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Christopher Nolan Says Fellow Directors Have Called to Complain About His ‘Inaudible’ Sound

jett

jett

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www.indiewire.com

Christopher Nolan Says Fellow Directors Have Called to Complain About His ‘Inaudible’ Sound

The backlash over "Interstellar" sound left Nolan "a little shocked" at how "conservative people are when it comes to sound."
www.indiewire.com www.indiewire.com

"We got a lot of complaints," Nolan said about the "Interstellar" sound design. "I actually got calls from other filmmakers who would say, 'I just saw your film, and the dialogue is inaudible.' Some people thought maybe the music's too loud, but the truth was it was kind of the whole enchilada of how we had chosen to mix it."


"It was a very, very radical mix," the director continued. "I was a little shocked to realize how conservative people are when it comes to sound. Because you can make a film that looks like anything, you can shoot on your iPhone, no one's going to complain. But if you mix the sound a certain way, or if you use certain sub-frequencies, people get up in arms."
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I just thought it was funny directors actually called him up to complain lol. I'm guessing they didn't like Tenet any better! Personally, there must be something wrong with Nolan's hearing. Seems the sound mix in his moves just keeps getting worse.
 
entremet

entremet

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Oct 26, 2017
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He just doesn't get it.

I'm surprised WB doesn't push back here.
 
Teiresias

Teiresias

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His nonchalant attitude about it is kind of annoying. People making a film "that looks like anything" generally doesn't put my eyesight at risk. Nolan's sound mixes most definitely can put people's actual hearing at risk. That's even beside the inaudible aspect and how it affects the storytelling do to loss of dialog being heard properly.
 
Punchline

Punchline

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Oct 25, 2017
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would love to hear more about the whole enchilada about how they sound mixed tenet because holy shit
 
Hero_of_the_Day

Hero_of_the_Day

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Oct 27, 2017
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I haven't seen Tenet yet. The only one of his movies I have had issues with was The Prestige. Which is funny since it isn't some big action thing. Something about the voices in that one just seem kinda hard to hear for some reason.
 
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Polynaut

Polynaut

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Oct 27, 2017
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Sounds like my first viewing of this movie will be with subtitles. Or will that ruin things for me?
 
ibyea

ibyea

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Oct 25, 2017
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I like Nolan movies, but the complaint is well deserved. Nolan trying to deflect this with artistic intent is silly.
 
Herne

Herne

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Paz said:
Tenet is the worst mixed movie I have ever heard, which is annoying because it's also full of complicated exposition dumps.
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Yeah a friend went to see it in the cinema and he said Pattinson's character was giving out some pretty important plot information and he couldn't hear a damn thing he said. It's gotten to the point where I'm avoiding seeing Nolan's films in the cinema now and just wait for the home release which are apparently handled by people who have some common sense.
 
Akabeko

Akabeko

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Oct 27, 2017
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Interstellar sound mixing was awful. I had to spend the entire movie remote in hand adjusting volume up and down.
 
Blader

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And then they went and gave Dunkirk the Oscars for sound mixing and editing lol. Mixed messages!
 
Paz

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Herne said:
Yeah a friend went to see it in the cinema and he said Pattinson's character was giving out some pretty important plot information and he couldn't hear a damn thing he said. It's gotten to the point where I'm avoiding seeing Nolan's films in the cinema now and just wait for the home release which are apparently handled by people who have some common sense.
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It feels like every other scene is a huge exposition dump, which I don't normally hate like some folks, but when you can only make out every third word it is very painful.

I won't spoil anything but there's a scene where It's purposefully (plot wise) difficult to hear/understand what's being said, and when you layer the sound mixing on top it's just a joke.
 
excelsiorlef

excelsiorlef

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Everything about Interstellar is genius soooo

The greatest Imax experience and theatre experience I've ever had
 
Steiner_Zi

Steiner_Zi

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Oct 28, 2017
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Well said, Nolan has lost it. After Tenet I'll be very hesitant to watch any movie from this guy ever again. It was a complete turd, inaudible dialog and incoherent plot, just a totally boring string of setpieces.
 
Lowrys

Lowrys

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"Conservative" as a synonym for "audible dialogue", how fucking pretentious. People need to be able to hear dialogue clearly, it's not fucking rocket science.
 
Firebrand

Firebrand

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Oct 25, 2017
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Nolan got to be half-deaf to not think there's an issue with his audio mixes since back to at least TDKR.

I guess the muffled dialogue hasn't been has apparent to me as there's typically subtitles, but I'd appreciate it if my eardrums didn't shatter.
 
Neece

Neece

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Oct 27, 2017
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His next radical filmmaking idea will be to film with the cap over the lens.

