Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Are all Film Distributors deaf?

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Posted by Ray Derrick (Member # 1001) on 07-22-2003, 02:29 AM:

Every time I go to a Movie Convention, and I go to quite a few, the trailer reels for upcoming releases are played so loud that much of the time I have to put my fingers in my ears to protect my hearing from damage. If you visit the projection booth during one of these episodes you will usually be greeted with the sight of the relevant film distributor hovering over the fader control to make sure it is REALLY REALLY LOUD.

Now on such an occasion you usually have a room full of industry professionals (I use the term loosely) who know (or should have some vague idea) how loud a cinema sound system should be. And yet always, always, we are subjected to excessive sound levels by some film distributor neanderthal.

Now I like my movies loud, but not ear shattering!

The loudness problem at the recent Cinema Expo convention in Amsterdam was exacerbated by the fact that the centre channel speaker had been equalised so sharp that it cut the air (and your eardrums) like a knife. It sounded a bit like a two-inch speaker spitting out 1,000 watts of acoustic power!

I vote that an international culling season be declared on these film distributors who seem to delight in seeing their audience flinch with every word of the trailer voiceovers.

Or is it just me? ...pardon?

Posted by William Hooper (Member # 71) on 07-22-2003, 03:56 AM:

This is sort of typical of non-technical people closer to the sales & client rep side of things in almost all media involving audio. They want that crap LOUD for the client (or themselves), & if it goes to an outlet where the volume is limited, they want to beat the limiting by compressing it until there's almost no dynamics at all so it runs up against the top of the compressor. Think car ads on TV & radio.

Sales/rep types have had only personal success with getting NOTICED, usually by distraction (loud noises, colors, etc.) It's often the only thing they understand, & they disbelieve any negative effects like turnoff, as long as it's noticed & remembered.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 07-22-2003, 04:35 AM:

Yup, see it all the time. What these people don't realize is that if the movie is too loud (most especially if it is too harsh and ear piercing to listen to), then it distracts from the show! The viewers are too busy concentrating on how overly loud it is and the product doesn't settle in.

To me the best way to set volume is to adjust the fader such that dialogue (not whispers or yelling) is at a comforatble level. Not loud, but not soft. (Better to err slightly toward the louder here to make sure dialogue is not lost.) Then 99% of the time everything else falls into place nicely.

In your example it would appear the B-chaining tech overequalized the room to perfection, then packed up and left without making a final smoothing tweek by ear. Sometimes all that is needed is an ever-so-slight decrease in the course treble control.

Posted by Per Hauberg (Member # 529) on 07-22-2003, 04:35 AM:

Ray: You are 100 % right.

They've heard about the "7" and insist on running every film right up there, without listening, cause "so says the book".

The main difference between The Good Lord and Film Distributors is, that The Lord do not believe, he's a filmdistributor ! [evil]

Posted by Christopher Duvall (Member # 284) on 07-22-2003, 06:59 AM:

Reminds me when we had a test screening of ROLLERBALL and John McT had a remote fader wired from the booth to his seat. He had it CRANKED. The MGM techs also came in and re-EQ'ed that auditorium too hot. I guess it was to distract the viewers from that actual movie because it sucked. This was about 10 months before it came out. Disney did the same when they had test screening there but they had a tendency to keep it at specs for TAP and not as hot. However, after each test screening, my tech came in and fixed everything back to proper levels.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 07-22-2003, 02:39 PM:

The loudest and worst sound I ever heard was a trade screening of "Batman Returns" at a theatre in Salt Lake City. The theatre had a great system, but it was just TOO loud. I don't care how good your sound system is, if the dialogue is blasting away and making you cringe in your seat, it's annoying.

Last time I was at ShoWest, the screenings there were far too loud, also.

Posted by Greg Mueller (Member # 17) on 07-22-2003, 03:13 PM:

Seems to be worse since "digital" came along. It has such great(?) dynamic capabilities. That's why I use the Smart Afterburner in my little screening room. I can knock that ear splitting [bs]

right down.

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 07-22-2003, 06:03 PM:

There is a trailor comittee regarding SPL recording levels and the MPPA did refuse to issue a certificate on one preview last year because of its sound level
As one engineer in a broadcast station said to me years ago For advertising always remember if it isn't overmod then it will be considered undermodulated

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 07-22-2003, 06:39 PM:

We just got a memo from NATO saying there will soon be another meeting regarding trailer sound levels. They are looking for input with specific title examples. Send your comments to:

nato@mindspring.com

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 07-22-2003, 07:29 PM:

Excellent. They'll lower the average trailer volume by another quarter of a db. I still can't understand why they just don't lower them as far as they need to all at once. So there is a few months worth of trailers that have mix-n-match volume levels. That would be better then extending the problem over several years.

But they are NATO. They MUST know what they are doing. Let's hope they actually do something logical for a change.

Posted by Peter Kerchinsky (Member # 1098) on 07-23-2003, 04:52 AM:

In all the years I was in the booth at the Seattle International Film Festival, whenever there was a director or filmaker in the house, he would always ask the projectionists to kick the fader up at least 2 clicks, going from about 7 to 9.
Damn, do thse guys think people are deaf or are they looking for some way to get their attention. Not sure, but we got lots of complaints on volume levels. After a while we used to agree to raise the volume for them, but really didn't and they didn't even know the difference.

Posted by Kevin Baglow (Member # 721) on 07-23-2003, 05:39 AM:

Maby you are just too old! ----Especially with the rock music film, I measure value for money with how much my ears are ringing ten minutes after I leave--- And im pushing 50. When I dont like it any more- i'll shut up:)

Posted by John Scott (Member # 520) on 07-23-2003, 09:52 AM:

Lately I've been finding that the trailers have been fine, but the rolling stock has been way too loud. Just like on TV at home! [Frown]

Posted by John Spooner (Member # 1565) on 07-25-2003, 02:28 PM:

The advertising industry in Australia has agreed on standard, uniform levels and compression protocols in Australia after years of complaints over noisy tv ads. The standards affect cinema film-ads as well.
So now at long last the film-ad level is virtually the same as the feature, the trailers are still too loud though.
When a theatre at which I previously worked had the AFI film awards, I was often spoken to by the director of the film screening regarding sound levels or their presentation requests.
Most directors or sound engineers did not like the sound blaring out and preferred it at comfortable levels, after all they were professional movie production people and not sales people, knowing all too well that loud distracting sound spoils their creative work.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 07-25-2003, 04:33 PM:

Pete said: "In all the years I was in the booth at the Seattle International Film Festival, whenever there was a director or filmaker in the house, he would always ask the projectionists to kick the fader up at least 2 clicks, going from about 7 to 9."

The very next thing out of your mouth when you get a directive like that is, "Ah, so this is a non-standard print with poor sound levels? Or you are saying that you didn't mix this correctly?. Please come back when you've got a print that meets SMPTE standards. Next." [evil]

Well, at least that's the way it would play out if *I* was king! [Big Grin]

Frank

Posted by Don Bruechert (Member # 1538) on 07-28-2003, 08:47 AM:

I have a CD player at home with an ADLC control on it. It works really nice because you can set your comfortable listening volume off of any CD and all of the rest of them play at the same volume (unless it is a really quiet CD). I'm sure it funtions as some type of audio compressor or something. Now if we had such a gizmo that we could hook up to our theater sound systems, not obvious to any visiting knob tweaker, we could set it for the proper volume level of the feature and it would clip off everything else above that (trailers). Then again, there probably IS such a beast, and they all come looking for it when they can't figure out how to jack the volume up...