And now the Drama Director get's blamed for mumbling actors..

[Roger Slater]

I suspect they went with a rerecording mixer who isn't quite up on why we have standards, who told them "if it sounds good on my theatrical dub stage, it'll sound good anywhere"… and proceeded to do all sorts of dicey things with surrounds and extremes of the band.

 

Robert Farr the re-recording mixer is a highly regarded professional with 20+ years experience, who coincidentally picked up the BAFTA Award for best sound for a different production the same week this story broke. You might want to do a bit of research before you slag off another sound professional. The story has moved  away from being a 'sound issue' and into problems of  mumbling and bad acting

[Jay Rose]

I stand corrected, and offer apologies to Mr Farr. 

 

I realize there's little a re-recording mixer can do if the director wants a particular sound (or doesn't realize how decisions will translate to the real world). 

 

Which dumps it back in the director's or producer's lap, not the actor's. They - the honchos - decided to use this actor and this take.

 

If the problem is "down-facing speakers" or bad surround decoding or anything like that, and I certainly accept that Mr Farr would have known better, then it's the director and producer who told him to mix it in a way that wouldn't translate.

[Scott Smith]

Yeah, and I really love it when I get a call from editorial complaining about some issue with sound. When I ask them what sort of monitoring system they are using, half the time they don't even know. When I tell them they should listen to the tracks in question on a real monitor system, their feathers all get ruffled.

 

Funny though, after they actually go and listen to the material on a decent system, I never hear back from them.

 

And some of those Avid bays are noisy -- several big desktop Macs, a fleet of hard drives, nasty $99 monitor speakers, hard walls. It's amazing they can hear anything in those edit bays. 

[pvanstry]

I don't work on big name tv shows but I do some second unit stuff on some and a lot of smaller fiction projects. Mumbling is indeed a bad trend happening and a nightmare to deal with. I feel it is the inexperience way of trying for emotion on the part of the actor/director. But, so far when I ( quickly but precisely ) explain that I cannot make out the dialog, and I make I point of being heard by both the Director and actor, I get a louder take afterwards. Using words like the spectator won't understand what you said or he's going to go to the bathroom during your big scene, usually gets the point across really well...

My two cents

[pvanstry]

Btw, I follow Elementary ( my wife and I ) and it was a great opportunity to explain to her about dialogue level and mumbling. Poor soundguy for this one, Sherlock is barely understandable ( in bethween mumbling, accent and near parkinson erratic movement not fun for clothing noise ). I still enjoy the show and see the effort made by the sound crew to make it enjoyable. Bit indeed it is a pause rewind play show.

[Izen Ears]

I mixed a couple of episodes of Salem, 102, 104 and 105, and the mumbling and whispering was ridiculous. You know it's bad when you can't even se the actors lips moving when they speak.

 

  Whoops getting to this late - two of those were my episodes!  (104 & 105)

  Just about every take I wanted to shake the actors by the shoulders and say "Don't you want the audience to hear your performance?!"  But I couldn't.  All I could do is tell the directors, who didn't care, and the actors, who said they'd loop it.

  I put strident pleas on my sound reports to the editors: "Please request that the actors raise their voices!  They won't listen to me."

  This is in the midst of camera directing the actors continuously.  I guess it's too much to ask that they act for cameras AND sound.

  What acting school taught "If you're afraid of coming across insincere, just whisper and you'll appear dramatic."  Apparently all of them.  Whispering is something you do when you don't want others to hear you, period.  If you're acting in *any* capacity, you want people to hear you even if it's supposed to be a whisper!

  In order to get a decent level I had to jack up the gain so much that a laugh, simple dish tink, or chair scuff resounded thunderously and often would jolt my entire body.  I actually scared people by jumping out of my seat when an actor would stop acting and speak in their normal voice.  About 60dB difference!  I decided to let it go, turn down my headphones mix and allow the loud noises to hit "0" in the mix (not the isos).  I don't even want to see the final product.

  In a world of truly ludicrous things, low-talkers are one of the most ridiculous parts of my job.

  It's not technology, it's actors.

  Dan Izen

[Scott Smith]

I feel fortunate to have been around long enough to have actually had the opportunity to work with actors that know how to act. Though some of them are a cranky lot, when you look at the current crop of actors, I can't blame them.

 

These days, on the rare occasion I actually encounter an actor with the gift to project the emotion of a scene without being a mumble-mouth, I always make it a point to ask them if they have a background in theater (or at least theater training). To date, I have yet to encounter a single actor with a decent voice who hasn't spent time on the stage. Guess they don't teach that in film acting school...

 

Another sore point: I am truly mystified by the lack of dialog compression on many TV shows. Yeah, current TV standards allow for a much greater dynamic range than the previous NTSC system, but how many people are actually listening to the average TV drama on a decent system at 85dBa? Even on a good system, I frequently find myself reaching for the volume control during quiet sequences.

