Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Steven Colbert says he watched AVENGERS with no soundtrack.

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Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 04-30-2019, 05:06 AM:

Tonight on the CBS Late Night with Steven Colbert, he recounted how he and his wife went to see AVENGERS and when the previews started he said the lights didn't go down -- not to terribly unusual, but they stayed on well into the feature. His wife finally got up to tell management. The lights did finally get turned down but he said that wasnt' the only problem. He said at first he thought there was no sound. But then he said you could hear dialog -- ONLY dialog -- no music, no sound effects. He also said the dialog was very low so you had to strain to hear what anyone was saying. He said this was never fully fixed.

He and his family live in Montclair NJ so I am wondering what theatre he might have gone to that could have botched such a monumental screening on opening weekend. And I assume he was in a NJ theatre, I am wondering how it is that the patrons didn't rip the place to pieces after paying to see this on opening weekend.

Then again, today a co-worker said he went to see it and the theatre had given out the wrong type of 3D glasses and they had to stop the show and give everyone the right ones (passive vs. active). Now that's not something you casually mistake. I'll find out today what theatre made that major goof. How embarrassing.

Geez, the biggest blockbuster seemingly of all time and these theatres in major markets still don't know how to present a movie?

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 04-30-2019, 10:30 AM:

Although we are lucky enough to have access to our "own" screening room and we can essentially watch whatever we want there in a pretty much perfectly calibrated environment, I and my wife still enjoy going to the movies. We visit a lot of theaters, wherever we go, we usually visit one or more theaters. It's not only for the love of movies, but also simply for the love of the experience of going out to the movies. For me, it's also partly because I'm still inspired and intrigued by the whole exhibition thing, even though there aren't that many secrets for me, it doesn't seem to lose its magic.

I've ranted on it in other topics before: The industry needs a big wake-up: Your baseline quality starts to suck more than ever before. Outages, half working equipment and other snafus are so common, it's no longer a one-in-a-hundred chance of hitting a botched show, across the board, for me, it's more like in one out of five or even worse... (I'm not keeping hard statistics here.)

Now it hit some high-profile individual like Stephen Colbert. But what he mentions is exactly what I see happening all the time around. It boils down to total incompetence and total lack of leadership.

I've also had tons of shows starting without sound, with missing channels, with no picture at all, with sound way to silent, with lights on and even with people being SOLD the wrong 3D glasses for a show that included 3D glasses.

While some may have you believe, the average multiplex runs like a well-oiled machine, where everything is meticulously controlled and monitored from a distance, the practice nowadays looks more like Terry Gilliam's Brazil, where the whole show is on a self-destructive autopilot. Trying to get somebody's attention in the average multiplex is about the same experience as calling Central Services.

Folks, the situation is probably more dire than due the worst days of the "35mm heydays". Back in those days, there were at least a bunch of booth-monkeys that halfway knew what buttons to press when stuff went haywire.

My recent experiences were all pretty bad. I'm almost glad if I go to a show where everything works out smoothly. Knowing this industry, I know that stuff can and will break. There are a lot of things that need to work in unison for everything to go smoothly, but then again, we're not launching rockets into space here. My biggest gripe is that, when stuff goes wrong, there is simply nobody with any clue around of how to handle the situation. Heck, there have been situations, that out of pure frustration, I offered myself to have a look at it and go into the booth and try to fix the damn problem... for free.

It almost feels like flying without a pilot, where the stewardess comes out and asks if there's a pilot among the passengers, because the auto-pilot just crapped out...

PS: AFAIK the guy is called Stephen Colbert, at the very least if we're talking about the guy that's delivering your daily Trump rant almost every night for the last years. [Wink]

Posted by Paul Finn (Member # 10726) on 04-30-2019, 11:01 AM:

Marcel quote: "It boils down to total incompetence and total lack of leadership." After all, don't you know it's digital; just push PLAY!

