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How a man can watch Downton Abbey...


Steve Joachim

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My wife watches.

I do the one eye trick, but only because I don't watch enough to have any idea what's happening. It sounds good and looks good and is performed as a whole with great subtlety. It could very easily get off track performance-wise, but the cast does a fine job.

It's worth watching if you have the time for another new show.

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Terrific show. To me, it's just an updated version of the 1970s Upstairs/Downstairs show, with all the soap-operaish melodrama. But it's extraordinarily well-acted, well-shot, and well-recorded. I'm about to start watching Season 3 this week, where Shirley MacLaine starts as the wealthy American grandmother of one of the characters. MacLaine vs. Maggie Smith has gotta be an epic match. 

 

It's interesting to reflect that in this era of British society, you had three types of people living in these stately mansions: a) people who had inherited the houses after many generations; 2) people who had a lofty royal title; and 3) people with vast wealth. The trick is, not many of them had all three, which leads to a lot of plot complications. 

 

There's a ton of speaking roles, plus many real locations with tons of narrow corridors and twisty staircases. I don't doubt that the sound crew works their asses off -- the sound quality is fantastic, especially for television. 

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Whatever- this show is awesome and I don't care who knows! Good sound and score too. Would love some insight into the production sound.

Brian Milliken who is a regular contributor to this forum did some of the series so when he's not to busy maybe he''ll tell us how it was done.

All I can tell you was he had to use a shed load of radio mics.

Malcolm Davies. A.m.p.s.

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I only started watching it this season.  Actually, someone who isn't me likes to watch it ... I just surf the net on the iPad while she's watching it.  It sounds fine I guess, though to me some of the rooms don't sound nearly as big as they look on camera.  The cameras move a lot more than I like, which probably explains why it sounds like they use the lavs a lot.   I like seeing all the cars.

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Q, the job of a re-recording mixer is to make sure the dialog doesn't sound big and roomy.

That may be what it has become, but you watch old movies or TV shows, and a big room sounds like a big room. I like it.

As a PSM, I can't know which ofte two or three cameras they will use, so I can't record perspective all the time, but I make sure the elements are there so the RRM can match perspective to camera.

I am disappointed when wide shots of big rooms are too dry. But it's not always up to the PSM or RRM. Some directors just hate reverb.

That said, I still like the sound of "Downton" in the sense that it doesn't draw attention to itself. At least on the few episodes I have seen.

Robert

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Q, the job of a re-recording mixer is to make sure the dialog doesn't sound big and roomy.

 

Sometimes, I think that's true. But other times, I can see where a giant echoey, boomy room is what you'd want to add to the reality of what's there.

 

There are some scenes in Downton Abbey that kind of take me out of the show, particularly when they do a 1000mm distant telephoto shot across a hill, in the middle of an outdoor English countryside, and it's 100% wireless. It's a little too "up close" for me. But that doesn't happen too often, and I accept that it's a valid creative choice for them. And it's very, very common in TV these days.

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True fans of the genre and Downton Abby probably know this already but, if you haven't already seen Robert Altman's Gosford park, it all started there. Julian Fellows the writer of Downton and Gosford contributes a great commentary.

Yep. That's the first thing that came to mind when I started watching it.

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Sometimes, I think that's true. But other times, I can see where a giant echoey, boomy room is what you'd want to add to the reality of what's there.

 

There are some scenes in Downton Abbey that kind of take me out of the show, particularly when they do a 1000mm distant telephoto shot across a hill, in the middle of an outdoor English countryside, and it's 100% wireless. It's a little too "up close" for me. But that doesn't happen too often, and I accept that it's a valid creative choice for them. And it's very, very common in TV these days.

That's because we need to understand the dialog.

Seriously though, if we played reality, and always used the boom with all the reverb and noise in it, it would sound like crap.

And indeed. Go back and listen to old movies and tv shows. And a lot of them sound horrible and midrangey.

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