 

While I don't advocate the sort of "loudness wars" that dominate most of the music business, (where the dynamic range is about 3 dB), some judicious use of moderate compression (say 4:1 or 6:1) would go a long way towards improving overall intelligibility. (And yeah, I've worked as a re-recording mixer, so I know how compression is typically used).

 

My rant for the day.... 

[RPSharman]

Btw, I follow Elementary ( my wife and I ) and it was a great opportunity to explain to her about dialogue level and mumbling. Poor soundguy for this one, Sherlock is barely understandable ( in bethween mumbling, accent and near parkinson erratic movement not fun for clothing noise ). I still enjoy the show and see the effort made by the sound crew to make it enjoyable. Bit indeed it is a pause rewind play show.

I never have issues understanding "Sherlock". Interesting.

[Marc Wielage]

I never have issues understanding "Sherlock". Interesting.

 

Sherlock (at least the BBC show) sounds fine to me on PBS here in the U.S.  No problems for me with the dialogue on that or Downton Abbey. Both sound spectacular -- no mumbling.

[pvanstry]

The BBC Sherlock is great but elementary is hard for us. Could be that I'm French Canadian... I don't know.

Indeed some compression. In post would go a long way in getting the dialogue up during mumbling fest...

[Henchman]

The BBC Sherlock is great but elementary is hard for us. Could be that I'm French Canadian... I don't know.

Indeed some compression. In post would go a long way in getting the dialogue up during mumbling fest...

No, just proper eq, and pushing the fader. Possibly some clip volume here and there.

[Henchman]

Whoops getting to this late - two of those were my episodes!  (104 & 105)

  Just about every take I wanted to shake the actors by the shoulders and say "Don't you want the audience to hear your performance?!"  But I couldn't.  All I could do is tell the directors, who didn't care, and the actors, who said they'd loop it.

  I put strident pleas on my sound reports to the editors: "Please request that the actors raise their voices!  They won't listen to me."

  This is in the midst of camera directing the actors continuously.  I guess it's too much to ask that they act for cameras AND sound.

  What acting school taught "If you're afraid of coming across insincere, just whisper and you'll appear dramatic."  Apparently all of them.  Whispering is something you do when you don't want others to hear you, period.  If you're acting in *any* capacity, you want people to hear you even if it's supposed to be a whisper!

  In order to get a decent level I had to jack up the gain so much that a laugh, simple dish tink, or chair scuff resounded thunderously and often would jolt my entire body.  I actually scared people by jumping out of my seat when an actor would stop acting and speak in their normal voice.  About 60dB difference!  I decided to let it go, turn down my headphones mix and allow the loud noises to hit "0" in the mix (not the isos).  I don't even want to see the final product.

  In a world of truly ludicrous things, low-talkers are one of the most ridiculous parts of my job.

  It's not technology, it's actors.

  Dan Izen

Twp of the episodes I mixed were episodes 4 and 5. And they sounded really good, in spite of the actors mumbling.

The other episode I mixed was much harder. Lots of noise on the mics, and very very sibilant.

[Henchman]

Another sore point: I am truly mystified by the lack of dialog compression on many TV shows. Yeah, current TV standards allow for a much greater dynamic range than the previous NTSC system, but how many people are actually listening to the average TV drama on a decent system at 85dBa? Even on a good system, I frequently find myself reaching for the volume control during quiet sequences.

While I don't advocate the sort of "loudness wars" that dominate most of the music business, (where the dynamic range is about 3 dB), some judicious use of moderate compression (say 4:1 or 6:1) would go a long way towards improving overall intelligibility. (And yeah, I've worked as a re-recording mixer, so I know how compression is typically used).

My rant for the day....

Sorry, but. I completely disagree.

You don't need compressors to mix your dialog. Compressors just bring up the noise floor.

Riding your faders and Eq will take care of most of the issues. And now with clipgain, you can get even more precise, without having to resort to compressors. Which I don't like the sound of when they start to work.

A little bit of compression at the end of the chain with a limiter, is all that you need. But only to take care of peaks.

Bad mixers cause you to reach for the remote in quiet scenes.

[Henchman]

Dan, check out the two episodes of Salem that I mixed,that you recorded.

We got fired from the show because the AP said we weren't up to it.

I think he had his own agenda the minute he took over the show.

Compare episodes 2,4,5 to episode 3 and everything after 5 if you get a chance.

Let me know what you think.

[pvanstry]

Gentlemen I am not saying that we need to use compression during production, even tough if used properly with good understanding of the tool it can do a lot, but I am talking about post production where it can help in making fader moves less drastic and make for an easier transition in bethween one word to another.