Paul Finn

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 04-30-2019, 01:56 PM:

I can't believe Colbert stopped talking about politics long enough to discuss a movie theater problem!

I wonder what the percentage of "imperfect" shows is. My wife and I usually wind up going to at least one, or maybe two, movies whenever we go somewhere. So far this year we've seen "Green Book" in Seattle, "Shazam" in Orlando, and "The Upside" in Vero Beach, FL, and some other movie I can't remember in Billings, MT. All were perfect presentations and I don't remember any sticky floors or major audience annoyances either. (To be fair, most of our moviegoing is on weeknights and never on opening weekends.)

We probably see at least four to six movies a year when we're on various excursions, and I can't remember the last "substandard" presentation I've seen in a theater. Quite frankly, the worst presentation in my recent memory has been the trailer reels at Cinemacon, which are always presented at least twice as loud as they should be.

Some of us here are probably more picky than the general public... a set of too-bright floor aisle lights might ruin a show for some people, where most wouldn't even notice it.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 04-30-2019, 04:09 PM:

I guess that most of the people hanging out here are more picky than the average moviegoers, that will also include me, but I hope we all remain picky, because once we lose it, it's nothing holding it back.

Your personal mileage may vary, also, it might vary from location to location, but I'm really witnessing a general "lacklusterness" (if there is such a thing) in the industry as a whole, when it comes down to quality.

In the last year or so, I really went into a lot of really botched shows, to a level I've not experienced before. Not just simple annoyances, but stuff that really botched the whole experience. I may be the unlucky one and a statistical sampling of "one" isn't really a statistic at all, but I could write quite a journal of what kind of stuff went wrong during my visits in the last year.

In most cases, it's nothing really shocking, but there is always one consistency in this story: Almost never was the flaw detected by the cinema staff itself, it required someone of the audience alerting them. And in many cases, it took way longer to fix than you would expect, if there were competent people involved.

A short recount of issues I encountered the last 12 months or so:
- Water from the ceiling forced us to give up our reserved seats (for which we paid extra). We had to find new seats, that weren't taken ourselves, by repeatedly moving around...
- Show started with the house lights on during high-profile Saturday evening show in Dolby Cinema, it took manual intervention to fix it. The movie was already running for at least 10 minutes. No restart of the show, no sorry, no nothing.
- Show started with no picture at all, manual intervention was necessary. This happened about 3 times now on three different shows in different cinemas. It's clearly the lamp failing to start and nobody getting notified in time about that problem.
- 3D show started as a 2D show. Nobody mentioned the problem to the cinema staff. The situation wasn't fixed. I actually didn't mind seeing it in 2D, but in the end we paid extra for something we didn't get. Also, all those poor suckers that saw this "faux 3D" show must really have though... this 3D used to be better?
- A bright LED strip failing to dim after the start of the show, causing so much distraction, all the people in and around our row eventually left.
- A projector clearly going into emergency mode, dimming the picture so much, it was just shadows on screen. Manual intervention could not solve the problem, which was obviously lamp related.
- Movie started with missing center channel, manual intervention was necessary and took more than 30 minutes to fix.
- IMAX show broke down during the show, in this case the staff was sufficiently forthcoming to restart the show in a non-IMAX theater that was available, for the people that wanted to continue to watch the movie. Refunds were given anyway. A fine example of how you can even try to recover a botched-up situation.
- Projector zoomed to scope, while the movie was in flat, causing it to overshoot the screen. Staff was willing, but entirely clueless, had never heard about "aspect ratios"... Eventually, I had to fix this myself...
- Reserved seat ended up missing elementary parts that make it a seat... In this case, staff ended up being unhelpful by telling us to just find new seats, which obviously ended up being booked by others.

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 04-30-2019, 06:08 PM:

The issue with the 3D glasses is less of a concern to me than the sound issue not being fixed. Having 2 different types of 3D glasses is certainly going to create a massive opportunity for mistakes. Especially if they swapped auditoriums to handle demand. At least it was caught and corrected.

