Wife is watching Agora, a Roman period drama about Hypatia Lee (I think) and it has to be one of the worst offenders of horrible sound… mixing, editing, levelling, whatever.
SCENE: … everybody is whispering… (turn volume UP)
CUT: … HOLY SHIT EVERYTHING IS LOUD!!! (turn volume down)
CUT:… back to the whispering… (reaches for remote, higher, Higher, HIGHER)
CUT: … IT’S A BATTLE SCENE AT 200 DECIBELS, WHERE IS THAT GODDAMNED REMOTE AGAIN!!
Seriously, I left the film after a half-hour 'cause of this. And “Agora” isn’t the only guilty party, that’s for sure. But holy hell, having to adjust the remote every time a scene changes as to keep the volume steady is a pain in the ass.
What other films suffer this stupid affection?
(In the 7 minutes it took me to write this, my wife has adjusted the volume no fewer than 5 times.)
McCabe and Mrs. Miller is mixed so badly, you sometimes–especially near the beginning–can’t make out the main dialogue. That was Robert Altman figuring out his technique, and I still love the film with illogical passion, but dang. That sound is really bad.
What is your surround sound (or lack thereof) set up?
Dialogue is routed through the center channel and other sounds go through (mostly) the front left and right speakers.
If you have full 5.1 surround sound, it could be that wire to your center channel came loose/disconnected. If that happens, people talking at normal or low volume will be very quiet. If you turn up the high enough, you’ll be able to hear them through the side speakers. Then when someone talks loudly, well, it’s really loud.
OTOH, if you’re just using a regular TV with two regular speakers, you may have some kind of virtual surround sound turned on and what you need to do is change it (back?) to Stereo so all the sound is down mixed to the two front channels.
Both of these would be the case if just started happening, but in either case, I’d suggest checking the wire (at both ends) on your center channel if you have surround sound and either way, go back to that movie, back to the problem scene(s) and cycle through the various options. DD, DTS and any other options available (concert hall, movie theater etc).
If you have a receiver, you have some options. You can boost the center channel to start. Some also have a setting to, sort of keep all the volume kind of the same. That way, you can hear what people are saying, but you don’t wake the neighbors three blocks away when a car explodes.
So, the questions are: Do you have a receiver? Do you have surround sound? Do you have 2.1? 3.1? 5.1? Some other variation? Have you tried playing with the surround sound settings in an attempt to fix this (even if it’s just a regular TV with no receiver or extra speakers)? Have you tried or do you have the ability to try watching the movie elsewhere to see if it’s the movie or your setup?
Yes, I hate this too. It’s very annoying. I also use subtitles to try and get around this. TiVo is a wonderful thing for first allowing me to easily skip commercials, which also cause this problem.
Some of the newer T.V.s also have the option to keep sound levels relatively stable. You could try going into your audio settings and checking to see if you have anything that looks likely.
I know that you are talking mainly about the overall dynamic range of the audio volume but this thread reminded me of one of my worst film experiences.
This - this! A million solar masses times this! I did not see Interstellar in the theaters. When I saw it at home I turned captions on after five minutes and restarted the movie. I liked the movie despite its other plot flaws. If I could not read the dialog, I would not have understood a spoken word in the flick, and I’d have hated it with the intensity of a gamma ray burster. The sound design is hostile to the audience.
One that stood out to me in particular was the Batman movie starring Michael Keaton. The sound was at one volume level, and the spoken dialogue was a few notches below that.
I do use captioning/subtitles in all movies/television because of my hearing, and a few people that watched it with me commented that they were previously not even aware that there was dialogue in a few places because it was so quietly spoken. But when they watched it with the words showing up on the screen they became aware of it for the first time. “Huh, I didn’t even know he/she was talking in that scene…” was a very common comment from others.
Briefly sounded interesting until :Theon is gravely injured and Hypatia and the pagans take refuge in the Library of the Serapeum. The Christian siege of the library ends when an envoy of the Roman Emperor Theodosius I declares that the pagans are pardoned, but the Christians shall be allowed to enter the library and do with it what they please. Hypatia and the pagans flee, trying to save the most important scrolls, before the Christians overtake the library and destroy its contents.
The Christians are not to be blamed for any book burning here.
It’s true that they destroyed the Serapeum:“*At the solicitation of Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria, the emperor issued an order at this time for the demolition of the heathen temples in that city; commanding also that it should be put in execution under the direction of Theophilus. Seizing this opportunity, Theophilus exerted himself to the utmost to expose the pagan mysteries to contempt. And to begin with, he caused the Mithraeum to be cleaned out, and exhibited to public view the tokens of its bloody mysteries. Then he destroyed the Serapeum, and the bloody rites of the Mithreum he publicly caricatured; the Serapeum also he showed full of extravagant superstitions, and he had the phalli of Priapus carried through the midst of the forum. *”
But no writer talks about any books or scrolls being burnt- mainly as there werent any- since the Romans sacked and burned it twice before then, and the Serapeum had been converted to a Temple of Mithra. Worshipers of Mithra didnt keep any sacred writings of note in the Mithraeum .
What little was left in the main library was burnt by the Muslims when they conquered
Alexandria.
I have this ‘feature’ on my Vizio. Supposed to prevent commercials from going blaring loud. Doesn’t work worth a shit and also you have to reset it every time you turn on the TV.
Happens every time I select a 1980’s movie On-Demand. Loud as hell when the Tri-Star horse comes running at the screen, then as quiet as a mouse fart for the rest. Checked every setting and could never fix it.
Of course. Just didn’t want you to think I was so clueless that I watched a Roman period drama and mistook it for a biopic on an American exotic dancer.
Just an FYI, Agora is about Hypatia the 4th cent. Greek mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher. Hyapatia Lee is the stage name of a former American exotic dancer, pornographic actress, recording artist, and current writer and author.
This seems to be a thing in older British movies, especially. Hammer horror flicks, for instance. Soft soft soft LOUD AS A BASTARD soft soft soft HOLY DAMN THAT’S LOUD!
While I agree bad mixes fuck up everything and ruin it for the good mixes, I have to say that a quality system properly setup (including the room) that can handle the dynamic range will be both quiet and clear during whispers and loud, without distortion/pain, during explosions. You also have to accept that whispers are in real life hard to hear and explosions hard not to hear.
So in short, get a decent system, set it up properly, treat your room, and a lot of seemingly bad mixes will sound at least acceptable. If not wonderful.
