Dunkirk's "award winning sound"

B

Bruce Watson

Veteran
So, the Academy gave Oscars to Dunkirk for Sound Editing and Sound Mixing. Am I the only one who thinks this is a travesty?

My brother and I went to see it at the best IMAX theater in our region. Afterwards we stood around the lobby with a bunch of strangers talking about how bad the sound was. No one liked it. They all thought it was way loud. And they all heard how much clipping was going on, even in the dialog. One guy likened it to "breaking glass".

So I waited until the discs were released, then waited for people to post their graphs of the sound (you can find anything on the internet). The graphs showed what I heard in the theater -- all channels clipping like it was free, the whole movie long.

What I'm worried about here is that by giving awards for this kind of egregious behavior, there will be imitators. Why wouldn't there be? The Academy has shown them what wins awards after all.

Are we really going to end up with a "loudness war" in the movies similar to what we've had from the CD market for most of the 2000s? I do not want the movies to go there. Sigh...
 
Have not heard the sound of this movie but if the master indeed clips it should never have gotten an Oscar for sound editing and mixing.

Perhaps it is just another plan to get even more people away from the movie theaters as the sound, at least to my ears, is generally too loud already.
 
Bruce Watson said:
So, the Academy gave Oscars to Dunkirk for Sound Editing and Sound Mixing. Am I the only one who thinks this is a travesty?

My brother and I went to see it at the best IMAX theater in our region. Afterwards we stood around the lobby with a bunch of strangers talking about how bad the sound was. No one liked it. They all thought it was way loud. And they all heard how much clipping was going on, even in the dialog. One guy likened it to "breaking glass".

So I waited until the discs were released, then waited for people to post their graphs of the sound (you can find anything on the internet). The graphs showed what I heard in the theater -- all channels clipping like it was free, the whole movie long.

What I'm worried about here is that by giving awards for this kind of egregious behavior, there will be imitators. Why wouldn't there be? The Academy has shown them what wins awards after all.

Are we really going to end up with a "loudness war" in the movies similar to what we've had from the CD market for most of the 2000s? I do not want the movies to go there. Sigh...
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Just my $.02, but I feel that way about a lot of Nolan's films, and especially when Zimmer is involved.

The last Batman movie was pretty problematic in that way and I had a really hard time with the way that Interstellar was mixed (softly spoken intimate dialogue/voiceover that is compressed and maximized to the nth degree so that it can be heard over incredibly loud music, etc).

BUT, it's an aesthetic direction. I happen to not like it, but some of the big masters of the field are going that way.

I think of it as feature length films that are taking on the aesthetics of film trailers. Film trailers assault your senses in a short amount of time to grab you quickly and keep you engaged...for 45 seconds. It's oppressive enough when that lasts 45 seconds. It's really bad when it is a main feature of a feature-length film.
 
Unfortunately, while the Academy has the related craft members doing the nominating, the entire Academy votes for the winner. Let's face it, most of the Academy has no idea what is involved in the crafts outside their realm. Does any actor really have any idea what it takes to do sound? Have the ever sat in post to watch the process?

I walked out of the movie, not because it was loud (it was ridiculously loud), but because it was boring. I feel sorry for sound mixers. If directors and producers are going to force them to mix to ear-bleeding levels, they are going to have to protect themselves.
 
Paul, I will have to check but I don't believe the whole academy fotes on anything but best picture.

The loudness issues, and a host of other problematic sound issues, are driven by deaf directors mostly. Sound tecs (and sometimes mixers) will wear custom molded hearing protection. It's harder for a mixer to get away with it but tecs mostly want to become mixers and they are trying to get there with minimal hearing loss.

But this is not new by any stretch. When I was working at the Saul Zaentz Film Center in the 1990's they used to post the peak SPL for the day on the stage door as a warning. The second Matrix film was beyond bearable, even with earplugs. But 300 is the loudest film I have ever experienced, just plain deafening.

But for really bad quality I always point to Public Enemies. It's not that it is loud but has radical volume moves even inside of a word. It is very hard to listen to, your straining to make something out one minute and slapping your hands over your ears the next. And that BS was explicitly at the directors insistence. He said he was "tuning" performances... But he is deaf in one ear, literally. In a beyond stupid move he hauled the sound editors into his office (on a prior project) because he didn't think the gun shots sounded right. He pulled out a 45 and proceed to fire it into the floor. You don't do that in a small room and not wear hearing protection. The editors sensing the stupid move covered their ears but Mr. Mann lost his hearing in one ear.
 
