Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Whose butt is Screenvision pulling their trivia out of?

This is topic Whose butt is Screenvision pulling their trivia out of? in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-18-2010, 10:07 PM:

Screenvision's preshow has one piece of trivia that annoys me every time I see it.

"What is the loudest movie of all time?"

ANSWER "Close Encounters of the Third Kind".

Ummmmm, excuse me? That is wrong on so many levels, I thought it would be more fun to let the techies here rip it apart. Take it away...

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 05-18-2010, 11:12 PM:

I think this might be Screenvision's way of testing their marketing penetration. They have no evidence to back this up and they are the only ones who have reported this ever to my knowledge. Yet do a Google search for "loudest movie ever" and you'll get tons of results about how some schmuck saw the slide in a theater and how they are skeptical that Close Encounters (no need for the full title since there are not multiple Close Encounters movies) is the actual loudest movie ever. In other words, people are reading the slides.

It's better than knowing what school Molly Shannon went to, I guess (which I think is also one of the slides).

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 05-19-2010, 12:15 PM:

I don't understand how Close Encounters or any other movie for that matter could be considered the loudest. I suppose a mixer could just palm all the faders on the board to the top and let every source input clip all to hell. Isn't that the standard for how new music is mixed today? But even if the sound mixer did that it wouldn't defeat the person in the movie theater projection booth from adjusting the volume knob how ever way he saw fit. "Clippy flippy audio? Guess I'll put the volume at 2."

One Guiness world record I think makes more sense is The Who being called the world's loudest band. I don't know if their record still stands, but at one time they blasted out a higher decibel level than anyone else previously in a rock concert.

Maybe Guiness and Screenvision need to do some research on the loudest movie theater.

Posted by Mark Lensenmayer (Member # 134) on 05-19-2010, 12:37 PM:

Any film could be the "loudest" if you crank it through a big enough system. I'm sure there's a theatre somewhere that could overpower playing "My Dinner With Andre".

I would think one of the Sensurround movies would be the "loudest". You could really feel that when it kicked in. I used to have a bumper sticker from Cerwin-Vega that said "Loud Is Beautiful If It's Clean"

But, now that I think of it, I think this is the loudest movie ever.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-19-2010, 03:07 PM:

Our loudest movie ever was True Lies. It was our first film played with digital sound and we were a little "over excited." It sure sounded awesome though.

Posted by Edward Havens (Member # 4715) on 05-19-2010, 03:07 PM:

The only way any film could claim the title of "The Loudest of All Time" was if all the major contenders were tested in the same auditorium. Play the films at the same fader settings, set up a meter in the center of the empty auditorium and let each film play. At the end of the day, you'll have your winner.

Posted by Ron Lacheur (Member # 1126) on 05-19-2010, 03:35 PM:

Armageddon and/or Face Off comes to mind for the loudest films.

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 05-19-2010, 04:33 PM:

Hmmmmmm..... Optical or digital... once you run out of real estate or bits, you've hit the ceiling, eh?

So, what? Close encounters took a page from the Phil Spector "wall of sound" textbook, used the same comp/limiters as modern day advertisers and clamped the audio at 100% ?

If nobody else thought of that, guess it could be the "loudest".

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 05-19-2010, 04:33 PM:

Maybe Screenvision carefully analyzed the SVA tracks of every movie ever made and whichever movie had the most and largest "wavy lines" won.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 05-19-2010, 05:14 PM:

Trivia is all right as a diversion but, for most people, it is... trivial.

I could just as easily say that Kodak makes enough film to go around the world every month.

I just made that up. It's a good guess on my part but, in reality, I don't know exactly, nor do most people really care whether it's true.

So, yes. Screenvision pretty much does pull fun facts out of their ass. All they are doing is creating a diversion for people while they are sitting in the theater, waiting for the movie to start. As long as they are getting people to pay attention to that screen they are getting more eyes on the advertisements.

THAT is the only thing Screenvision cares about.

The trivia slide that they SHOULD put up is:

quote:
Did you know...

Everywhere in the world, an average of 50,000 other people are reading this trivia fact at the exact same time as you are, right now!

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 05-19-2010, 05:17 PM:

That would be awesome! It would also be an ad for Screenvision's services in disguise. If they did it as a straight trivia slate and not put Screenvision's phone numbers all over it, it would generate much amusement.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-19-2010, 05:59 PM:

Actually Randy, that is a pretty good "ad" slide you came up with. They should use it.

The reason people watch the preshow is because they are a CAPTIVE audience. Their seats are facing the screen and assuming the auditorium is well designed, that screen should fill all or most of the wall they are being pointed at. Its fairly difficult to ignore it.

That dork who introduces the "show" really should start the beginning of the LPS ("late preshow"...which starts at the advertised showtime) by saying "hey everyone I'm back to welcome you to your movie which should by my watch be starting right now, except that you are all captive and I am going to bombard you with more crap that you don't want to watch...because I can. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" (Complete with holding belly, leaning backwards and laughing in evil tone.) At least that would be funny. [Smile]

(BTW, that isn't a jab specifically at Screenvision. It is a jab at ALL preshow crap. I personally feel it is flat out WRONG to charge a premium price for admission and then FORCE people to watch commercials. But hey that's just my opinion and I am fully entitled to it. [Razz]

)

I'm still waiting for Guttag's technical explanation as to why CEOTTK technically isn't the loudest movie (ignoring fader and gain settings).

Posted by Chad Souder (Member # 343) on 05-19-2010, 07:16 PM:

One possibility: Assume every movie has segments of dialogue spoken in a normal, conversational manner. You would be able to determine how far and with what frequency of occurrance a movie's soundtrack deviates from this normal dialogue. If you assigned a number, say 100 for the sake of the argument, to normal conversation, you could then say there is a total of 3 minutes at 120, 7 minutes at 150, and so on. It would then be possible to determine which movies are the loudest independent of the auditorium in which they are played. I'm not saying that's what Screenvision did in this case, but I do know that hearing loss organizations do monitor movies and report higher risk films.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-19-2010, 09:17 PM:

Getting into psychology here, I would say the average person would think a really bad loud movie was louder than a really good loud movie is.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 05-19-2010, 09:19 PM:

Van Helsing maybe? Or how about Blade 3?

I have a slide suggestion: "Number of times you will see this same slide before your movie starts: 136."

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 05-19-2010, 09:41 PM:

According to Dolby (when they were measuring the "loudness" of trailers) the loudest film was "Temple of Doom." Louis

Posted by Sam Graham (Member # 2889) on 05-20-2010, 08:12 AM:

Of COURSE Close Encounters is the loudest film. It broke the glass.

Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 05-21-2010, 03:38 PM:

I have never seen Close Encounters, but I do have a letterbox VHS copy around here somewhere and a Nicam VCR. Should I warn my neighbours if and when I decide to play it. (and/or possibly look into sound proofing my flat first?)