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This topic comprises 5 pages: 1 2 3 4 5
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Author
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Topic: Movies are WAY too loud!
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William Kucharski
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 244
From: Louisville, Colorado, United States of America
Registered: Oct 2012
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posted 01-31-2018 07:24 PM
I've said this before, but if a theater isn't showing movies at reference level, I'm not going to return to that theater unless I have to.
Low sound levels are one reason why I more often wait to see a movie on home video, when I can actually listen to a movie at the proper volume. The only theater near me that comes anywhere close to proper sound levels is the Regal IMAX Colorado Center.
In the past few years the only theaters in my experience that regularly seem to actually play films at their proper volume levels are the ArcLight in Hollywood and one spectacular evening I got to watch a movie at the main Paramount screening room. (An experience I will never, ever forget as it is likely to be the only time I ever get to see a theatrical film presented as intended with the right sound level, the right brightness, perfect focus, no bleed-through from the theater next door, etc.)
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 02-01-2018 02:02 AM
quote: William Kucharski
I'm one of those who believes there is no such thing as "too loud" unless the system is being overdriven and can't handle it.
But that's why I always loved THX theaters where they were supposed to always show films at reference level.
Ironically, I bet the volume at which you heard that Transformers film is what I would have heard in the screening room at Paramount, given that's where Michael Bay screens.
Obviously, there is something like "too loud". Many of the better designed systems have sufficient headroom to drive sound at levels it actually becomes a health risk.
Many jurisdictions even limit the amount of sound pressure per time interval you may expose people to. Exceeding those levels can, in some cases, be seen as an offense or depending on the case and jurisdiction even be considered a criminal case.
I like to play movies the way the director intended them to be, in a correctly calibrated room where "7.0" meets the specs. This does have a limit though. If the intended volume hits a pain-threshold at the larger public and if it's actually a health risk for their hearing, I'm not going to follow the director's/sound designer's (most likely unintentional) wacky vision of a population with hearing aids.
Also, even between two perfectly calibrated rooms, "7.0" may not sound exactly like "7.0" for every soundtrack, even if there is a THX label on it.
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Scott Jentsch
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1061
From: New Berlin, WI, USA
Registered: Apr 2003
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posted 02-02-2018 09:23 AM
Even the premium theaters around here are unimpressive when it comes to sound, so I haven't encountered a situation where a theater was too loud. The good news is that I haven't encountered a theater where the sound was flawed because of distortion or failed equipment. I guess if you never drive the speakers very high, it's difficult to stress them out, so maybe that's their plan all along...
It's surprising to hear that movie soundtracks continue to be so variable in their mixes on DCP. I know that most home video releases are re-mixed in some way, but only rarely do I come across a need to move the volume knob off the usual setting when I watch movies in my home theater.
For that that find this great variability, or complaints when the sound is played at 7:
When is the last time you had your auditoriums checked and calibrated?
Is it standard practice to do so on a regular basis, or do you wait for complaints or your own observation that something isn't right?
I'm not trying to "blame the theater" for issues like this (at least not completely), but it's reasonable to determine if the environment has changed from the last time it was checked and calibrated.
I think it's a big mistake to play movies too softly, as that would be missing an opportunity to leave a positive impression on the audience that they're likely not going to get from their soundbars at home. If someone is going to an action movie like Star Wars or Black Panther and surprised when the action scenes shake their insides, they chose the wrong movie.
Maybe you could have a middle of the day low-volume-just-like-your-tv's-internal-speakers showing for those sensitive folks?
I'm happy to show up on your deadest evening if you promise to crank it up to reasonable levels and have the sound equipment and room to do the job, so maybe Monday night could be "we play it loud and proud" night?
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Carsten Kurz
Film God
Posts: 4340
From: Cologne, NRW, Germany
Registered: Aug 2009
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posted 02-02-2018 09:50 AM
quote: James Westbrook
The worst offender, in my neck of the woods, are the movies from India. We do not run our processors at 7, considerably lower than that, actually, but we find when we play an Indian title we have to turn the fader down even more.
That's true, they leave no headroom at all in their mixes, they're already freakin' loud at our preshow level. They demand us to raise the level even further, and we usually end up somewhere between 5-5.5, which is around our standard fader setting, but boy...
Which is not a real problem, as these are special events, and while of course we do program these shows with fader cues, we know we always have to check and adjust manually.
- Carsten
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