It can be confusing. Its the nomination for Best Picture that is open to all members of the Academy. But all members can vote in all categories after the nominations are made. From the Academy:

"NOMINATIONS VOTING PROCESS

Regular awards are presented for outstanding individual or collective film achievements in a wide variety of categories. Most categories are nominated by the members of the corresponding branch–actors nominate actors, film editors nominate film editors, etc. However, certain categories such as Foreign Language Film and Animated Feature Film have special voting rules which can be viewed at our Rules & Eligibility page.

All voting members are eligible to select the Best Picture nominees.

Nominations voting is conducted using both paper and online ballots, with online voting being the preferred choice for the overwhelming majority of Academy members. Voting for nominations begins in late December, and all votes are tabulated by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Nomination results are then announced at a live televised press conference in mid-January at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.


Final Balloting Process

Finals voting is also conducted via online and paper ballots.

During finals, all Oscar categories are on the ballot for voting members.

After final ballots are tabulated, only two partners of PricewaterhouseCoopers know the results until the famous envelopes are opened onstage during the Oscars telecast."
 
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I agree and thought the sound was dreadful.

I saw and heard it in our own Dolby Atmos cinema at work in London (SKY TV) and it was one way too loud and at times just messy with way too much going on.

The music and effects were fighting each other at times and it may be great for Batman etc but not good for a historic movie.

I personally felt quite ill after it and the levels were just ridiculous at times.

I was a dubbing mixer myself for 25 years and a case of too much style over substance.
 
Holy crap! I thought it was awful too! I saw it at an IMAX theater and I was shocked how distorted the whole thing was. I thought there was something wrong with the sound in the theater. It sounded like it was clipping. It was a noisey mess. When I saw that they won for sound I was shocked. Thanks for posting. I thought I was losing my mind ;)
 
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Paul F said:
It can be confusing. Its the nomination for Best Picture that is open to all members of the Academy. But all members can vote in all categories after the nominations are made. From the Academy:

"NOMINATIONS VOTING PROCESS

Regular awards are presented for outstanding individual or collective film achievements in a wide variety of categories. Most categories are nominated by the members of the corresponding branch–actors nominate actors, film editors nominate film editors, etc. However, certain categories such as Foreign Language Film and Animated Feature Film have special voting rules which can be viewed at our Rules & Eligibility page.

All voting members are eligible to select the Best Picture nominees.

Nominations voting is conducted using both paper and online ballots, with online voting being the preferred choice for the overwhelming majority of Academy members. Voting for nominations begins in late December, and all votes are tabulated by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Nomination results are then announced at a live televised press conference in mid-January at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.


Final Balloting Process

Finals voting is also conducted via online and paper ballots.

During finals, all Oscar categories are on the ballot for voting members.

After final ballots are tabulated, only two partners of PricewaterhouseCoopers know the results until the famous envelopes are opened onstage during the Oscars telecast."
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Thanks for that. It is a weird and convoluted system I know but this makes a certain amount of sense. Not the voting but why some films win.

The far more meaningful awards for sound are the Golden Reels for editing and the CAS awards for mixing. They also break down the categories more appropriately.

Production mixers for instance in the Oscars are part of the "mixing" award. This is just silly since the job is VERY different.

But it's important to remember that the Oscars are an industry event. It's pretty much the same as a bunch of car salesmen getting together to award each other with best care salesman awards.
It's not unbiased, or free from internal politics, and every member had to be voted in by other members (and each branch has a fixed number of members). So membership is not necessarily a meritocracy. There are people who should be in the academy who aren't because of politics (winning an Oscar doesn't get you in).

But it's a fun pagent to watch and we don't get royal weddings and coronations so...
 
OK, so if sound people nominate, why do they nominate films that have plain old technical mistakes, like clipping - that should be disqualifying, regardless of everything else. I mean, even in film school, if your sound is actually distorted, you end up with an F for sound. It's a plain error. You disqualify, you don't nominate or reward. If it doesn't get nominated, it can't be voted on. If sound people are not supposed to be the gate keepers on this, then what is the point of engaging people who are the craft specialists in the winnowing process at all? The whole point is to say "here is a list of films with outstanding sound work, now you guys vote from amongst this list". And a film that has mistakes 101 in it, should be disqualified, not nominated. Bottom line: I blame the sound people *more* than the rest of the voters who are not sound specialists. They are to blame. And now when idiot directors insist on damaging sound people's hearing, they've got no one but themselves to blame. Don't reward bad behavior and mistakes 101.
 