Posted by Jarod Reddig (Member # 6363) on 04-30-2019, 06:31 PM:

What a theater messed up a screening??? NO WAY??? LOL

When i was younger i went to a lot of opening night screenings. Wednesdays back then I believe. I remember Jurassic Park opening night coudn't get the DTS to work right. First movie ever trying it. Had to watch the movie in either stereo or mono not positive. Then Forrest Gump opening had a spliced reel in the wrong spot. Gave out passes. Was so funny tho. Star Wars Ep3 had an issue with the projector right in the beginning and gave out passes. Later on with my wife Transformers 2 had an issue with the projector where it would start then slowly spin down to a stop. They finally got it working after a long time. Most people left. Oh and Twilight 2 with my wife had to give out passes cause no audio.

Im telling you if I go to an opening night it will screw up!! I never play the lottery either.

Ive had better luck with digital but still just like Marcel says its a crap shoot trying to get ones attention at a mutliplex. I have a very nice dedicated home cinema but my wife and I still enjoy the magic of a movie theater. That is when things happen to go right.

Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 05-04-2019, 05:11 PM:

I'm having a real issue with the missing channels thing.

I just assume cinema duty managers are just rushing around in the morning trying to power up the box as quick as they can and are missing switching on amps.

Last I saw was "Logo Movie 2" with no stage right channel, that's a month after "Night School" (at a different theatre) with missing left stage channel.

Worst was "Lucy" , no right channel and no surrounds at all. I got up and just got a refund in the middle of the trailers.

Also there a theatre where I can't currently tell if the have switched there masking off or not. Saw a few movies where the scope was just letterboxed with no masking, but then last trip masking was on again. I guess the system could have just "missed" the scope cue those 2 times and it just essentially played the movie in flat. (common width screens).

Posted by William Kucharski (Member # 7246) on 05-28-2019, 04:05 PM:

One of the more unusual issues I’ve encountered (at least unusual to me) was at an AMC where all the channels were off by one. The left channel was silent, the left channel audio was playing in the center channel, the center channel was playing in the right channel, the right channel audio was playing in one of the surrounds and so on. Literally no one else in the theater noticed an issue.

The manager rebooted the CP650 and sound gear and that seemed to set things right, though the balance of the audience was more upset with the interruption than with having all the dialog come out of the right side of the screen.

More recently, at a Fathom screening of Ben-Hur at an AMC, the house lights came up at the start of intermission, but never went back down. I had to run out to the lobby, hunt for an employee and let them know. (Here I also walked into a silent theater and they only started the 30 minute Fathom preshow when notified it wasn’t running. To their credit, they did start the preshow in a way that the feature started on time.)

The major issue is everything at most AMCs is fully automated. The employees don’t even know a show has failed to start until an irate audience member comes out to tell them. The fiasco last Saturday I posted about elsewhere with the Fandango sneak preview of The Secret Lives of Pets 2 had the audience chatting away a good ten minutes past showtime and the employees had no idea the feature hadn’t started.

I feel more sorry for the people I have seen walking out ten minutes into a movie because the closed captioning system wasn’t working.

quote: Mike Blakesley
Quite frankly, the worst presentation in my recent memory has been the trailer reels at Cinemacon, which are always presented at least twice as loud as they should be.

Ironically that’s likely because the processor was actually set at 7 as it should be.

Yes, trailers are loud but that’s also the intended level created by the mixers.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-28-2019, 11:03 PM:

quote: William Kucharski
Ironically that’s likely because the processor was actually set at 7 as it should be.

Yes, trailers are loud but that’s also the intended level created by the mixers.

I don't know, but I do know that every C-Con I've been to, the trailers have been too loud. They seem much louder than any reasonable person would ever want. Irritatingly loud. Rock concert loud. Obnoxiously loud. If that's the "standard" then it's a bad standard.

