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Often it appears a level is checked on dialogue which is set to boom unrealistically around the cinema. Consequently action and effects become obscenely loud.

The long term efect of this can be quite damaging with customers seeking more sensible levels elsewhere.

Cheers,

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Many directors like their movies loud and many sound mixers (who get used to continuous loud listening) also like it loud, usually much louder than the average movie goer. Baz Luhrmann told the projectionists at the international premier of his film Romeo & Juliet that he wanted that fader left at 7 because he wanted "the audience's ears to bleed for the first 10 minutes" of the film. As some of you may recall the first 10 minutes (which is set in, from memory, a gas station) is full of lots of excessive high frequency stuff like chains, stirrups etc, so the audience's ears did indeed "bleed".

I once attended an SMPTE gathering at the Crystal Palace mixing theatre in Sydney where they played a reel of Mad Max 3 (which was mixed there). It was played at 85dB reference and many sections were excruciatingly loud. In a room full of audio professionals the mixing engineers had a hard time explaining how they expected cinema goers to tolerate that sort of SPL.

I don't know of too many cinemas that run their faders above about 6 in this country, good eq or otherwise.

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Ray Derrick
President/Chief Engineer
Panalogic Corporation Sydney, Australia
Phone: 61 (0)2 9894 6655 Fax: 61 (0)2 9894 6935

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

I have recommended 2 different approaches over the years. 1: Set reference levels to around 79 dB spl instead of 85. Then with the fader at "reference", the levels are OK. 2: Just turn it down a bit. There is no magic about having the fader set at 7 or CAL or whatever. Use some common sense and above all, get out in the auditorium and actually listen to the sound.

While I certainly agree with Ray about an optimum setting on the processor for best signal to noise ratio, if the movie is very loud anyway, then noise is probably the least of the problems.

Joe mentioned the eq and the overall smoothness of the sound system. In mix rooms, I am reasonably certain that everything has been tuned to a gnat's eyelash, and the sound is extremely smooth. It is certainly much easier to listen without pain to loud SPL's in such a good environment. Unfortunately many theatres are probably not so well tuned, and even small peaks in critical frequency ranges where our ears are most sensitive can quickly become difficult to listen to.

Lastly, things like car crashes, metal smashing against metal, explosions, etc. don't sound so nice in real life either. So if the movie contains lots of this type of material, then it is probably best to lower the volume a bit.

Many theaters have used sound level limiting/compression devices precisely because of the problems associated with the loud feature soundtracks, and not just with the problem of loud trailers. We have one customer who puts them in every house with digital sound because the customers complain about sound levels. The problem would not be so bad if you could turn the volume down a bit and still be able to hear the low level material, especially dialog, but apparently the mixers must think that an 80 dB dynamic range is just fine and dandy. It may work in the mixing rooms, but it does not fly at all in most typical cinemas.

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Oscar Neundorfer
Chief Engineer
SMART Devices, Inc.

Having the theater staff get the sound level "just right" for each movie can help make or break the experience for me sometimes. The question is, what is "just right". It can vary from movie to movie (obviously). A couple of the most memorable movies for me sound-wise were "Bridges of Madison County" and "In The Bedroom" (I'm soft in the head). These are both very *quiet* films. Lots of dialog, no efx to speak of. With a movie like these, to me the priority is simple: get the level set so normally-spoken dialog is easily intelligible. Get that right and everything else will probably fall into place. To have the volume cranked way up would have been distracting. Too low and the dialog is hard to understand, which is probably the worst sound-related fault a theater can inflict on the audience. These movies had passages that were very quiet and atmospheric, and sound level needed to be "natural" to enhance the experience.

Now on the other hand, I like most movies to be loud. What is the magic fader level or SPL? I have no idea. Maybe it can be different for every movie. I want explosions to rock the seats if possible. I want dialog to be LOUD, but short of ear-splitting. I want the music to fully envelop the theater. I want directional material to be very, uh, directional. A big, powerful cinema sound system is an awesome thing and I hate it when they don't get used to their full advantage. I don't want bleeding ears, but I do want LOUD and FULL.

When I saw Lord of the Rings on opening day at the local Regal, they had the sound level down a little lower than normal. I noticed it right away, and it bugged me for 3 hours. I don't know why they did that -- they normally run the volume very high there and their system can handle it extremely well. It was adequate, but not the full experience it should have been. Maybe they dropped it a notch because somebody complained, I don't know. But I found it detracted from the experience. If it was on 6, it needed to be on 6.5.

The only humble suggestion I can offer is to try and spend some time in the auditorium if you can and make adjustments by your gut instinct, not necessarily by what the dial says is the "calibrated" level.

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- dave
Stay away from the meadow...

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Worries about excessive volume in the cinema are not "crazy" but a potentially damaging business (and health) risk which many experts, Dolby included, acknowledge.

It's no good banging on about EQ settings and recommended DB's because many theatres and combinations of sound systems vary.

As a number of people have suggested, it doesn't take rocket science to check the sound in the auditorea. Or, indeed, to solicit the opinion of audiences as they exit.

Too often the level is determined by the ego of the projectionist whose hearing has probably been permanently damaged, anyway, by years of excessive volume.

Incidently, as can be seen from the 'Roadshow Presentation' thread, I am someone who appreciates full bodied sound when appropiate.

Cheers,

I must disagree with your comment "Too often the level is determined by the ego of the projectionist whose hearing has probably been permanently damaged, anyway, by years of excessive volume." It has been my experience that people at 60+ years old simply should not be doing any serious sound work. It is a medically proven fact that no matter how well a person takes care of his hearing that by the time someone hits that age, the hearing is so far gone that the person is literally unable to hear problems. Case in point, a tech thinks the sound is "perfect" in a certain auditorium, when all of the customers are yelling at the management because the dialogue is unintelligible. When the center HF diaphragm is removed, there is a hole in it the size of a silver dollar! See my point? Just because someone is young does not mean that person's hearing is impaired. However as people near retirement, you can fight science all you want, but the hearing dwindles. (Sorry if that sounds mean-spirited, but it is medically true.)

I also disagree with the comment above that the dialogue should be "loud". I feel the fader should be set to make the dialogue "comfortable". That being the dialogue should not appear to be loud, but you should not find yourself leaning toward the screen to hear it better either. If the system is properly designed and tuned, that fader WILL end up at 7 to achieve that level of dialogue. Everything else will fall perfectly into place. (And no I do not mean to simply calibrate the setting of 7 to 79db. Personally I feel that's cheating to compensate for some other problem. However I do agree the noise level will be lowered at 7 over 5 which is always a welcome improvement.)

One last thing before I finish, lousy mixes such as is almost always found on a Bruckheimer film do not apply here. I end up usually running those a full point below my normal because they are so compressed and harsh sounding in an attempt to give the perception of "loud" that it can simply "hurt" to listen to at any substantial volume. It is poor mixing like this where most of the customer complaints will be found.

Seriously though Brad, nice to hear from you and keep up the good work which provides a valuable resource for projectionists world wide.

But don't play your movies TOO LOUD.

Kind regards,