Movies Why Movie Dialogue is So Hard to Hear Lately

[SoberChef]

Here's Why Movie Dialogue Has Gotten More Difficult To Understand (And Three Ways To Fix It)

WWW.SLASHFILM.COM

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/Film spoke with several Oscar-winning sound designers, editors, and mixers to learn why it has become tougher to understand what characters are saying.

 

[Greatoneshere]

Which is why I've watched everything with subtitles for years. Helps with old movies too, but the center channel and dialogue took more center stage than the audio/visual onslaught of a lot of today's movies. 

 

I'm so used to subtitles now I don't ever even register them, I know how everything is spelled, and I never miss a thing.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

3 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

Which is why I've watched everything with subtitles for years. Helps with old movies too, but the center channel and dialogue took more center stage than the audio/visual onslaught of a lot of today's movies. 

 

I'm so used to subtitles now I don't ever even register them, I know how everything is spelled, and I never miss a thing.

 

Yup - I turn on the subtitles for EVERYTHING:  TV shows, movies, video games, YouTube videos, etc.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Quote

The anonymous sound pro also pointed to what they view as an increase in the amount of music in modern movies compared to older films, bemoaning directors' over-reliance on music as "pushing emotion" on audiences and the way music and dialogue are forced to jostle for prominence in the mix. 

 

Oh good Christ, yes!

 

Not every bloody scene has to be slathered in music to elicit the appropriate emotional response.

 

If the visuals and actor's dialogue can't carry the scene without music, then the scene simply does not work!

[Jason]

WHAT'S THAT SORRY I COULDN'T HEAR YOU

[DarkStar189]

39 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

Which is why I've watched everything with subtitles for years. Helps with old movies too, but the center channel and dialogue took more center stage than the audio/visual onslaught of a lot of today's movies. 

 

I'm so used to subtitles now I don't ever even register them, I know how everything is spelled, and I never miss a thing.

I like subtitles but sometimes I feel like I'm focusing too much on the words and missing out on facial expressions and such. 

[CayceG]

This was a great article. 

 

It really underscores the classic films I've been watching lately and just how GOOD they are all around. In every facet, the directors of those films (Kurosawa, Orson Welles, Hitchcock) just knew every aspect of filmmaking. 

[Greatoneshere]

9 minutes ago, DarkStar189 said:

I like subtitles but sometimes I feel like I'm focusing too much on the words and missing out on facial expressions and such. 

 

Everyone's different, I grant, and I've always been a fast reader, but watching everything with the subtitles on I believe, over time, will make anyone read fast enough that that stops happening or becomes minimal at best. 

[SoberChef]

Was watching the original "Child's Play" the other night & even with that Blu Ray mix, the line audio was so low whereas any sort of gunfire or action beat was exceedingly loud. Curious if in the physical media market, there's some sort of push to more or less "stay in line" with current "norms" of bad audio?

[Bacon]

While I do watch pretty much everything with subs, reading fast isn't the issue. It is like the subs distract me. Like I must match the audio to the words on screen. I end up watching the subtitles instead of the show. Now it isn't constant issue, but I have had to rewind here and there because I just keep watching the subs until the line is fully voiced. I also hate that captions and subtitles have basically become the same thing. I get distracted by the needless pop-up. I rather have the option for both instead of just the one. I even own movies on blu that do this. They only offer captions. 

[Xbob42]

7 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

Everyone's different, I grant, and I've always been a fast reader, but watching everything with the subtitles on I believe, over time, will make anyone read fast enough that that stops happening or becomes minimal at best. 

I've been watching movies and playing games with subtitles for as long as I can remember and while I can read an entire sentence in the time it takes for me to flick my eyes to the text, it still feels bad having to do that. Like my focus is never truly on the actual scenes. Especially with irregular or surprise dialogue or rapid-fire conversations. Let alone the fact that subtitles often spoil things in advance so it's not fun experientially unless the product has more "active" subtitles that make sure not to show big reveals or anything ahead of time.

 

I've been talking about whisper-acting for years now. I don't have the time to read this article until a little later so I dunno if that's what it's about or if it's just bad mixing, but the split between "can't hear shit and I'm trying really hard to listen" to "explosions and screaming" gives me a headache EVERY time. It's half the reason I barely watch any movies anymore.

[skillzdadirecta]

Between this and films being waaay too dark, it’s almost like filmmakers today don’t know how to actually make movies 

 

Spoiler

A lot of them don’t.

 

[Keyser_Soze]

If you ever made movies in high school you know that on camera audio is trash and that should motivate you to want the be able to have the best sound for dialogue in a movie.