The product reels used to be my favorite thing at conventions, but with the lickety-split cuts you find in today's trailers (hardly ever a scene more than a second or two long) combined with ear-splitting volume, they've taken all the fun out of them.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 05-29-2019, 06:55 AM:

I agree with Mike on this. It's not a new discussion.

I'm also not sure if William has ever heard how many of those trailers sound at 7.0, in a properly calibrated house where 7.0 is close to the intended levels.

I know, for example, that in Belgium, there even is a memorandum for self-regulation between cinemas, where they all agreed to lower the volume of the trailers and pre-show, in order to avoid the authorities stepping in, after there were numerous complaints from the movie-going public, about trailers being unbearably loud.

Posted by William Kucharski (Member # 7246) on 05-29-2019, 08:48 AM:

quote: Marcel Birgelen
I'm also not sure if William has ever heard how many of those trailers sound at 7.0, in a properly calibrated house where 7.0 is close to the intended levels.

Yes, I have, and they are loud, very much so.

But that's what the cutters and those involved want,.

You don't go to a rock concert and complain that it's too loud, it's what you know you will be getting.

The industry has had to react to customer demand before, so somehow that feedback needs to make it back to the people producing trailers.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 05-29-2019, 09:25 AM:

What you don't "get" with trailers (and ads) is that, unlike features, where you could make the argument that the person mixing the movie carefully derived their levels to achieve the sound portion of the picture...with the preshows, it is all about attention getting. They are loud to ensure that they are not quiet and for no other reason than that. In most features, there are quiet as well as loud passages. In preshows, there aren't.

Their "intent" is to scream at you. Whether they believe it or not, it is off-putting to the industry. I, for one, would welcome regulation on preshow levels that sets the maximum for EVERYBODY so nobody has to worry about being lost in the crowd. We have a system with LEQm to determine loudness over a span of time. Trailers are only 2-4 minutes long, on average...if you want to be loud you are going to have to carefully chose when to.

With most features, it isn't an issue because again, they have loud and quiet parts. Trailers forget the quiet parts (except the rating tag and possibly the credits).

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 05-29-2019, 10:31 AM:

quote: William Kucharski
The industry has had to react to customer demand before, so somehow that feedback needs to make it back to the people producing trailers.

Do you really think they care about the cinema-goers opinion? They're trying to sell you a product.

In Europe, most broadcasters implemented EBU's R128. That mostly solved the problem with over-compressed commercials, where the one tried to be even louder than the other, resulting in almost everybody reaching for their remotes to put the volume down once the commercials started.

Cinema trailers are seldomly mixed by the same team, responsible for the sound mix of the movie. Often, even the soundtrack used in the trailers differs from the soundtrack in the movie.

Most studios know that most theaters put the brake on the fader for pre-shows, that only gave them a motivation to push the loudness even further.

Like Steve mentioned, this really has nothing to do with "how the filmmaker intended the mix to sound", it's simply obnoxious behavior, trying to get your attention and it really should stop.

LEQ(m) is a very objective way to determine loudness over time. The industry should come to a common, safe value and studios should simply stick to it. Although you'll even see that someone still tries to squeeze the maximum out of it, but it's a good baseline. The rest is just common sense...

Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 05-29-2019, 12:39 PM:

I can tell you that the system at Cinemacon is calibrated to the same spec for SPL as any other Atmos/7.1 set-up. However, the studios have final say over how the content is presented including what level it is played back at. It may surprise you to know that every presentation is ran multiple times as not only a "Tech" check but multiple rehearsals. Each clip may be assigned to a different type of projector (manufacturer, xenon, laser, 2d, 3d passive, 3d active) different illumination levels, etc...

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-29-2019, 02:05 PM:

quote: Sean McKinnon
I can tell you that the system at Cinemacon is calibrated to the same spec for SPL as any other Atmos/7.1 set-up. However, the studios have final say over how the content is presented including what level it is played back at.

If that's the case, it's obvious that the powers-that-be are suffering from either ear damage, or hearing fatigue.

