Poor sound mixing is exactly why I watch most things with subs by default now. I got sick of constantly having to turn the volume up to hear dialogue and then quickly back down to avoid massive explosions etc.
And I feel this is an escalating problem. Sound mixing is generally horrible in both games and movies/TV. Unless you blow out your speakers during the higher peaks, you've got no chance of hearing dialogue.
Does anyone have any clue to why this is such a well-spread phenomenon? Why is it like this? I mean, I get it (kinda) at a cinema, but I think it's way overplayed there as well.
For films, you have idiots like Christopher Nolan who's head is so far up his own ass he can probably see daylight. He purposefully mixes the audio poorly so nobody can hear anything, and likes it that way because .... something something something immersion artsy bullshit. I couldn't even finish watching Tenet, we turned it off halfway through because we had zero clue what was going on, and I will refuse to ever watch another Nolan film after that.
For games, I think it's just poor mixing, I doubt they mean to do it on purpose. They just don't invest in the proper audio people.
I honestly am a huge Nolan fan but could not agree more with his audio lately. I was really frustrated in the theater during Dunkirk trying to figure out what the heck Tom Hardy was saying. Tenet, at times, was also pretty bad. I still really liked both movies, but they would have been better experiences if I could have not dedicated so many resources to hear a word in a garbled mess of voice.
Nolan movies are meant to be loud. Obnoxiously loud. I saw Dunkirk in 70mm IMAX and it was punishingly loud, and amazing.
Basically, Nolan movies can't be watched in any shared or multi-unit living situations. You need to crank them to "this is going to piss off the neighbours" volume. But that's specific to the types of movies he makes, which are experiences more than narratives.
Interesting, I thought the sound mixing in films was poor because it was designed for cinema viewing and then not optimised for home setups. But I don't watch many movies on the big screen anymore. I thought at least some people were enjoying good quality mixing haha
That's a big part of it. And people can have so many different set ups now too. And there isn't time/funding to redo the mix for them all. There was a good article that covered some of the various reasons, I can't find it but some others...
The article I'm thinking of also mentioned mics changing, and actors not having to speak directly into it to get anything. So it opens up far more realistic acting, but makes capturing/mixing that dialogue more difficult.
That's really interesting too! I guess there are so many combinations of recording equipment, the quality of the mix, the streaming services spec, and the consumers set up, that they can't accommodate everyone.
Part of it is they are mixed in professional environments (studios) for professional environments (cinema).
Part of it is they can't mix for someone with a 10 year old tv using its built in speakers in a shared living room with street noise, 15 feet from the sofa and a brand new TV through a sound bar in a rural mansion 8 feet from the sofa, and someone using airpods over Bluetooth.
Plus people tend to listen to things at a volume similar to conversational level, but in a cinema you listen to things at a volume that would be considered impolite to your neighbors if you did it in an apartment block.
Finally, sound engineers are artists and dynamics (louder and quieter parts) are part of their craft. Actors are artists and their vocal performances also have dynamics.
A question to ask yourself is have you considered more actively participating in the sound delivery methods of your media? I'm not here to say "all people are watching TV wrong!" but I would ask if most people have even thought carefully about their sound delivery choices, their own EQ settings in their TV, how well tuned their environment is for active listening, and if they just need to turn their volume up?
I appreciate not everyone can blaze the sound on max — but if you do have to sacrifice some volume, maybe part of that tradeoff is clarity of dialogue?
Even in theaters, however, the sound mixing in Tenet was way off. And that may be bad setups at the theaters, but the fact that the complaint was so widespread indicates that the blame likely rests elsewhere.
You say this like there aren't plenty of movies and shows that don't have this problem at all, even YouTubers generally knock this out of the park.
Dialogue is one of the only things that should always be clear, it exists to tell the story and missing critical parts of that because they can't be assed to make sure it sounds half decent in more than one specific environment using one specific audio technology is not something I'm willing to support.
Nolan is just partially deaf imo. Dynamic Range is nice and especially for the 5.1 mix it's great. Still dialogue should be understandable and at least be mostly mixed to the center channel so I can boost it if I want.
