The Lemon Fool

Why do these suffer from this list of serious defects:

Poor diction
Mumbling
Contorted accents
Squeaky voices
Whispering and barely audible speech throughout
Excessively loud "music" interruptions
No text for deaf people

We have just watched "Babel" with Cate Blanchett, which was visually excellent with an interesting plot but spoilt by all the above.

Are film audio people oblivious to what the audience will hear? Should actors attend elocution lessons?

So glad it's not just me!

I feel tv (incuding ours) is just as bad.

What are you listening to these awful films on. TV sound is terrible generally.

An AV amp and full size speakers will be a big improvement and you can increase the volume of the centre channel if voices are still a little unclear

The BBC and Christopher Nolan have been known to have some of the issues you mention.

Subtitles are often at the mercy of the provider. Would catch up offer more options.

For me the increase in volume for adverts is most annoying and probably why I miss most terrestrial tv

feder1 wrote:Are film audio people oblivious to what the audience will hear? Should actors attend elocution lessons?

They clearly go to the same sound/audio school that theatre/conceet hall sound engineers go to ...

A fellow wrinkly has suggested that actors of a previous generation were stage trained and could project their voices even in standard conversation. Morse being cited as an example. Secondly in addition to the current mumblers sound engineers seem to think atmospheric music more important than the script. Are script writers paid more than sound engineers ? Vengeance !

As the perfect storm I tried watching a bbc4 programme about Berlin in 1945. Memories of Germans who lived through the era. In German fine, if subtitled, but it was blended into English so both were running simultaneously for several seconds add music and my age to the mess.....