Deafening Movies

Between movies, concerts and boom-boom car stereos we are creating a generation of kids who will be deaf by the time they are mid 20's.  Tinnitus will be the new scourge.

Slugbaby


Last night i went to see Inception.  Pretty good flick.
 
Thankfully Bapu had warned that it was REALLY loud, and he wasn't kidding.  We brought earplugs, and wouldn't have been able to sit through the film had we not.  It was almost to loud even with them!  I'll be bringing earplugs to every movie I see now.
 
After watching NINE a few months ago, my ears rang for the rest of the night.  I can't believe movies are now consistantly louder than rock clubs...

Yeah i thought that too! The throbbing 'tension' bit in the music (for example when it would flick back to seeing the Van falling off the bridge - and those inside the van flying around) is REALLY loud.
 
Inception is easily one of the greatest films i've seen in a loooong time - purely because it truelly 'blew my mind'. It kind of left me in a state of amazement for a day or two.
 
 

Daylaa

Yeah i thought that too! The throbbing 'tension' bit in the music (for example when it would flick back to seeing the Van falling off the bridge - and those inside the van flying around) is REALLY loud. 
 
  
 

Absolutely!  The bass synths at that point were making my throat vibrate!

"Loud" should be under the control of the theater management. There is a gain knob somewhere on their equipment. The sound mix for the film only controls the dynamic range. A fully saturated mix is going to seem loud (and tiresome) at a reasonable volume, but it would not require ear protection unless there is just too much sound pressure. I expect theater owners are getting used to old folks with presbycusis and young folks with sound damaged hearing complaining that they cannot hear things.

My pet peeve with the sound in films is the mixer who runs over the dialogue with the music. Sound effects are one thing. I do not mind not being able to hear the actors lines because the ammunition dump is exploding around them. I am a good deal less tolerant of losing the dialogue because so much street noise is captured (or pumped in) that everything but the audio atmosphere is lost. But when I can't discriminate speech because the background fluff is running over it, I am pissed. Telling the theater manager to "turn up the sound" in that case is useless.

Slugbaby


Thankfully Bapu had warned that it was REALLY loud, and he wasn't kidding.  ... 
 
After watching NINE a few months ago, my ears rang for the rest of the night.  I can't believe movies are now consistantly louder than rock clubs...
 

This actually started about the time of Star Wars at the Cinerama Dome, and it may have been the place where it all started with 2001, A Space Odyssey, where the music was the film, just about!  ... they started by putting speakers under your butt ... chair actually ... and then later decided to add other speakers in other spots that got your attention ... so there would be one on the side that picked up one voice ... and then other things.  I mean ... hearing Dave talk from outside, and the speaker was not inside the theater, like in the halls or something, made for a completely different effect that you can not get by just having it all in front of you off a speaker! Yeah, all of a sudden Hal 9000 is not just a jerk or ... whatever! ... he's a lot more!
 
By the time I caught SW the second time, they had gotten rid of the side speakers, but the ones under your butt were bigger and LOUDER! And the rumbles and the whooshes and the sound effects, really took you for a ride -- in front of a massively huge screen too!
 
Since then, there have been a lot of movies with over rated sound effects that were trying to get people's attention by doing something really simple, that ... grabs you ... if you are not prepared for it.
 
The best of all of these, btw, is a French Film that is really harsh and totally seen from the inside of the guy's mind non-stop, and the film never stops and in the end you sit here and go ... this is either incredible, or this is just abuse! But, one of the things it had, that was totally insane was a shotgun going off out of the blue and it was loud, you never saw it, and might or might not have anything to do with the film. The effect was so disconcerting and scary that some people started walking off due to the discomfort of watching something that disjointed and abused your senses so hard. The film? Je Suis Seul by Gaspar Noe (I Stant Alone is the Englilsh title) and the film is the most anti establishment dark uncompromisingly insane thing you could ever catch or see.  And don't go see "Irreversible" if you don't have the courage to watch totally insane revolutionary film making and experimenting and absolutely amazing stuff ... it's not for everybody!
 
In general, I end up walking out of those films, because many of them are trying to get your attention away from the rest of the film, which is generally poorly defined and not that good in the first place! The Noe films are really well thought out despite the insane violence of the shooting styles and visuals.
 
There are others that also do this in Hollywood, and Mr. Mission Impossible is one of them! It makes the film seem more important and sometimes you can identify with the specific moments better because the sound and effect is so familiar to you!
 
One of the first people in film to do this, btw, was Roman Polanski! However, in almost all cases it was used for violent moments and scenery in many of his films, some scenes of which are widely remembered in the story and history of film. He also coupled this with a hand held camera to add a bigger effect to the moment.