Also the 2.1 mix needs to focus on dialogue. No one who watches in 2.1 cares for the dynamic range and subbass stuff imho.
I'm not saying they need to mix for everyone, but how hard is it to make a decent 2.1 channel mix? That would cover 99% of the people complaining with minimal effort.
It seems tv audio engineers expect everyone to have a high end theater speaker setup: that's the only way to be able to hear it, apart from to use headphones, which is cheaper, but it's not a great solution. You'd think apps like netflix and Disney plus would be able to include a setting like video games that selects a different audio mix, or separate tracks for dialogue and sfx each with thier own volume slider.
This is why I think dynamic range compression should be a standard feature for TVs, phones, stereos, PCs and other consumer devices that output audio. Something to even out quiet dialogue and loud explosions would be a godsend for movie watchers everywhere.
I know Windows has a compressor of sorts built in, the audio equalization feature, and I wish there were a good equivalent for this on Linux.
Truth be told, with my auditory processing issues, I'd probably still be using subtitles in tandem with compression/equalization if it were an option. BUT, it'd still be nice to have for watching things late at night without waking other people up.
Funnily enough, watching TV in bed is the other reason I started watching with subs! I've since switched to bluetooth headphones for that and I find I don't usually need subtitles if I'm using them.
I just encountered that when playing Fallout 76 for the first time. When I first started up the game everything was so loud so I turned it down to what I thought would be a good level. But when I played a holotape in a terminal it was so quiet AND even when I had subtitles turned on for some reason they didn't appear :/
You don't. In The Netherlands we always watch with subtitles in theaters and at home for foreign movies/series (and sometimes even Dutch due to the mixing issues and trying to eat snacks ;) ). You read these without looking a them directly.
Huge agree. If I can watch Redline and Dead Leaves in their original language with English subtitles first and miss nothing when compared to watching the English dub after the fact, I think I can catch pretty much whatever most movies will throw at me just fine.
As if my ADHD ass could choose to only pay attention to the subtitles anyway?
It's like reading a road sign while driving on the freeway. I can read the sign out of my peripheral vision, without focusing on it or taking my eyes off the road. I assumed everyone did this?
Where it does apply, you got an excuse for a second viewing.
Plus if we're talking about games, you generally should have some awareness of your surroundings even when watching subtitles. If you didn't, just paying attention to your UI while playing would be difficult.
I don’t have to actually read them slowly, its like an extra thing giving me information. Like seeing words and hearing them in one go. It’s not distracting in the slightest
That's the answer in my book. I mainly use it for that very same purpose. Additionally, new games with their own game worlds and confusing made up words that sound different between characters.
I know this is about video games but for movies it's often the case that they were mixed for a surround sound system and then just combined for the stereo out that most people end up using.
Rarely, if ever. But if I watch something local it is usually news, game shows or something like that, not big screen productions that usually suffer from this "loud sound, silent speech" annoyance.
Unless it's some rural dialect. Then all bets are off. But then I have the same problem with many English dialects.
For Video games subtitles are ok. But with movies, I have them. They are too diszracting for me so I read subtitles all the time instead of watching the movie. If I wanted to read a book, I would read a book...
I always have subtitles turned on for games. Audio processing isn't my strong suit at the best of times, let alone when fantasy accents and weird vocabulary end up involved. I usually end up using them for TV shows and movies as well, at least when watching by myself. I just wish real life came with them, haha.
Metal Gear on MSX2 was a genre that didn’t exist yet, and which sounded boring when he proposed it. The real Metal Gear 2 built on that in ways that would still be noteworthy features in Metal Gear Solid. Snatcher and Policenauts were little more than visual novels, but they were well-executed. That’s largely thanks to Kojima insisting on artist-driven tools for scripting the exact timing of graphics, text, and music.
Metal Gear Solid fucked with the player by constantly breaking the fourth wall. MGS2 cranked that ten times higher, along with prescient comments on memetics and populist narratives. MGS3 was just polished as hell. MGS4 opens with fake commercials starring the voice actors and only gets weirder from there.
