And then there are productions (for example, Greys Anatomy last night) where
during some scenes the editor flicked from camera scene to camera scene
constantly, never letting the viewer settle on anything, totally destroying
what was going on (an operation). There is this false idea that viewers
cant stand to see a scene longer than ½ second, when actually constantly
flitting around can destroy ones concentration. And there are the boring
conversations in which theyll linger on someone while they are speaking a
totally unrealistic dialog trying to interject some sort of emotional strife
which supposedly an audience prefers over how people actually talk. Some
actually teach that garbage as gospel!
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
On Behalf Of Gregg
Sent: Friday, February 18, 2011 6:03 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [AP] A good audio mix is very important.
I finally got around to renting "Inception". I didn't find it confusing, or
surprising. Dream within a dream within a dream within a dream. *yawn* Makes
me sleepy.
What was really horrid was the atrocious audio mix. The voices were so quiet
I had to turn on subtitles to know what was being said. It would've been far
more enjoyable with no background music at all.
There was a constant droning LOUD background "music" running 99.9% of the
time. It was overdriven with lots of clipping, I had to turn it down to save
my speakers.
Did this turkey get any award nominations, or *gasp*, win any awards for its
crappy audio? It's far worse a mix than what I've heard in "mockbuster"
films from The Asylum.
An example of badness from The Asylum's "Allan Quatermain and the Temple of
Skulls"... A long shot of the three main characters walking down a gravel
road. Their crunchy footsteps sound like one pair of feet REALLY LOUD and up
close while their dialog is barely audible.
In extreme contrast, I rented "Scott Pilgrim VS The World" the same day.
Life as a video game, hmmm. The only bit that made me laugh was when Scott
grabbed the 1UP icon out of the air and Neal asks "What are you doing?" to
which Scott replies "Getting a life!". Too much dull, deadpan dialog the
rest of the time. Do I want to find and read the graphic novel it's based
on? Meh.
As for the audio on it, the mix was excellent. 100% of the dialog was
crystal clear. None of what may charitably be considered "music" in it was
constructed with a mission to trash as many home entertainment system
speakers as possible, unlike the entire audio track of "Inception". Was it
that bad in theaters?
I have gone to movies in theaters with very expensive THX certified audio
systems, only to hear the same sort of garbage audio as is on the
"Inception" DVD. Other movies in the same theaters sound great, because the
people who mixed the audio plied their craft well, unlike the flash and bang
tin ears who seem to get the lion's share of the big money work.
Dialog is *extremely important* in a movie. What the characters say is how
the story gets told. If your audience cannot hear every word, you've FAILED
to get the story told.
Volume for the sake of volume is just showing you don't know WTH you are
doing, no matter how long you've been doing audio mixing for movies. Amping
it up so loud that it clips and distorts only irritates people and can
damage speakers. The waves should rise and fall smoothly without slamming
into the boundaries and getting their peaks cut off.
Getting the volume right for the distance of the action from the camera will
greatly add to the illusion of depth. Putting the mic right next to the feet
of the foley artist for people 100 meters away walking on a gravel road just
doesn't work, but turning up the dialog does work for such a scene because
it needs to be heard.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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