Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by SR (i) on July 18, 2000 at 08:05:36:

In Reply to: Old Movies sound better? posted by Scott Woebcke on July 15, 2000 at 11:27:22:

I don't know what you mean by "smeared" but old films are usually more intelligable as a whole. In the "old days" producers and sound tech's understood the primary job was communication of a story. As an audience member it is helpful in following the story when I can understand all the words. Today we have "Sound Designers" they are self proclaimed "artists". They create thick rich worlds of audio that are sometimes wonderful and exciting and then again sometimes they just get so thick and realistic with the layering of audio that the words get unintelligable. The problem is that all the crew and producers know exactly what the actor is saying they've heard it isolated and they've read the script. As the sound effects get thickened up and louder the audience misses some words and the sound crew doesn't even realize what they've done to the audience.

Steve