Again, compression is a great tool when properly used and not to extreme. When I was mixing live shows, I would have compression with lo threshold set but with a ratio of 2.5 or 3 to 1. So no real heavy leveling just a slight narrowing of the extreme. Makes for a very smooth mixing situation.

[Henchman]

Gentlemen I am not saying that we need to use compression during production, even tough if used properly with good understanding of the tool it can do a lot, but I am talking about post production where it can help in making fader moves less drastic and make for an easier transition in bethween one word to another.

Again, compression is a great tool when properly used and not to extreme. When I was mixing live shows, I would have compression with lo threshold set but with a ratio of 2.5 or 3 to 1. So no real heavy leveling just a slight narrowing of the extreme. Makes for a very smooth mixing situation.

I AM talking about post production.

[pvanstry]

Well then I disagree with you. But I think that's one of the reason the world is not a boring place...

[Will Youngman]

Have to agree with Henchman on this one. I have found clip gain to be a far superior solution to control dynamics as compared to compressors same as Never clip sounds better than Limiters. With Clip gain you can tailor the reduction to each individual clip and have the waveform match that changes for instant feed back. Compressors directly on the DX tracks are for when you have a half hour turnaround for a one hour program.

 

By the way henchman, are you still using that UA fair child Plug on your DX master Buss?

[Henchman]

 

By the way henchman, are you still using that UA fair child Plug on your DX master Buss?

Yes. It's great. Followed by the precision limiter.

[johnpaul215]

Fascinating thread. Seriously. Also maybe a bit depressing that even on bigger budgets, this is an issue. 

 

Somewhat related, I remember a phase in the 90s when some bands had the (clever?) idea to master their CD so that it sounded best in a car. They knew that was where their audience would mostly be listening to it. Maybe the modern equivalent would be mastering a TV show for earbuds or iPad speakers. ugh. 

[Jay Rose]

lo threshold set but with a ratio of 2.5 or 3 to 1

 

That's been my secret also. Just keep an eye on the GR meter. 

 

Doing it this way, rather than applying a high ratio at a high threshold, sounds a lot more subtle. In fact if you do it multiband, being very careful of time constants and crossovers, you can make things much stronger without sounding at all squeezed.

[Scott Smith]

Not to start a pissing match over this, but I tend to agree with Jay. I have never heard judiciously applied compression at low ratios (say 2:1 to 4:1) be terribly audible, unless you are really slamming it (or have long release times). Likewise with any issues of bringing up background noise (which only occurs if you are are in virtually constant compression).

 

BTW: Love the UA Fairchild plug as well (which actually sounds a bit better to me than the hardware device. Sure I'll get some notes on that!). Clip Gain is also a great tool, but my guess is that many times it is implemented as a wholesale rendering, rather than tweaking it for specific areas.

 

Also, just to clarify, I am only talking about compression in post, not production. And yes, the human hand on the fader is still the preferred approach, but given time constraints of TV (and even features), is sometimes a luxury.  We live in a far from perfect world, to be sure...

 

(FWIT: It's always been interesting to me that I almost never have to strain to understand the dialog tracks in films from the Forties and Fifties. But that was a time when actors knew how to project, or risk spending many hours on the looping stage that would be better spent tossing back a few cocktails at Musso & Frank. Compression could be a bit heavy-handed as well, but some mixers seemed to have found ways to minimize some of the more audible effects).

 

--S

[Marc Wielage]

FWIT: It's always been interesting to me that I almost never have to strain to understand the dialog tracks in films from the Forties and Fifties. But that was a time when actors knew how to project, or risk spending many hours on the looping stage that would be better spent tossing back a few cocktails at Musso & Frank. Compression could be a bit heavy-handed as well, but some mixers seemed to have found ways to minimize some of the more audible effects.

 

It's doubly amazing to me that the re-recording mixers in that era were able to do everything they did in optical sound, plus they had no automation, plus the dubbers would not go in reverse!  I'm amazed they managed to get everything done on the fly like that -- and a lot of it still sounds fantastic, given that it was done 60-70-80 years ago. 

 

The fact that the actors knew how to project and understood a stage whisper really helped. 

[Bondelev]

For dialogue, I usually start with a compression ratio of about 1.5:1 or 2:1. I also like using one compressor on the individual track and another on the bus, both with very low ratios. I think a lot of peple fail with compression because they use a "one size fits all" setting. I am constantly adjusting the threshold to get the correct results. If I think I need to use a higher ratio, usually it is better to move the fader. Clip gain helps somewhat in getting drastically different levels under control, but it does not replace compression.

[Henchman]

I never out a compressor on individual tracks. I put it at the end of my main processing chain, right before the limiter.

This way, I rarely have to adjust the threshold, as the dialog always hits the compressor at the same level, as I ride into it.