CinemaCon aside, what those sound guys are forgetting is that the trailers don't NEED to yell at you to get your attention. They've already got a captive audience, most of whom is watching the screen. The ones not watching are glued to their phones, and would probably not pay attention unless a nuclear attack started destroying the building.

It is kind of fun to think of some poor shlub in the booth at Cinemacon getting yelled at. "You dumb sonofabitch, I wanted that trailer played on the Barco at 7.5 and you clearly played the motherfucker on the NEC and it was only at 7!"

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 05-29-2019, 05:49 PM:

Well, there is a 85 LEQm regulation for trailer loudness (TASA). And it IS followed by most trailers I get to know.

The trouble is, those people mixing that trailer forget that THEIR trailer is not the only one the audience will listen through before the main feature starts. 85 LEQm is not a 'proper' level, it's a 'near-complaint' level. Quite obviously, after 20minutes of preshow, a 'near-complaint' level is becoming a 'complaint-level'.

- Carsten

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 05-29-2019, 06:15 PM:

quote: Steve Guttag
Their "intent" is to scream at you. Whether they believe it or not, it is off-putting to the industry. I, for one, would welcome regulation on preshow levels that sets the maximum for EVERYBODY so nobody has to worry about being lost in the crowd.

Thing that we also have to remember is that trailers are advertisements and created to make you remember them, not to make you comfortable. If screaming at you will make you remember the product (in this case a movie) the ad agency and the trailer producers have no problem doing just that. This issue has been going on for decades, and now with the headroom digital affords the sound mixer, he/she can mix that ad right up to red line and probably that is just what his client, the studio marketing director or producer wants him to do. We are worse off now than we were with trailer analog tracks, but it an issue we spoke about seems like eons.

There is no reason why with automation, exhibitors can't reduce levels on trailers at will. I am not that familiar with what the servers can or can't do, but seems it would be a simple thing if the industry REALLY wanted to solve the problem, i.e., not assault the paying customers' ears, the servers could oh so simply allow volume parameters to be programmed for every entity in the play list just like they program aspect ratio changes or any other change per item. And therein lies the rub...IF THEY WANTED TO. Do they really?

The reason trailers have been too loud all these years is because the studios produced them that way. Right or wrong, they think a loud ad is a better ad. And since this industry is a mutual masturbatory symbiosis between studio and exhibitor, what motivation do we really believe the exhibitors have of going thru the effort to thwart what the studio wants? And THAT boys and girls, is why nothing substantial has been done to curb uncomfortable audio levels on trailers since the dawn of Dolby Stereo. Any I would even bet, if theatres actually began countering these overly loud trailer levels, the studios would soon get miffed enough write into their master contracts that at whatever level the theatre plays the feature, they must play the trailer pack at that same level as well.

Of course someone should tell the mucky mucks at the studios that if ALL the trailers are loud, then NONE of the trailers will stand out -- their trailer will just be equally annoying as every other trailer.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 05-29-2019, 07:20 PM:

My non-sync music plays at 3.3

The "start show" cue switches to the movie audio source, cranks the house lights down to mid and sets the volume to 4.5

The "start feature" cue cranks the house lights down to low and sets the volume to 5.2

The "credits" cut cranks the house lights back to mid and that's all it does.

The "end show" cue switches back to non-sync, turns the house lights to high and sets the volume to 3.3.

I've been using those settings since I got the digital cinema setup and I'm pretty happy with the results.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-29-2019, 11:29 PM:

Ours is similar, except ours starts at 3.6 and stays there until the feature starts. I like to play the trailers soft compared to the feature.

