Theaters and destruction of film sound [Archive]

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kdm

07-19-2009, 10:57 PM

I posted this over on the Gearslutz Post forum as I think it's important for anyone working in post for film (and hopefully studios and theater companies) to be aware of and vocal with your local theaters.

My wife and I saw the latest Harry Potter film last night in our local megaplex Cinemark theater - 12-15 large stadium seating theaters - the largest and 2nd newest theaters in our city.

For the 3rd time in a year, we watched a blockbuster film in mono. For the first 10 minutes (until I complained to the 17 yr old asst. manager), everything was crammed into the center - music included, along with a rather loud hiss and a general harsh sound. After they supposedly "corrected" it, the hiss and harshness went away (e.g. back to what I normally expect of the center), we only had some music in the right - I could barely hear the score for the rest of the fim.

We saw Bolt with a center channel only.

Ironman was the right channel only, and even after I complained, it was not fixed.

Needless to say, it was a big letdown to expect to hear, not just see, a film that benefits from the big screen, in mono, missing the impact of music, effects, and presence. The subs were on fortunately, but iirc, they weren't for Bolt or Ironman.

I'll be calling the top management for that theater this week, and probably the national office as well - 3x when we only see a half dozen films a year at that theater complex is obviously poor odds. The AM said they needed to train the kids that setup the films better - and I'm sure they can be trained better, but putting the presentation of multi-million dollar films in the hands of marginally trained and completely sound-inexperienced 16-17 yr olds is a bit ironic. Might as well spend $300M to make a film with incredible cinematography and surround and just go straight to iPhone.

I noticed from GS posts that this kind of occurrence isn't isolated to our local theater. How are the theaters you attend?

Sam

07-20-2009, 12:01 AM

Recently I mixed a 2 hr live recording of a very famous comedian here, Barry Humphries (his show is made up of his characters Dame Edna, Les Patterson and Sandy Stone), which included a multicam HD shoot and a theatrical 5.1 mix. This show is then sent out to 60 or 70 cinemas on HDD and played from server out such that the audience could 'feel a part of being at the live show'....

So sitting there ths show starts 10mins late because there was a 10min section of ambient theatre and people filing into the show that is supposed to play while the cinema audience files in and gets seated....these idiots didn't start that part till we were all in - so we got to watch 10mins of people sitting down :(

Then I realised something was wrong when the CinemaLive branding intro played out (I mixed their 30 sec branding intro too) and lo and behold all of it is coming out the centre....it was horrible...the dynamics system was smashing it all to pieces (it was full of bug bacgs booms and wooshes and a rocking music track) - I begin to sink lower in my seat and cringe....

Then the show starts....again it was all coming out the centre. There was an awful ringing (something to do with the Mpeg encoding of the audio I guessed??) and in the intermission I found the projectionist and asked what the hell was wrong and why all the audio was coming out centre only....he just shrugged and said "I just hit play man, the same way I do for all the movies"...uuuuggghhh! He did nothing about fixing it....i dont think he would have known how.

I was starting to freak that this was happening in 60 other cinema's around the country right at that moment...and I sat through the whole excruciating lot as I had brought friends to watch!!! OUCH!!!

When I got home I rang the shows producer and told her what had happened, she was furious as they had all said it tested fine and was OK 1 week before the show, she had even sent them storyboards of how to play out the show so the sequnce was all correct, they said yep, got it, no worries...the cinema she went to had 600 people in it and sounded great, PHEW!....but then she said many many other places had royally stuffed up the show too in many other ways.....

Bloody dissapointing to watch all your hard work end up shat on because of some badly trained operator, let alone feel so bad for the poor audience who had parted with their hard earned to experience that let down....i bet they get better training in selling icecream and popcorn.

TAFKAT

07-20-2009, 12:15 AM

You guys are killing me here.. :-(

With my recent family expansion I really haven't had a chance to get out to watch any new releases on the big screen, and after the experiences you guys have just related, I think I'll feel less guilty acquiring the material by alternative means.. :eusa_whistle:

This whole " don't ask me, I just press play" attitude is pathetic after paying good $ to see the movie. Just another indication of the iGeneration approach that is spreading like a cancer across multiple facets of our industry... :-(

07-20-2009, 12:29 AM

paulwr

07-20-2009, 12:16 PM

dcwave

07-20-2009, 12:46 PM

Don't feel bad about missing Harry Potter................ I miss John Willams.................big time. Plus the pace of the movie..... they just didn't get that or a number of things right. Not that its easy, but saw it last night with the wife and she doesn't want to bother seeing the next one.

