What have you done today?

[DirtDawg]

Dropped off my daughter at school, spent 30 minutes in a traffic jam, cursing, and had to prepare a film for screening in less than fifteen minutes, with the director explaining things about the film's soundtrack over my shoulder.

Why is it that Swedish film directors ALWAYS have trouble with their film sound mixes? The Dolby SRD mixing guidelines are simple and to the point, and any competent technician with decent equipment should be able to produce a soundtrack that, while not earth-shattering, is mixed with the proper levels. Properly calibrated, a soundtrack will play about the same in any properly calibrated Dolby processor. That's the whole fucking point with standardising stuff.

And that's why I always make sure that my cinema is properly calibrated. It's not hard, not if you care about what you do. 

Should probably have posted this in the quick bitch thread...

OMFG!

You are singing the chorus of my song.

How fucking hard is it to understand to purpose of standardising and accomplish it!?!

[Soph]

nothing yet really. still haven't got up

[odeon]

Dropped off my daughter at school, spent 30 minutes in a traffic jam, cursing, and had to prepare a film for screening in less than fifteen minutes, with the director explaining things about the film's soundtrack over my shoulder.

Why is it that Swedish film directors ALWAYS have trouble with their film sound mixes? The Dolby SRD mixing guidelines are simple and to the point, and any competent technician with decent equipment should be able to produce a soundtrack that, while not earth-shattering, is mixed with the proper levels. Properly calibrated, a soundtrack will play about the same in any properly calibrated Dolby processor. That's the whole fucking point with standardising stuff.

And that's why I always make sure that my cinema is properly calibrated. It's not hard, not if you care about what you do. 

Should probably have posted this in the quick bitch thread...

OMFG!

You are singing the chorus of my song.

How fucking hard is it to understand to purpose of standardising and accomplish it!?!

It's not hard. 'merican filmmakers do it all the time. The mixes themselves are not always great but they are almost always Dolby-compliant, which means that when I receive a print with a Dolby SRD soundtrack from the States, I can safely assume that it will play as intended in my processor.

Swedish filmmakers, however, with very few exceptions, mess things up. A few years ago, a major Swedish feature film (around 80-90 prints, which is a lot here) reached the cinemas accompanied with a note saying that any cinemas with subwoofers installed should turn them off when playing the film. There were "problems with the mix".

The fuckwits had turned up the low-frequency levels while mixing because it sounded so "cool" in the tiny little screening room the studio had...

[DirtDawg]

Idiots!

This is somewhat common during music recordings, too. Not so much low frequency ranges, but using STANDARDISED, properly set up monitors and tweaking things past reference levels so their music can "stand out."

The downstream systems simply have to globally compress everything on the recording to make it work. The out-of-bounds tweaks went for nothing but lowering the overall sound quality of their music.

Guess what - the next idiiot wanted to do the same and we now have a loudness war on our hands. With very few exceptions, modern music recording sounds like hammerd out shit.

They have the tools at their disposal to create the most engaging and noise-free, three dimensional, perfectly separated for clarity, extremely realistic and dynamic music experience for their fanbase and they don't use it. They just want to "Sound Louder Than The Other Guy."  ... in a fucking earbud!!



This type of short-term thinking is part of the brickwall I hit when I got out of the business.

 

[SovaNu]

The fuckwits had turned up the low-frequency levels while mixing because it sounded so "cool" in the tiny little screening room the studio had...

OMG. sacriligious bastards.

[odeon]

Idiots!

This is somewhat common during music recordings, too. Not so much low frequency ranges, but using STANDARDISED, properly set up monitors and tweaking things past reference levels so their music can "stand out."

The downstream systems simply have to globally compress everything on the recording to make it work. The out-of-bounds tweaks went for nothing but lowering the overall sound quality of their music.

Guess what - the next idiiot wanted to do the same and we now have a loudness war on our hands. With very few exceptions, modern music recording sounds like hammerd out shit.

They have the tools at their disposal to create the most engaging and noise-free, three dimensional, perfectly separated for clarity, extremely realistic and dynamic music experience for their fanbase and they don't use it. They just want to "Sound Louder Than The Other Guy."  ... in a fucking earbud!!



This type of short-term thinking is part of the brickwall I hit when I got out of the business.

 

Yeah, I hear you.

For a while, I made a point out of having a printout of the standard Dolby curve (the one used for optical sound; this is a few years ago) to show it to every director or sound person visiting my projection booth before a premiere. At festivals, what most of these people wanted was to test run a reel, mostly "to check the sound".

"Have you followed this?" (Me showing the Dolby standard reference curve.)
"What's that?"
"The Dolby standard curve. It should be your sound mixer's bible."
"Er, I don't know."
"What do you hope to accomplish with a test run?"
"Check if the sound is good."
"And if it's not?"
"Change something."
"Not in my theatre. Do you have the time to remix the film before the premiere?" (Stunned silence after this one, usually.)
"Er, no."

And eventually they'd leave.

Then they'd go to the festival management who would phone me, plead with me, etc, and I'd reply that "sorry, I don't do therapy sessions for insecure filmmakers."

Idiots, mainly. And they never learn, except for a few sound guys in the business who know me well and are wise enough to bring cake, beer, or whisky when asking me for a favour. I always test run their reels if I have the time. They know that it doesn't help, but it keeps their directors happy. And, of course, these guys know how to mix a film so usually the sound is great.

I should write a book called "Adventures in the Projection Booth".

[DirtDawg]

"... therapy sessions ..."






Yep, that's all you would be doing.

Brilliant!



(You probably SHOULD write.)

[odeon]

Thanks. 

[Leto729]

Just woke up.

[renaeden]

saw some stuffed calandales at the museum. lots and lots of them. 

:lol: I would plus you but I just have already. I will wait until later to plus you again. That is hilarious.

[odeon]

Dropped off my kids at school.

[SovaNu]

drank two glasses of wine. drank beer. drank more than half a bottle wine. ate tuna fishy steak and potatos. ate onion rings. slept.

[SovaNu]

drank two glasses of wine. drank beer. drank more than half a bottle wine. ate tuna fishy steak and potatos. ate onion rings. slept.

actually i slept before that.

[odeon]

Washed some clothes.

[SovaNu]

i bought wine for later.