Score:2)
PS, sorry for pointing it out because it's one of those things you'll probably hear all the time after thinking about it :/ I close my eyes and pretend they're doing a spacewalk and forget about it for a bit.
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That's funny, I was going to mention Discovery as an example of how you do it right. There is a lot of ambient sound on the ships, but they make sure the dialogue is super clean and intelligible.
Makes me wonder if your system is not set up right. Downmixing to stereo can destroy dialogue if not done right.
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watching at home even worse (Score:5, Insightful)
As home viewer, i notice a lot of movies often apparently initially mix their sound for surround sound, but then happily mix that down to a single stereo track, making me jump of my chair on quite an occasion, to turn the volume knob down. And up a minute later to hear the dialogue. A dozen times per movie, if not more, on some movies.
The sound technician might have done a wonderful job, but post production happily screws it up.
There's a fine broad line between over-compressed audio and a dynamic experience. But there's no legit reason why sound effects should be 20 decibels louder than dialogue.
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As home viewer, i notice a lot of movies often apparently initially mix their sound for surround sound, but then happily mix that down to a single stereo track, making me jump of my chair on quite an occasion, to turn the volume knob down. And up a minute later to hear the dialogue. A dozen times per movie, if not more, on some movies.
If you use mplayer, -af volnorm can do a reasonable job at automating that.
dynamic range (Score:2)
I think what the article mentions about use of microphones, and having too many tracks are pretty valid. The other thing is that theater sound systems offer a large dynamic range of volume. In the theater you are typically in a sound insulated room and the sound track is played at high volumes, quite different than the typical living space at home. I usually don't have too much trouble hearing things in the theater, but watching at home I do for sure.
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I find it interesting that while movies have gained dynamic range, perhaps too much dynamic range, pop music is compressed to extremely limited dynamic range. I have to wonder what psychological effect that has, does hearing every sound at the same volume in music set your expectation for movies?
When you compare dubbed soundtracks... (Score:2)
There is absolutely no magic to this, it is not about bad equipment, how the actors speak or which channels are mixed what way, it is just about the ratio of dialog volume to everything else.
Taking "Tenet" as an example: When I raise the volume to a level where the dialog becomes intelligible, the sound from my sub-woofer starts to open my cupboards and my ears
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No point in dialogue if I can't hear it (Score:5, Insightful)
If the actress is speaking and can't hear her, why bother having the dialogue?
Also, since we are complaining about audio, why do movies need to get exponentially louder for certain scenes? I don't have any desire for explosions to be sent out at higher decibels then the rest of the audio. I'm watching a show/movie, not living the experience...
Commercials do this shit as well. You'll be watching something and then a commercial comes on and even though you haven't touched the controller, it's much louder then the show/film you were watching. Screw that. Luckily I don't have to see to many commercials anymore, so this is less of an issue then it use to be.
I use a sound compressor (Score:2)
I've always found music and sound effects seem to overwhelm dialog but I've been watching movies and TV shows with sound compression and this eliminates the issue. If there is a fidelity issue when doing this, I haven't noticed and don't care what I'm missing. It feels natural and I don't have to strain to catch anything.
I wish podcasts would compress their audio more because different speakers are at different levels and these are amateurs not audio engineers so it's understandable. It would be nice if pod
Took 'em this long? (Score:2)
... to figure out that they play the background music and noise too loudly? The music especially, I turn up the volume to hear the dialog, then the damn music starts blasting loud enough to wake the dead...
Dune (Score:2)
> Curley also says that in general there's also a "bit of a fad" with today's actors for "soft delivery or under your breath delivery of some lines."
Dune, I'm looking at you! I'm glad I watched it at home with subtitles, if I had seen it in a theater I probably would have only understood one line.
Giant Conspiracy Theory (Score:2)
Tinseltown Theory:
Productions that “travel” i.e.non-U.S. distribution can make more revenue for studios than home country audiences.
Trend years past has been tentpole productions and anime digital works that can overdub affordably for the greatest ROI.
Today Hollywood expects technology will automate the process of making its content cheaper for wider distribution growing their profit margins.
HENCE, BabyBoomers are aging out with hearing loss, GenX have concert hearing tinnitis and millennials do
Another factor (Score:2)
Back when things were still all analog, theaters did not have amazing sound systems. There wasn't this Dolby certification and THX certification and all this other stuff. Then when VHS came along and the home consumer market boomed, it was even worse - nearly all TVs had just one single speaker (which wasn't even centered in the middle of the TV).
The important bits of movie audio, especially speech, had to stand out very far above to be heard clearly. So it was mixed in that way, intended for use on myriad
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Hardware issues? (Score:2)
Don't know about movie theatres my experience in home audio has been results vary wildly by gear.
I can play the same exact content on different systems on some it sounds fine all the time on others you have to strain yourself to understand literally anything.
Sometimes it can be fixed by doing fold down in software and shipping PCM to speakers instead of passing codec thru. In one case I can remember very little working (Soundbar...) like some manner of DRC issue where you sometimes can't hear what anyone i
Pirates of the Caribbean (Score:3)
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Sound editors? (Score:2)
WTF are those?
Half the TV series seem to be on auto, as soon as everybody shuts up, the mic sensitivity automatically goes up and you hear every highway in the distance and 326 birds singing just just be strangled off again as soon as somebody says something.