-Paul

Holy cow - you're not kidding! What a train wreck of a movie. Long, pacing was horrible, the score was , well was there one? Was there any magic? It was hard to notice. Most of the actors were just wallpaper behind a hole riddled plot. I guess it is too hard to take 1000 pages of a poorly written story and make it into a great movie (I think JK rowling had staff writers after book 4 - the style of writing changed alot - the writting and the stories were better thought out in the first 4 books).

07-20-2009, 12:51 PM

I guess it is too hard to take 1000 pages of a poorly written story and make it into a great movie (I think JK rowling had staff writers after book 4 - the style of writing changed alot - the writting and the stories were better thought out in the first 4 books).

Genius is not a role that can be delegated.

kdm

07-20-2009, 01:11 PM

Don't feel bad about missing Harry Potter................ I miss John Willams

As do I. His composing is head and shoulders above the rest, though I fear his melodic and more complex (but accessible) development is a dying concept in film scoring.

Also agreed, the story wasn't as well done either. Some major scenes left out that might have helped the storyline. I Didn't like the look of the last two films either - the darker tone to coloring doesn't suit the concept of the film - the first 3 were the best, with the 3rd probably being the best of the series, with an excellent score my Mr. Williams of course.

MattiasNYC

07-20-2009, 11:54 PM

Cool topic!

I've had the same experience in NYC a few times.

A few times I've had a missing side, like front left or right. Could have sworn a couple of times too that shit was out of phase, which to me seems incredibly insane. I complained one time and got a free ticket, which was nice I guess.

Fortunately I've personally only done stereo mixes, or prepped for 5.1 to have other engineers upmix it. But even though it's only a stereo mix the differences are pretty drastic between theaters I think. Both the tonal balance and absolute level. And the 5.1 mixes have had very varying amounts of level in the surrounds.

I can't wait to get a new place and set up a nice home theater so I can enjoy movies with friends that don't talk a bunch of crap and with a sound system that kicks!.....

LEX

07-21-2009, 12:13 AM

That is why I rarely go to see movies outside of the studio.
But, luckly, being LA, there are alot more theaters that are RIGHT.

I'd say 75-80 percent of them work, but there are some of the smaller rooms that play the LTRT decoded.

Last one I saw was Wolverine and it was pretty decent.

U want to know something bad. I did a screening at dobly and rather than finding out what our 5.1 layout was, they assumed it was LR, CLFE, LSRS.

I had LS coming out the sub.

We had ALL the producers, editor and director in to screen it. Plus the head of the studio.

They didn't want to stop it, so it was a mess.

LEX

Mark

08-12-2009, 08:32 AM

Interesting discussion. Many is the time I've been to the cinema and (much to the embarrrassment of my wife) disappeared to find the projectionist to ask if he would mind turning all his amps on.

A few years ago I took my young son to see Rugrats the Movie (hey, he liked 'em). The film came on and the sound was awful - hissy, thumpy, compressed, front only and generally unacceptable. Most folk in the cinema were too busy slurping cola, munching popcorn, or talking on their mobiles to notice, of course. But I told young Adam to sit tight, and went out into the foyer to find the nearest disinterested Person In Authority. "The sound is terrible", I said. "I'll have a listen", he replied, and came back to the auditorium with me. He stood there for a couple of minutes, listening to the raspy voices of these cartoon characters before telling me, solemnly, "That's the way they speak".

I think I contained my disdain rather well, considering. "Look," I said, "I am not that stupid. Would you kindly go up to the projection box and ask the projectionist to switch the Dolbies on". He scurried away. About five minutes later there was an almighty thump and click, and the sound disappeared for a second before returning with crystal clarity.

A more bizarre example... I'd recorded, sound-designed, scored and mixed a short film in 5.1. It was made on HD-CAM and we were showing it to potential investors at a reputable preview theatre. Just before the screening, I took the tape to the projectionist and, with the director, asked him to run the first couple of minutes just so that we could check we were happy. After 30 seconds, I stopped it. "Your right speakers are out." I said. "It sounds to me that only the bass bins are working". The projectionist looked doubtful. He hit play, and came into the auditorium. "Sounds fine", he said. I repeated my point, and suggested he check. He went back and soloed channels. Sure enough, the right channel was bass only. A rummage around the back of the power amps showed a short. With that corrected all was fine. Apparently some re-routing of cables had taken place a couple of weeks previously. Worryingly, the theatre had in the interim been used to approve mixes for a high profile advertising campaign.