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Are movies too loud?...

Posted by millen on February 8, 2005 at 12:19:47

Over the past few years, the subject of movies getting louder has generated increasing concern within the film production community. In addition, it has become commonplace for movie-goers to claim that movies are too loud. Many theatres now project films at an audio fader setting below the calibration setting that would match that in the dubbing theatre, presumably because of audience complaints.

The following material discusses some of the issues that can be described as soundtrack “loudness.” What is a measure of “loudness” for a movie? Why do theatres turn the sound down? Have new sound formats, (Dolby SR and more recently the digital formats, Dolby SR•D, Sony SDDS and DTS) exacerbated the perceived loudness problem?

“Loudness” has been defined many times over the years.1,2 But the target definitions have been clearly aimed at specific issues, such as how annoying is the background noise level in a working space, how damaging can the noise exposure of a pile-driver be for eight hours, what is the noise level of a recording or transmission medium, or how to compare instantaneous loudness of different spectra. Those familiar with movie soundtracks would not be surprised at the subjective announcement that The Right Stuff, 1983 was a “loud movie”. The Right Stuff (released in Dolby Atype 70 mm and Dolby A-type stereo optical), certainly was subjectively a “louder” movie than, say, Shine, a 1996 release in Dolby Digital. But Shine was subjectively louder than Days of Heaven, 1978, so perhaps a case could be made that movies have been getting both louder and quieter. Of course, this is nonsense; selected titles can be picked to prove relative “loudness” and “quietness” - potentially Gone with the Wind could be used to prove that films have become quieter over the last five decades!

• FYI   (Open in New Window)

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