Sound volume in movie trailers?

C

camarade

Active member
Sound in movie trailers. Do they use some kind of "dynamic" effect? Especially dialouge seems to pop in an uneven way... it usually gives the "more epic" feeling overall to the sound. Just curious about this process.
 
Generally it will be mixing. Dialog typically does have some compression on it, but what your talking about is mostly mixing. There is also probably some EQ tweaking. You generally have to make the dialog "pop" because you have such a short time to get the message through to the audience.
 
In a world where one must grab the audience's attention quickly and cut through the pre-film chatter, the key to the 'Hollywood Trailer Sound' is the voice of the VO actor himself. Don LaFontaine's voice is immediately recognizable as the essence of the Big Studio Trailer not because of any equalization and compression tricks the engineers used in post production but rather in the set of pipes he brought to the recording session and the control of his voice that he perfected.
 
Great link.

Not sure if the OP was talking about VO though since he asked about dialog. But then he may well have been just talking about "vocals" when he said dialog.

The VO will probably be compressed more than normal dialog but not nearly as much as you might think. 90% is the VO actor, maybe 95%.
 
Noiz2 said:
Generally it will be mixing. Dialog typically does have some compression on it, but what your talking about is mostly mixing. There is also probably some EQ tweaking. You generally have to make the dialog "pop" because you have such a short time to get the message through to the audience.
Click to expand...

Let's not forget that a trailer is underscored by a constant, driving music track that intensifies the energy and emotion. For action, the trailer will also likely feature a string of impacts and explosions. For comedy, lots of slapstick moments with elevated dialog. For drama, lots of high-emotion/passionate clips. That also forces the mix to a reduced dynamic range, more through mixing than through compression/limiting, but still resulting in a greater perceived loudness.
 
Yes, serial, multi-process dynamic range manipulation. I have it pretty much down to a science. The audio will tear your face off if you push it too hard.

Regards,

Ty Ford
 
Another part of it is the way the trailer itself is constructed. Each genre has a slightly different "style" in the way that it is cut and constructed, but if you pay attention you will notice that, in most trailers, there are "holes" in the music and sound FX for the dialog.
 
unclebob6958 said:
Another part of it is the way the trailer itself is constructed. Each genre has a slightly different "style" in the way that it is cut and constructed, but if you pay attention you will notice that, in most trailers, there are "holes" in the music and sound FX for the dialog.
Click to expand...

Loud isn't loud if there isn't quiet around it.
 
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