[Greatoneshere]

1 hour ago, Xbob42 said:

I've been watching movies and playing games with subtitles for as long as I can remember and while I can read an entire sentence in the time it takes for me to flick my eyes to the text, it still feels bad having to do that. Like my focus is never truly on the actual scenes. Especially with irregular or surprise dialogue or rapid-fire conversations. Let alone the fact that subtitles often spoil things in advance so it's not fun experientially unless the product has more "active" subtitles that make sure not to show big reveals or anything ahead of time.

 

I've been talking about whisper-acting for years now. I don't have the time to read this article until a little later so I dunno if that's what it's about or if it's just bad mixing, but the split between "can't hear shit and I'm trying really hard to listen" to "explosions and screaming" gives me a headache EVERY time. It's half the reason I barely watch any movies anymore.

 

I can't disagree with the subtitles spoil things part, that's true. Depending on the subtitler who did them, they'll hide spoiler sentences, but this is very inconsistent as you said. I don't know that I feel pulled out of scenes or focus, but I can definitely see that happening. 

 

But you must be a faster reader now than you were when you first started doing that, right? 

[Keyser_Soze]

5 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

I can't disagree with the subtitles spoil things part, that's true. Depending on the subtitler who did them, they'll hide spoiler sentences, but this is very inconsistent as you said. I don't know that I feel pulled out of scenes or focus, but I can definitely see that happening.

 

I think you can generally feel like a big moment is coming and if you do, you can stop reading the subtitles and just listen if you want.

[skillzdadirecta]

Movies are meant to be watched,  not read. I find subtitles to be distracting but I know a lot of people who watch them even when not needed. 

[Jason]

1 hour ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Between this and films being waaay too dark, it’s almost like filmmakers today don’t know how to actually make movies 

 

  Hide contents

A lot of them don’t.

 

 

Darkness is probably explained by them assuming everyone is watching on a top tier perfectly calibrated display. 

[skillzdadirecta]

31 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

Darkness is probably explained by them assuming everyone is watching on a top tier perfectly calibrated display. 

Which is a dumb assumption to make, especially today and with TV shows. Some shows just cannot be watched in the daytime no matter how calibrated your display is unless you have blackout blinds.

[Xbob42]

3 hours ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

I can't disagree with the subtitles spoil things part, that's true. Depending on the subtitler who did them, they'll hide spoiler sentences, but this is very inconsistent as you said. I don't know that I feel pulled out of scenes or focus, but I can definitely see that happening. 

 

But you must be a faster reader now than you were when you first started doing that, right? 

Maybe, but I've been living on gaming forums for two decades and writing thirty paragraph "first impressions" for a while, so the overlap of reading speed skills kind of blurs my ability to perceive my reading speed increases over time.

 

3 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

I think you can generally feel like a big moment is coming and if you do, you can stop reading the subtitles and just listen if you want.

Yeah until they whisper some shit that you can't hear because it's time to get reaaal quiet for some reason. I think I've mentioned it before, but my biggest pet peeve on this isn't even movies, it's fucking podcasts. Jason on Giant Bomb for a while would sort of whisper his actual thoughts on a game or something when they were negative and I could NEVER understand what the hell he was saying. He's gotten a lot better at not doing that over time, though. Please, I'm trying to listen, let me hear you!

 

2 hours ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Which is a dumb assumption to make, especially today and with TV shows. Some shows just cannot be watched in the daytime no matter how calibrated your display is unless you have blackout blinds.

All filmmakers should be forced to watch their own movies on both a shitty $200 Walmart TV and an Obamaphone before releasing it to the public. Not that those are representative of everyone, of course, but when you have to see it on the worst, you can make it much more enjoyable for everyone in the middle!

[Keyser_Soze]

36 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

Yeah until they whisper some shit that you can't hear because it's time to get reaaal quiet for some reason.

 

So you don't want it spoiled but if you can't hear it it's got no impact anyway. 🤔

[Xbob42]

16 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

So you don't want it spoiled but if you can't hear it it's got no impact anyway. 🤔

Yes.

[Moa]

I kind of have to watch everything with subtitles and I absolutely hate it in comedies. I always read the joke before it's spoken and in that half second of lag time the joke loses half of its power. 

[TheLeon]

When I’m at home, I wear headphones while watching pretty much anything. It helps with clarity, so I don’t need subtitles for things in English, except for the occasional very thick accent. 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

29 minutes ago, TheLeon said:

When I’m at home, I wear headphones while watching pretty much anything. It helps with clarity, so I don’t need subtitles for things in English, except for the occasional very thick accent. 

