It’s frankly amazing that it managed to make it to release. Who the fuck thought the mix was acceptable? Scene 1 I had no clue what was happening because I couldn’t hear! Ridiculous.
You want to hear things well, though? You’ll need surround sound system and to turn up the center speaker. That’s where they generally mix the voice audio.
Not being able to hear the dialogue is an artistic choice Nolan has been intentionally making since around The Dark Knight Rises. I know that sounds dumb but, I’m not joking. I have been baffled by this choice and have refused to see any of his films until Oppenheimer. Which was a major improvement.
I would NOT call Oppenheimer a major improvement! It was one of my least favorite theater experiences because I couldn’t hear half of the dialogue and the whole thing was way too loud.
I watched it in Dolby Atmos and still couldn’t understand shit. It was simply very, very badly mixed. I don’t think I’ll watch another film from Nolan.
I kept hearing this complaint but when I finally watched it there was only one scene where I couldn’t hear the dialogue (when Neil is scoping out the airport bank vault) and it seemed very much intentional. Did you find this to be an issue throughout the entire film?
Just like modern plots, modern audio editing spoonfeeds the audience: https://youtu.be/XOXJLwzIOoA?si=XY-0mUmwx9_V51Tl. We need to be told each and every detail about the security system in order to understand that it’s extreme, even though those details wouldn’t add to the plot in any way (as I recall, the last thing you can hear is the risk of suffocation - which is the last aspect of the security system that was relevant later on).
Next thing you know, audiences will start complaining that depth of field/camera blur is obscuring in unimportant details in the background.
Same. The moment you don’t understand the dialogue then it’s not important, that moment it’s about atmosphere. Worked great for me. I enjoyed the sound mixing in this movie!
Ugh, I hate that so much! Especially since I sometimes like to fall asleep to a movie I’ve seen many times before and at the end just drift off to the sound of it.
“Whisper whisper whisper EXPLOSIONS AND YELLING whisper whisper whisper” is probably my least favorite style of sound mixing.
I like to be able to hear the quiet parts without the loud parts bursting my ear drums, thank you very much!
You may want to see if your TV has a “night mode” in the audio settings. It’s basically just an audio compander, (combination of compressor and expander.) It expands the quiet parts to be louder, and compresses the loud parts to be quieter. It destroys any kind of dynamics that the director intended, and can cause some difficulty with intelligibility if there’s lots of background noise, (because the noise is getting expanded too!) But for watching things at night, it’s almost a must for dynamic movies.
Some brands call it headphone mode, because headphone users also frequently complain about dynamic audio too; They turn up to hear the quiet parts, then get their ears blown off during the loud parts.
Sounds like exactly what I need, thanks! I’m watching on a tablet on the bed next to me, but if it’s available on TVs as a mode, it’s probably available for VLC on Android too.
It destroys any kind of dynamics that the director intended
Fuck their intentions lol. Having a huge gulf in loudness is good for two things only: jump scares and Michael Bay type movies trying to impress you with how loud things go boom. Both are just annoyances to me at the best of times and keeping me from falling asleep at the worst.
can cause some difficulty with intelligibility if there’s lots of background noise
That might be a drawback, though. On the other hand, who keeps in a lot of background noise in the first place? Morons and amateurs, that’s who! 😛
Some brands call it headphone mode, because headphone users also frequently complain about dynamic audio too; They turn up to hear the quiet parts, then get their ears blown off during the loud parts.
Yup, I know that all too well as a daily headphones/earbuds user for the last several years, maybe even a decade…
I highly recommend using Nova video player. It’s an android video player specifically made to handle movies and series. It’s got everything you neeed from automatically downloading each movie /episode poster, description, subtitles, got audio boost and night mode. And oh, I almost forgot to say that it’s an open source project and it’s available on f-droid.
It’s a shame that the app is barely known, so if you enjoyed it, please share it.
You’re talking about a regular compressor with make up gain. An expander makes the quiet parts even quieter. Compressors compress the dynamic range (which is what you’d want in this scenario), expanders expands the dynamic range.
I… “got a copy” and it was fine on my television. I dont even have external speakers (built in speakers). I wonder if the digital release fixed this issue.
Part of the issue for me was the audio is mixed so that you can barely hear the dialogue.
It’s frankly amazing that it managed to make it to release. Who the fuck thought the mix was acceptable? Scene 1 I had no clue what was happening because I couldn’t hear! Ridiculous.