"I'm surprised people are so conservative over not being able to see the film."
 
Dellow Felegate

Dellow Felegate

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Oct 27, 2017
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He talks about how you can shoot a movie however you want it and people won't complain. But if you shot it out of focus then people would. That's the equivalent of the sound mix making it hard to understand the dialogue.
 
astro

astro

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Oct 25, 2017
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I saw interstellar with a live orchestra playing the soundtrack, and one of the people I went with was their first time seeing the film.

There were no subtitles. He literally has no idea what was happening for 90% of the film.
 
Ridley327

Ridley327

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Blader said:
And then they went and gave Dunkirk the Oscars for sound mixing and editing lol. Mixed messages!
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Sadly, technical categories at the Oscars are mainly for films that have the most of something, rather than the best of something.

"It was a very, very radical mix," the director continued. "I was a little shocked to realize how conservative people are when it comes to sound. Because you can make a film that looks like anything, you can shoot on your iPhone, no one's going to complain. But if you mix the sound a certain way, or if you use certain sub-frequencies, people get up in arms."
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What Nolan is forgetting here is that watching something shot on an iPhone is generally not going to cause physical discomfort to viewers like his "brick wall of sound" approach to sound mixing has been. If people are being "conservative" regarding how they like their sound mixes, it's because they'd like to hear more in the future.
 
Era Uma Vez

Era Uma Vez

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Feb 5, 2020
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Nolan is wacked, more news at 11.

Also, that dumb comparison he makes about people shooting on iPhones and not caring but then someone fucks with the sound and its the end of the world, just shows how clueless he is.
As a director, he should know better than anyone that sound matters!
I can watch a 480p screening of Tenet with pristine sound, no problem.
But I won't sit through a 4K Imax HDR, Dolby-vision screening on an OLED screen if the mixing is shit, not even if u pay me.
 
dabig2

dabig2

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Oct 29, 2017
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This scene


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is when I started joining in on the already popular meme of Nolan shitty sound mixing. It legitimately takes me out of his movies sometimes because it screws around with how I receive basic information, which should absolutely not happen.
 

Deleted member 4461

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I haven't seen Tenet or Interstellar... This said, I imagine it can make sense to not hear certain lines of dialogue in some situations. For example, some movies have characters give away plot pieces in another language... I can see being inaudible as a way to universally add detail that you won't immediately understand, in a way that adds to the narrative.

That said, it sounds very much like it was just shit regardless of the scene from how y'all are describing it lol
 
BLEEN

BLEEN

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Oct 27, 2017
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I've never had an issue with any of his films.

I hear this a lot, however.

I don't see his movies in theaters but at home - 2.1 system that I setup myself. Never any difficulty. I'll wait for Tenet to come out and edit if anything changes lol
 
RCSI

RCSI

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Oct 27, 2017
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When you make movies where the sound of an explosion is louder than real life, there's a problem.
 
BrightLightLava

BrightLightLava

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Oct 25, 2017
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I saw the imax preview of The Dark Knight Rises before they changed Banes voice. It was ridiculous. Like he was delivering all of his dialogue through a pillow.
 
Herne

Herne

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Dec 10, 2017
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Paz said:
It feels like every other scene is a huge exposition dump, which I don't normally hate like some folks, but when you can only make out every third word it is very painful.

I won't spoil anything but there's a scene where It's purposefully (plot wise) difficult to hear/understand what's being said, and when you layer the sound mixing on top it's just a joke.
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The frustrating thing about it is that there's no good reason for it, and he's doing it in (almost?) every film. I have no idea why he finds such sound mixing to be essential to the film when it is actually drowning out important dialogue.
 
Nude_Tayne

Nude_Tayne

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Jan 8, 2018
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Hey asshole, I can't hear the fucking dialogue in your fucking movies. Fix it already. How many people have to complain about this shit until he addresses it?
 
LuxCommander

LuxCommander

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Eh, I didn't have issues with the mix in IMAX. But I also saw it in 70MM. My guess is that Nolan focused only on that presentation and was hands off on the main DCP. The digital presentation (which I also saw months ago) that WB put out was an absolute nightmare to present according to some of the forums projectionists use. It was a non-standard aspect ratio coupled with a mix that was way too hot for most theater setups. Seems to be a failure in down conversion from the IMAX version from my perspective.
 
Halbrand

Halbrand

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Oct 27, 2017
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Lol the sound mix in this just didn't make any sense. Unlike with Interstellar and Dunkirk critical dialogue could not be heard.
 

FormatCompatible

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Oct 25, 2017
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It's indeed terrible and the main reason I skipped watching his last movies on theaters (and Tenet for obvious reasons).
 
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