Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Lower trailers (Sound)

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Posted by Rene Ferron (Member # 4674) on 05-19-2008, 11:55 AM:

Is there a way to turn down the trailer automatically ?

We use the Dolby CP650 and CineQ Automations. Every time i put a movie on the @$#%^#% trailers are always too loud and people complain. I have to go and turn the knob down for the trailer and put it back up for the feature but sometimes i forget it and people complain that the movie is too low !! So is there a way to fix this ?

Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 05-19-2008, 01:54 PM:

Yes. Some automations can do automatic fader setting changes. With the CP 650 or 500 you can set up a custom SR or Digital format with a lower fader setting and then have your automation switch to you regular SR or Digital format after the trailers. With a CP 65, 55, and 50 you can wire in a 100k linear potentiometer to the "Remote Fader" terminal on the backplane, and set this fader level lower then your main fader. Then you set up your automation to toggle into the remote fader when you press start and then the main fader for the feature.

Posted by Michael Moore (Member # 3867) on 05-19-2008, 02:05 PM:

Because I lack the automation I have set my JSD-80D to turn on at 6.2 for SR, then when after the last trailer goes through I just manually turn up the sound to 7.0, this is kind of a no brainer, but it works well, then again we only have one screen.

Posted by Chad M Calpito (Member # 3736) on 05-19-2008, 02:32 PM:

All of the CP500's I have (15 total), they were set-up just as Sean described and all have varying sound levels depending on auditorium size when switching from SR to Digital.

Makes life easier and those damned loud trailers aren't being played so loud to warrant customer complaints.

Posted by Rene Ferron (Member # 4674) on 05-19-2008, 04:13 PM:

quote: Sean McKinnon
Yes. Some automations can do automatic fader setting changes. With the CP 650 or 500 you can set up a custom SR or Digital format with a lower fader setting and then have your automation switch to you regular SR or Digital format after the trailers. With a CP 65, 55, and 50 you can wire in a 100k linear potentiometer to the "Remote Fader" terminal on the backplane, and set this fader level lower then your main fader. Then you set up your automation to toggle into the remote fader when you press start and then the main fader for the feature.

Now i need to find out how to do that ! [Confused]

Posted by Michael Moore (Member # 3867) on 05-19-2008, 04:21 PM:

if you go to the tips section on the left and click it look at the first listing, it is 5 dollar trailer fix...

Mike

Posted by Rene Ferron (Member # 4674) on 05-19-2008, 04:33 PM:

quote:
- posted 05-19-2008 04:21 PM CT (US) (6:21 PM Local) Profile for Michael Moore Author's Homepage Email Michael Moore Send New Private Message Edit/Delete Post if you go to the tips section on the left and click it look at the first listing, it is 5 dollar trailer fix...

Mike

But i have the Dolby CP650.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-19-2008, 08:31 PM:

It's even easier with the CP650.

First off, DUMP THE DIGITAL!!! Seriously, screw it. Play the trailers in analog and it won't be so "in your face". Personally, I prefer good old fashioned MONO, but if you have corporate people all sold on the stupid digital buzzword you can still accomplish this.

First, change the pulse wiring from the automation to point to either MONO (preferred), or U1 (if you want to play the trailers in digital at a lower volume) at the start of the show.

If you are going to use the U1 option, assign format 10 to that button.

Assign a lower volume to MONO or U1, whichever you used. Now assign a feature volume setting to format 10. Done.

All of this is documented in the various CP650 manuals.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 05-19-2008, 10:44 PM:

Note, on CP650s with firmware 2.3.x.x. 6 of the 8 front panel buttons may be assigned to any format (not just U1, U2 and NS). The only "protected" formats are 05 (Dolby SR) and 10 (Dolby Digital).

So Brad's suggestion has a few more possibilities, depending on your CP650s firmware revision.

Steve

Posted by Ron Lacheur (Member # 1126) on 05-20-2008, 10:02 PM:

Rene,

Your Cine-Q has the option to automate the trailer volume.

Go to the Main Menu, select Show, under the Type A, B or C there should be a Trailer and a Feature button.

Press Trailer and you will be given a menu that you can select which format and volume you wish the trailers to play at.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 05-22-2008, 08:00 PM:

Is this damn problem STILL unresolved? They haven't wised up enough to fix it yet? And by fixing it, I don't mean fixing it in the booth by consciencious projectionists who jump through techno-hoops to thwart badly recorded tracks, but by the studios themselves? Wasn't there even an SMPTE committee something like 10 freakin years ago trying to deal with this issue?

After all this time, how is it possible that the studios are still putting out trailers with louder than reference sound? Haven't they figured it out yet that the theatres just turn them down anyway?

As Brad says, play them in analog MONO; or just junk them as defective. If enough theatres request replacements for "defective" trailers, sooner or later the studios will realize, if they don't fix this problem, then they don't get their trailers played at all -- NO MORE FREE ADVERTISING! Maybe THAT will make them sit up and take notice. And how will you determin if you have a trailer has a "defective" soundtrack recorded above reference? Simple; when the first patron gets annoyed enough to get his butt out of the seat to come out to complain, THAT trailer is, de facto, defective and immediately gets pulled.

Besides, where this idea come from anyway that annoyingly loud trailers will somehow be more persuasive to customers to get them to come to see a film? Did they ever consider that the patron who has to hold his ears during the trailer might be inclined to associate HATE with that movie title rather than a desire to see it and he might actually be thinking, "No way in hell I am going to spend money to be deafened by this movie."? Even the PREMISE of loud trailers is totally assinine and could only have been thought up studio and marketing execs who have been crazed by shooting up all that botox into their foreheads which obviously has migrated to their already deficient brain pans.

Where oh where is NATO in all this?

PS -- Are the trailers that come with the digital prints just as overly loud? Can their soundtracks be easily lowered in the server when the movie is digitally assembled, or is this problem only film-based?

Posted by Jaime Tuzzio (Member # 4760) on 05-23-2008, 03:54 AM:

quote: Frank Angel
PS -- Are the trailers that come with the digital prints just as overly loud? Can their soundtracks be easily lowered in the server when the movie is digitally assembled, or is this problem only film-based?

While I don't have an answer for your second question, as far as the first: Now that you mention it, I ran digital prints for almost a year, screening the vast majority of them, and I don't recall the trailers being any louder than the feature. Hannah Montana, however, was much louder than the trailers, but that could have been my inability to withstand thousands upon thousands of pre-teen girls screaming. In surround.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 05-23-2008, 05:39 AM:

I LIKE the "just not running them" idea. Perhaps a letter from corporate to the filmco stating: "WE won't run it until it is fixed" would do the trick.

As to why? The mixer on trailers is usually the same guy who mixes toothpaste commercials for TV.

If I were a director, I would "take control" of that trailer like Hitchcock did; make it an integral part of the film experience itself. Louis

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-23-2008, 10:27 AM:

Refusing to run the trailers isn't a good answer though....since they are OUR best form of advertising too.

This is a relatively non-problem for me since we only have one screen and I can hear/see the screen and adjust volume from my office...but I really feel for you guys with multi screens.

I don't want to run the trailers in mono, because about half of their "impact" is in the soundtrack. I play trailers at 4.0 on the Dolby. That way it's loud enough, but the feature is louder and the audience notices a difference.

Posted by Rene Ferron (Member # 4674) on 05-27-2008, 05:46 PM:

I managed to configure my CP650 and my cineQ to play trailers at 4.0 and the feature at the volume that i set it at.

It kinda "stupid" to have to do all that work when the filmco could just turn down their volumes for trailers and it will be fixed forever.