 

At home, I use headphones AND subtitles!

[Keyser_Soze]

18 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

At home, I use headphones AND subtitles!

 

And you probably sit up straight on the couch and have all the lights in the room on.

[skillzdadirecta]

The audio mixer who worked at a post production place I used to work at had all the bells and whistles in his audio room, but right by his desk he had the cheapest, shittyiest speakers he could find. After he would do his mixes he would all was play the final mix back on those as well. He told me that if everything sounded good there,  he knew his mix was good because most people don't have thousand dollar speakers. I never forgot that and always kept that in mind when I had to do simple audio mixes.  Shitty cinematography can be forgiven sometimes but shitty sound always stands out.

[Jason]

4 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

And you probably sit up straight on the couch and have all the lights in the room on.

 

Of course Wade has good posture at all times, and all potentially pleasurable experiences must be that experience's equivalent of boiled chicken. 

[brucoe]

13 hours ago, Greatoneshere said:

Which is why I've watched everything with subtitles for years. Helps with old movies too, but the center channel and dialogue took more center stage than the audio/visual onslaught of a lot of today's movies. 

 

I'm so used to subtitles now I don't ever even register them, I know how everything is spelled, and I never miss a thing.

I seriously rely on both subtitles and a sound bar in order to watch television. I'm not sure how I survived before these two technologies.

[Guest]

11 hours ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Between this and films being waaay too dark, it’s almost like filmmakers today don’t know how to actually make movies 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

A lot of them don’t.

 

I’ll keep trying to find it, but there was a great article about the diminishing average luminance in movies since the late 90s

[DarkStar189]

6 hours ago, TheLeon said:

When I’m at home, I wear headphones while watching pretty much anything. It helps with clarity, so I don’t need subtitles for things in English, except for the occasional very thick accent. 

That's what I have resorted too. Anytime I watch a movie or game alone, it's wireless headphones all the way. 

[brucoe]

34 minutes ago, DarkStar189 said:

That's what I have resorted too. Anytime I watch a movie or game alone, it's wireless headphones all the way. 

I was using noise-canceling headphones myself, but that made it so much easier for the ninjas to sneak up on me at night.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

6 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

And you probably sit up straight on the couch and have all the lights in the room on.

 

1 hour ago, Jason said:

 

Of course Wade has good posture at all times, and all potentially pleasurable experiences must be that experience's equivalent of boiled chicken. 

 

Yes, I do sit straight-up on the couch, primarily because Inuk is lying across 2/3 of it.  And even if he wasn't, I'm not a big fan of lying down to engage with media.

 

I don't have ALL the lights on in the room as that would be waste of electricity, only the kitchen light.

[Jason]

Just now, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

 

Yes, I do sit straight-up on the couch, primarily because Inuk is lying across 2/3 of it.  And even if he wasn't, I'm not a big fan of lying down to engage with media.

 

I don't have ALL the lights on in the room as that would be waste of electricity, only the kitchen light.

 

[Bacon]

I don't lay down on couches either outside of the few times I have slept on one. I sit Indian style pretty much all the time. 

[Bloodporne]

5 hours ago, skillzdadirecta said:

The audio mixer who worked at a post production place I used to work at had all the bells and whistles in his audio room, but right by his desk he had the cheapest, shittyiest speakers he could find. After he would do his mixes he would all was play the final mix back on those as well. He told me that if everything sounded good there,  he knew his mix was good because most people don't have thousand dollar speakers. I never forgot that and always kept that in mind when I had to do simple audio mixes.  Shitty cinematography can be forgiven sometimes but shitty sound always stands out.

I was actually about to reply to another comment with something like this. I used to work at a small recording studio in Jersey and nothing ever left there without the 'shitty computer speakers' and 'car stereo' tests. I would also attribute some of these modern film mixing issues to the Loudness War, I've definitely seen some movies in recent years where I thought fuck everything is just crushed into mush and turned up to 9.5/10. It's exhausting to have to listen to. 

 

Not movies but this truly baffles me in Arkane's games. Their audio mix is always noticeably bad with panning that makes no fucking sense, bizarre mixing, heavy-handed compression on everything. It's especially bad on headphones which is 90% of the time how I play games. 

 

Also my girlfriend watches everything with subtitles and it drives me nuts. I don't get it personally. I'd rather miss a few words here and there and not have them distract me constantly. My eyes are unwillingly glued to the subtitles and I find myself missing acting nuances and set designs etc. regularly.