This is one of those situations where being a one-screen theater is nice. We don't have a "feature" automation setting since every movie is different. I find a setting that sounds good to me when I test the movie, and I let the staff know what that is, and we reset the volume (thanks to a volume pot next to the ticket window) for every show. It's basically muscle memory now. Since we can see and hear the movie from the boxoffice it's pretty quickly obvious if somebody forgets to turn it up for the feature. I can't even remember the last time that happened.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 05-30-2019, 06:44 AM:

That, guys, is the beauty of the small, mom and pop type exhibitor where human beings are actually involved with the presentation. But of course that is probably only the case in maybe 10% of all exhibition. The other 90%, the bulk of exhibitors are the two or three mega-exhibitors that run godzillaplexes -- the automated, assembly-line cinemas -- and even if a server could adjust volume levels for trailers vs. feature, who's going to sit there and evaluate and set program levels specific to the 10 to 25 screens in the multiplex? And again to my point about intent -- if the studios WANT their trailer to play at ear-splitting volume which I believe they do since that's the way they've been produced for decades, eventually they will put contractual requirements in place on exhibitors who are seen consistently countering that intent by actively turning down those trailers. And let's face it, if the studios say, "Hey, play our trailers at the same level as the feature," AMC and Regal will certainly capitulate regardless of whether or not that annoys their customers.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-30-2019, 12:11 PM:

Disney, a few years ago, tried to get everyone to turn down the house lights during their trailers since they have spent millions of dollars producing them, blah blah blah. I don't think anyone followed that "direction." So I don't think the industry would cave on trailer volume either.

It just amazes me that something that is clearly a problem is not addressed by people who must KNOW it's a problem. But then there are a lot of problems that everyone knows about but are never addressed. This one would be one of the easiest to fix.

Posted by William Kucharski (Member # 7246) on 06-03-2019, 07:52 PM:

quote: Frank Angel
Of course someone should tell the mucky mucks at the studios that if ALL the trailers are loud, then NONE of the trailers will stand out -- their trailer will just be equally annoying as every other trailer.

That hasn't worked in the music industry.

Loudness War

One of my favorite examples, a recent Jennifer Nettles song:

No, that in fact isn't pleasant at all to listen to.

Posted by Martin Brooks (Member # 1269) on 06-03-2019, 11:52 PM:

quote: William Kucharski
One of the more unusual issues I’ve encountered (at least unusual to me) was at an AMC where all the channels were off by one. The left channel was silent, the left channel audio was playing in the center channel, the center channel was playing in the right channel, the right channel audio was playing in one of the surrounds and so on. Literally no one else in the theater noticed an issue.

I experienced that some years ago at several different AMC Theaters in NYC. I never perceived that it might be a processor problem. I just figured the same tech wired up the speakers or amps incorrectly at both theaters. I did complain to a manager in both cases. In one case, I returned to the same screen a few weeks later and nothing had changed. I haven't been back to that theaters since, although I have to believe the equipment has been upgraded since then.

quote: William Kucharski
No, that in fact isn't pleasant at all to listen to.

The over compression that's used in so many recordings today is completely insane. Back around the time when the "Beatles #1's" was originally released, I attended the AES convention. At a producer's panel, they were asked if The Beatles would have been as successful as they were if they had originally been mastered like #1's was and the general consensus was that they wouldn't have been because they would have been too tedious to listen to over and over again.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 06-05-2019, 07:15 AM:

quote: William Kucharski
No, that in fact isn't pleasant at all to listen to.

So, maybe you can give credit now to the cinemas that actually do you a pleasure while turning down the fader for trailers? [Smile]

quote: Mike Blakesley
Disney, a few years ago, tried to get everyone to turn down the house lights during their trailers since they have spent millions of dollars producing them, blah blah blah. I don't think anyone followed that "direction." So I don't think the industry would cave on trailer volume either.

I know back from when I actually ran movies in 35mm to the public, that we would reserve the honor of running directly in front of the feature, with the house lights off and the volume corrected to "feature volume" to a few "special" trailers. The first trailer of Star Wars Episode 1 was such a trailer.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 06-05-2019, 01:51 PM:

I've done that too. My favorite was in the trailer for the original "Independence Day"... I timed the full-off cue to happen right when the huge alien ship came into the picture and cast shadow over the whole city. It was cool as hell.