Hard to pardon: why Tenet's muffled dialogue is a very modern problem

[BluCollector13]

Originally Posted by Dr Lenera

Maybe it's me, or maybe it's where I was sitting..but I had no problem hearing dialogue except for two lines where I may just have temporarily tuned out due to the information overload. Interstellar was another matter though......

Second this.

[thenexus6]

Yeah it's a huge problem in alot of films.. music or sound WAY louder than dialogue I really don't get it.

Another plus of watching subtitled films.

[Mr. Chaverria]

What scenes have people had issues w/ in Nolan films?

People *****ed about Bane but I understood every damn line. I don't remember an issue w/ Interstellar. Or any Nolan film from what I remember. I only saw Dunkirk once but I don't remember any issues w/ sound.

[Adam_ME]

So it wasn't just me. I saw this tonight in IMAX and I really struggled to hear half the dialogue.

[Atomic Salad]

Originally Posted by 49218

I think that Nolan, when it comes to dialogues, wants to replicate the real world, where sometimes we can't really discern everything people say.

Then how come the characters can understand what they are saying to each other?

[Cremildo]

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

I used to be able to understand 99% of the dialogue in Hollywood films. 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. It's gotten to the point where I find myself occasionally not being able to parse entire lines of dialogue when I see a movie in a theater, and when I watch things at home, I've defaulted to turning the subtitles on to make sure I don't miss anything crucial to the plot.

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.

"It's not easy to mix a movie," says Jaime Baksht, who took home an Oscar for his work on last year's excellent "Sound of Metal" and previously worked on Alfonso Cuarón's "Roma." "Everybody thinks you're just moving levers, but it's not like that."

This problem indeed goes far beyond simply flipping a switch or two on a mixing board. It's much more complex than I anticipated, and it turns out there isn't one simple element that can be singled out and blamed as the primary culprit.

"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."

Join me and these industry experts as we sort through that "gumbo" and identify some of the most prominent reasons it has become more difficult to, in the paraphrased words of Chris Tucker's Detective Carter in "Rush Hour," understand the words that are coming out of characters' mouths.

Read More: https://www.slashfilm.com/673162/her..._campaign=clip

[Blasst67]

I was just going to post that link about Movie Dialogue on slashfilm, but Cremildo beat me to it. It is well worth the read.

[Zivouhr]

Originally Posted by jbloggs

Hard to pardon: why Tenet's muffled dialogue is a very modern problem

"Christopher Nolan’s latest blockbuster is already infamous for its barely audible exchanges. As sound technology advances, why are films getting harder to hear?"

https://www.theguardian.com/film/202...und-technology

Interesting point.

The sound mixer and editor have big responsibilities to make the dialog the most important sound in the mix, ducking down all other sounds so that without a doubt, the dialog can be clearly heard even when the characters are whispering.

If the sound is too loud and drowns out the dialog, it ends up being a clumsy situation and looks and sounds unprofessional.

One of the best examples off the top of my head of a great sound mix where the dialog always shines, is in the animated classic GI Joe series 1 from Marvel Animation Studios (not Marvel comics).

G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero | Captives of Cobra: Pt 1 | G.I. Joe Full Episodes - YouTube

Just listen to how strong the audio vocals are in the mix. Great work.

[Noremac Mij]

The quality of 99.9% of modern movies across all technical and artistic standards is in the toilet. So it makes sense that sound is flushed down that same toilet like a floppy turd.

[unberechenbar]

I had trouble with some of Rebecca Ferguson's dialogue in Dune.

[Noremac Mij]

Originally Posted by unberechenbar

I had trouble with some of Rebecca Ferguson's dialogue in Dune.

Sound in Dune and her lines were perfect.

[jess1581]

Movie had nothing worth hearing anyway.

[singhcr]

I haven't watched TENET yet but I had no issues hearing anything in Interstellar or Dunkirk. My only gripe with many modern movies is that the LFE is typically overcooked. Not that it shouldn't get loud, but it is constantly there with even the most minute aspects of the score thumping like crazy.

The Westworld series is one of the worst at this, where I had to drop my subs by 6 dB to get something more approachable.

Another example is Wrath of Man.

An example of a good mix that has dynamic range, powerful base and knows when not to use it is Heat.