Here’s Why Movie Dialogue Has Gotten More Difficult To Understand (And Three Ways To Fix It)

Here’s Why Movie Dialogue Has Gotten More Difficult To Understand (And Three Ways To Fix It)
▻https://www.slashfilm.com/673162/heres-why-movie-dialogue-has-gotten-more-difficult-to-understand-and-thre

Donc, si tu ne comprends plus rien aux #dialogues des #films en #VO sans sous-titres, ce n’est pas (forcément) parce que tu deviens vieux et #sourd.

Karen Baker Landers, whose credits include “Gladiator,” "Skyfall," and “Heat,” among many others, has her own term for it. “Mumbling, breathy, I call it self-conscious type of acting, is so frustrating,” she says. “I would say a lot of the younger actors have adopted that style. I think the onus also falls on the directors to say, ’I can’t understand a word you’re saying. I’m listening to dailies, and I can’t understand.’ No amount of volume is going to fix that.”

That naturalistic performance style might feel right for actors in the moment on set, but it can be hell for the sound professionals who have to clean it up afterward. “We’re very careful to make sure there’s clarity,” Baker Landers says. “You go in and you volume-graph up a vowel, or one letter. You go in and you surgically – maybe if it’s not right on camera, you slow it down. There’s all kinds of things we spend hours trying to do that may help a performance. We really strive for that.”

But they can only do so much.