Good point. The fact that people heard clipping in the theater does not mean the screeners sent out or the mix on the sound stage had clipping. But I agree that if sound editors and sound mixers don't like to mix ear-splitting mixes, then they should not have nominated it.
 
Paul F said:
while the Academy has the related craft members doing the nominating, the entire Academy votes for the winner
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This explained to me why movies tend to sweep.

I would think that the movie with truly the best sound might be unremarkable in everything else: screenplay, photography, etc. But how often does that happen at the Oscars?

I asked the question nine years ago and thought the answer was politics, http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?26016-Academy-Award-Collusion. But the voting rules explain it more innocently. It's just about non-specialists voting for highly technical categories. Raiders of the Dawn had lots of noises: best sound editing! A Night in Timbuktu had lots of fog: best cinematography!
 
OldCorpse said:
OK, so if sound people nominate, why do they nominate films that have plain old technical mistakes, like clipping - ...
Don't reward bad behavior and mistakes 101.
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Well only members get to vote on anything and though there are over 6,000 members there are only 418 in the sound branch. And there are five slots in each of the awards. Of course not everyone votes but if they did you would need to get 84 votes, but not quite since it's a preferential ballot so you could not be 84 peoples top 5 and still make it if you scored high on some ballots and didn't go too low on others. And not everyone sees all the films. Plus there is politics and friendships etc. Folks who worked on the film are going to vote for it. Friends might vote for it even if they didn't see it because well you deserve an Oscar. Or maybe you should have gotten one for last years film and got "cheated" so you get extra love this year. Or the front runner is a prick and you cant stand the idea of him getting an award.

It's not a film festival, or a class project. The judges are NOT impartial. It's not a bunch of critics assessing the best examples of the art, that would be closer to the Golden Globes, it's industry insiders giving awards to other industry insiders, AND there can be a lot of money at stake. Not so much for the sound award (or those winners) but actors salary can get nice boosts. Producers will make more if they can get a bunch of statues on the posters. Folks are wined and dined, handed out swag and all kinds of other incentives to look favorably on movie X. Even non members can get some of that sometimes. Oscar winners for instance are generally put on the screener list going forward so they will be getting DVD's of films mailed to their homes. If you have any guild affiliation at all you can get into academy screenings. There aren't any close to me now but when we lived in SF screening season was a lot of fun. In LA you could probably go to a screening every day of the year almost.

Before 2006 (I believe that is when they did the rule change) it was even weirder. There was "nominating" of sorts but it was for seven films and then there was a "bake off" where each film cut a special short version five minutes or so that was screened and voted on to get to the final official nominees. The bake off reels were kind of a highlights but were also mixed and edited for the bake off so they didn't necessarily sound the same as the full film.
 
Well this is odd. Both myself and my wife (ex-top tier film editor) saw it in a brand new Imax and both commented on how good the sound was when we came out. Loved the way the sound rapped around and immersed you in the environment. Loved the way the tension continually built with Zimmer's music. I could hear all the dialog and actually ducked a couple of times when gunfire rattled the side of the boat. Very worthy winner for me - maybe I'd had a pint... ...or maybe I'm a bit deaf and just like it loud!
 
My experience was the same as Liam's (although I do admit it was a little too loud in some parts to be totally comfortable listening). Did not hear any distortion as mentioned earlier by some...Perhaps this is/was theatre audio system dependant?
 
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andykwilkinson said:
My experience was the same as Liam's (although I do admit it was a little too loud in some parts to be totally comfortable listening). Did not hear any distortion as mentioned earlier by some...Perhaps this is/was theatre audio system dependant?
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Maybe it is a combination of a soundtrack that pushes so much level and theater sound system that doesn’t manage to adjust for a lack of overhead. What I heard in the theater was uncomfortably loud and the sound was breaking up. I couldn’t believe it was the actual soundtrack but something really wrong, like blown bass elements or a clipped input at that facilty.
 
Let's just be reasonable and assume that nothing in the soundtrack on a film of Dunkirk's level clips in the master. Let's give them that.
 
I watched it on a plane so I can not judge the sound quality (although there seemed to be a low rumble going on the entire movie...) I did enjoy the style of the soundtrack. I thought it created a real mood for the film. Given the discussion so far about how the Academy picks these movies, I but there is bleed over from liking the soundtrack and "sound design" and or mixing etc...

No doubt movies are often too loud in theaters.
 
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