Re:What the fuck are you talking about (Score:5, Interesting)
It says it in the first paragraph: the author is not hearing the dialogue clearly and it is not due to hearing loss. For example, Bane in the The Dark Knight Rises was hard for some people to hear in the theaters. For home release they mixed his dialogue better. That was once an outlier but is starting to become more of a problem.
In some cases, my opinion it is directors copying a fad and not doing it well. They are scenes where you are not supposed to hear the dialogue; A classic example is when Michael is about to kill Sollozzo in The Godfather. Sollozzo is clearly speaking but you cannot hear him over the sound design. But like shaky cam became all the rage in action movies after the Bourne movies, not all directors use it effectively.
Re:What the fuck are you talking about (Score:5, Informative)
That trend reduced the dynamic audio range. Now apparently they're trying to increase the dynamic range again, though emphasizing the *wrong* things.
Suffering from some moderate tinnitus since I was a teen I know very well what kind of issues can arise by trying to communicate with people that tend to mumble in a noisy environment. In technical terms SNR gets so low that you can't filter out what they say anymore.
I suppose replicating something like that could be seen as realistic. But then again, when it comes to entertainment, not every single aspect of reality is a good addition.
Re:What the fuck are you talking about (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What the fuck are you talking about (Score:5, Interesting)
It's quite annoying to me, even though I haven't seen a movie in years. Though I remember an occurrence in the first season of HBO's True Detective, when the two protagonists were having a conversation during a car ride.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
The bandwidth of the actor's voices, combined with the dialect that's used, there has some significant overlap with the background noise from the car.
When you stream something it's not a super big deal, because you can pause, rewind and rewatch it (possibly with sub-titles), but in a theatre? That doesn't work.
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That trend reduced the dynamic audio range. Now apparently they're trying to increase the dynamic range again, though emphasizing the *wrong* things.
Quite. They want super cinema SUPER LOUD explosions, which means by comparison the speech is much quieter. Also, mumbling over high background noise. It's not nearly so bad in the cinema where the sound system is huge and does support a high dynamic range with really high quality and speech and background can make use of the rather advanced surround sound syste
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Quite. They want super cinema SUPER LOUD explosions, which means by comparison the speech is much quieter. Also, mumbling over high background noise. It's not nearly so bad in the cinema where the sound system is huge and does support a high dynamic range with really high quality and speech and background can make use of the rather advanced surround sound system. Then they just encode just that for streaming and kick it out the door. Except me, like most of the rest of the population doesn't have a home cinema with a very expensive audio setup and it's barely intelligible.
The low frequency crap is stored in a separate channel and boosted a full 10 db above main channel. On low end gear this channel is simply ignored.
It does seem like stereo fold down is plain broke on some systems. The best option where possible is to switch the audio stream to one that best matches your speaker setup.
Re:What the fuck are you talking about (Score:5, Insightful)
Viewer turns up the volume on his TV to hear the dialog.
Scene suddenly changes to a construction worker with a jackhammer on a busy street during the daytime. Speakers and eardrums are blown.
Sound designers: Stop doing this shit!
Re:What the fuck are you talking about (Score:5, Insightful)
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This. Not only on streaming, but also on Bluray, DVD and TV.
Even with a good sound system, you probably don't want to turn up the volume hight enough to clearly understand the dialoge, because the special effects are too loud.
Subtitles are fine, if done well. They also give you a visual clue when to listen and teach kids spelling. What's not to love?
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Rokus have two features that help with this. The first is audio leveling to smooth out those high transitions, the second is speech boost which boosts the volume of talking and it works really well.
I just wish they didn't have to come up with kludges because Hollywood wants to force you to watch a movie in a way that most don't appreciate anymore.
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Subtitles are fine, if done well. They also give you a visual clue when to listen and teach kids spelling. What's not to love?
If they are done well, they are awesome.
E.g. {Piano playing name of tune}
They can add so much to a movie or TV show.
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Nah, takes away from the cinematography if you're constantly focused on the lower half of the screen, you may as well read the script at that point. You also miss the opportunity to see the actors doing what they do best. You can't see the venom in someones eyes as they deliver a line if you're looking at the bottom of the screen.
There is often more dialogue being said than can be displayed for a readable amount of time as well, a lot of words are dropped for brevity or, worse, lines of text flashing in and
Re:What the fuck are you talking about (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What the fuck are you talking about (Score:4, Funny)
The solution here is obvious, the two characters in the bedroom should have done some jack hammering before the scene ended.
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Re: What the fuck are you talking about (Score:3)
Whit yer talking bout bawbags? Away an boil yer heid!
Re: What the fuck are you talking about (Score:3)
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Had this problem with Tenet at home. The problem occurs in scenes where people are wearing gas masks/respirators, which is a lot of scenes, and Nolan wants the "realism" of everyone having their voice muffled.
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I think it is two things, modern mics are designed to pick up the entire sound spectrum including noise. I think in the days of analog, mics were tuned to pick up human voice a bit better than everything else because post processing out noise was harde
Re:What the fuck are you talking about (Score:5, Funny)
Looks like the article is a self-fulfilling prophecy! Nobody can understand what they're saying.
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Combine all this with the fact that you posted to /. from (apparently) an Apple device and your dialog is littered with "â(TM)" and I can't even understand what *you* are saying ... :-)
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Second comment in and we're already in conspiracy lalaland?
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I can debunk the adrenochrome thing by stating one simple fact: it's easily synthesized and commercially available.