MGS5-- calling back to artist-driven tools, I recommend the article about the game’s rendering engine. They developed a little rectangle you can drop into a screenshot, and then however you adjust the screenshot in Photoshop, copy-pasting that little rectangle back into the game will perfectly match whatever you did. Kojima productions have a certain “just solve the problem” vibe behind a lot of their technical direction. MGS 1-3 had too much focus on the minimap radar, so MGS4 has a holographic ring around your feet. Why? How? Who gives a shit, it’s a video game.
P.T. was a horror game demo set entirely in one hallway. And it was terrifying. And weird. And full of promise. So when Kojima handed that gift to Konami, reviving one of their beloved franchises, with several big names on-board thanks to his weird industry connections… and then Konami booted his ass out the door… people noticed.
Death Stranding is the ultimate illustration of why he became well-known and why he remains well-known. It’s a ridiculous product. It forces comically long sequences that are not technically gameplay. Its writing is completely bonkers and longwinded. But every aspect is deliberate. It is that way, on purpose. A premise that sounds boring becomes interesting because it’s well-executed. Balance and stamina aren’t floating UI elements; they’re represented in your character’s movement, so you keep your eyes on your dude.
Basically, Kojima is the sort of lead who can insist on a ten-minute opening cutscene, thirty seconds of actual gameplay, and then another eight minutes of cutscene, and still have people’s attention.
Because in a industry dominated by yearly rehashed ideas like CoD or AC or Battlefield, Kojima spends time and resources creating new, novel ideas and taking the artistic medium (yes, games are art despite what capital G Gamers want to say) to new and exciting and interesting places.
This is why Kojima gets name recognition. This is why Yoko Taro gets name recognition. This is why Fumito Ueda gets name recognition. This is why Hideaki Itsuno gets name recognition.
Even MGS5, which was pretty clearly pushed out before he wanted it to be and broke him up with Konami, was extremely technically sound, just not filled out as much as it should have been.
Even disliking it, I still saw how stylish and imaginative it was, akin to the OG MGS. The last half and parts of gameplay were very unferwhelming thanks to Konami. I wonder how it could’ve ended if MGS5 have been given the time wasted on that zombie survival flick.
For me it was basically that every encounter should have been multiplied by three. Those little checkpoints being two soldiers aren't worth it, and it's the same up the line. Even the big stuff almost always feels empty.
Sniper Elite 4 and 5 are comparable in terms of stealth mechanic quality, but their bases are actually filled in and they're better games for it. MGS5 could have been that, and I'm pretty sure Kojima wanted it to be that, but they pulled the plug and shipped a partial game instead.
Yeah. It ended up as a Pokemon Go with soviet solders, kek, istead off a full flashed masterpiece. And it’s depressing.
I’m happy tho that MG:R happened. Platinum Games did it in their own way, but they didn’t hold any punches. Unlike Kojima, they had time to do what they wanted to achieve, and even though it’s a niche game, it was a delight.
I think this is compounded by his reputation goes past just his fans.
I actually don’t think I’ve ever played a Kojima game and I don’t know that I ever will but even I understand he has a reputation of making extremely solid games even if it means he’s fighting tooth and nail to continue that trend.
Because he’s one of the few devs with true name recognition. All video game awards shows have always been chasing the Oscars but the film industry is full of massive celebrities. Not just stars but directors and even some writers and producers.
So Kojima has that. Plus his work always shows well. It’s usually something unique and cinematic.
Which seems a fruitless ambition, the talents required to be great at both are very different, charisma and attractiveness are much more important in the film industry. People will naturally like those stars more because their job is in part to be likable
Why other game devs don’t get that much recognition or screen time?
Probably because Geoff Keighle and Hideo Kojima are great friends. Game Awards announced 30 seconds limit for speeches, but those only apply to everyone else, not friends.
Because it’s an honest portrayal of America at that time. It makes racists look bad and it shows that the N-word itself isn’t the source of the pain, it’s how the label is used.
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