That would be Christopher Nolan, who I believe is trolling people with his sound design choices at this point
I find that with a lot of movies lately
It was worse around 15 years ago.
You want to hear things well, though? You’ll need surround sound system and to turn up the center speaker. That’s where they generally mix the voice audio.
Normally that’s due to poor mixing work. I’m tenet’s case it was a deliberate choice by Nolan.
I’ve heard it’s because it’s mixed for surround sound
Not being able to hear the dialogue is an artistic choice Nolan has been intentionally making since around The Dark Knight Rises. I know that sounds dumb but, I’m not joking. I have been baffled by this choice and have refused to see any of his films until Oppenheimer. Which was a major improvement.
I would NOT call Oppenheimer a major improvement! It was one of my least favorite theater experiences because I couldn’t hear half of the dialogue and the whole thing was way too loud.
Optimized for peak surround sound, allegedly. I have a $5000 system and it still sounds like shit. I can understand it, but it’s shit nonetheless.
Snobby ≠ good, methinks.
I heard it was mixed specifically for high-end theatre speakers. I think Nolan was just too far up his own ass on this one.
I watched it in Dolby Atmos and still couldn’t understand shit. It was simply very, very badly mixed. I don’t think I’ll watch another film from Nolan.
Yeah Oppenheimer was just bad with audio.
I kept hearing this complaint but when I finally watched it there was only one scene where I couldn’t hear the dialogue (when Neil is scoping out the airport bank vault) and it seemed very much intentional. Did you find this to be an issue throughout the entire film?
Just like modern plots, modern audio editing spoonfeeds the audience: https://youtu.be/XOXJLwzIOoA?si=XY-0mUmwx9_V51Tl. We need to be told each and every detail about the security system in order to understand that it’s extreme, even though those details wouldn’t add to the plot in any way (as I recall, the last thing you can hear is the risk of suffocation - which is the last aspect of the security system that was relevant later on).
Next thing you know, audiences will start complaining that depth of field/camera blur is obscuring in unimportant details in the background.
Same. The moment you don’t understand the dialogue then it’s not important, that moment it’s about atmosphere. Worked great for me. I enjoyed the sound mixing in this movie!
Ugh, I hate that so much! Especially since I sometimes like to fall asleep to a movie I’ve seen many times before and at the end just drift off to the sound of it.
“Whisper whisper whisper EXPLOSIONS AND YELLING whisper whisper whisper” is probably my least favorite style of sound mixing.
I like to be able to hear the quiet parts without the loud parts bursting my ear drums, thank you very much!
You may want to see if your TV has a “night mode” in the audio settings. It’s basically just an audio compander, (combination of compressor and expander.) It expands the quiet parts to be louder, and compresses the loud parts to be quieter. It destroys any kind of dynamics that the director intended, and can cause some difficulty with intelligibility if there’s lots of background noise, (because the noise is getting expanded too!) But for watching things at night, it’s almost a must for dynamic movies.
Some brands call it headphone mode, because headphone users also frequently complain about dynamic audio too; They turn up to hear the quiet parts, then get their ears blown off during the loud parts.
Sounds like exactly what I need, thanks! I’m watching on a tablet on the bed next to me, but if it’s available on TVs as a mode, it’s probably available for VLC on Android too.
Fuck their intentions lol. Having a huge gulf in loudness is good for two things only: jump scares and Michael Bay type movies trying to impress you with how loud things go boom. Both are just annoyances to me at the best of times and keeping me from falling asleep at the worst.
That might be a drawback, though. On the other hand, who keeps in a lot of background noise in the first place? Morons and amateurs, that’s who! 😛
Yup, I know that all too well as a daily headphones/earbuds user for the last several years, maybe even a decade…
I highly recommend using Nova video player. It’s an android video player specifically made to handle movies and series. It’s got everything you neeed from automatically downloading each movie /episode poster, description, subtitles, got audio boost and night mode. And oh, I almost forgot to say that it’s an open source project and it’s available on f-droid.
It’s a shame that the app is barely known, so if you enjoyed it, please share it.
Will give it a try for sure 🙂
You’re talking about a regular compressor with make up gain. An expander makes the quiet parts even quieter. Compressors compress the dynamic range (which is what you’d want in this scenario), expanders expands the dynamic range.
I… “got a copy” and it was fine on my television. I dont even have external speakers (built in speakers). I wonder if the digital release fixed this issue.
I watched in on a plane and didn’t have the audio issue I’ve heard everyone talk about.
I did however have the issue of not understanding the flick.