Dear Exhibitors, Film Technicians and Cinema lovers,
I want to write a note to give everyone my opinion on the Ponniyin Selvan Sound Mix debate.
Let me start by congratulating the PS1 team on an enormous success. I also want to congratulate the sound team on an excellent job. Such detailed, sophisticated and classy sound work!
One of the issues I have always had as a Sound Designer is the audience rarely gets to experience a movie as intended by the filmmaker… be it the Picture quality or Sound quality. Of course there are a few theaters where the Projectors and Speakers are perfectly Calibrated and everything plays back exactly the way it was intended. But this is not the case in 90% of the theaters.
A lot of “Mass Commercial” films have been mixing extremely loud with no dynamics in the mix. Theaters turn the volume down so their speakers don’t get damaged. And Sound Mixers in turn start mixing even louder to compensate for Theaters turning down the speakers. This is a never ending loop. Someone needs to make a change and I feel PS1 team actually made a statement with the sound mix!
Even though i didn’t work on PS1, I feel a certain sense of responsibility to speak up when i see people complaining about something without completely understanding the situation. I request the entire Film fraternity and Exhibitors to come together to make sure all theaters are calibrated frequently and playing back movies at the right volume. It’s not hard to mix a film extremely loud with no dynamic range and match the overall loudness levels of other movies.
That’s the easy way out of this situation. That doesn’t make it right! There is absolutely nothing wrong with the Sound Mix of PS1. It’s just a little subtle compared to other loud film mixes. And when theaters have their volume turned down in fear of damaging speakers, this has caused some people to complain about the sound levels.
At a time when We, as an industry are struggling to get audiences back into the theaters after the pandemic and with home entertainment technology getting better by the day, I strongly feel we need to take extra care to give the audience an experience they can’t get at home.
This is a change that needs the support of the entire community as a whole. It’s not just about this one movie. This is a change that is important for the entire Indian movie industry. I look forward to working together with the entire film and exhibitor community to try and figure out a solution so the audiences get to enjoy a movie exactly how the creators intended!
Kunal Rajan
karthik
October 3, 2022
I was so disappointed with ‘qubewire’ here in ICON CINECONIC, Bangkok with the sound quality and I just wanted to run out of theatre frustrated… the annoying part is that the picture quality was amazing and fabulous…. our Indian audience unlike others don’t maintain silence and with constant mobile phones ringing, nonstop commentary, etc it just ruined the experience … the sound volume was so low that some of the dialogues were inaudible … I watched DUNE in the same theatre and same screen and sound quality was amazing hence were really excited to watch PS-1 in the same screen but it was really a horrible experience…
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Ram Iyer
October 3, 2022
Could you go into the details a bit more on the specific nature of complaints, if any, that people have regarding the sound mix? I know my elder brother kind of continuously complained about the sound mix being a little too flat (that essentially means, not being loud, thunderous and bassy!). He also said that the sound appeared to come dominantly from the speakers behind the screen and not really delivering the surround sound, as such. I, especially, didn’t feel that when I watched the film the 2nd time at Cinepolis. Inox had absolutely terrible sound delivery. But at Cinepolis, I felt the dynamic range of the sound with the surround speakers picking up the sound of props or ambient factors and delivering them at the right frequency levels (which is to say, under the dialogues, without overpowering them!). Even, the background score, which was, perhaps, mixed under the dialogues & under a lot of other sound effects, felt subtle; but had the right dynamic range. I feel, the sound mix in PS was intended to feel a little flat, because it’s a dialogue heavy, film. But, in situations where dialogues are spoken in closed environment, there’s a reverb, an echo, a hint of bass – especially in the talkie portions filmed on Aaditha Karikaalan. While, I construed these as part of deliberate sound mix choices, my elder brother the sound was flat. Not sure, who is right or wrong here in terms of understand the sound design approach.
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vijay
October 3, 2022
“And when theaters have their volume turned down in fear of damaging speakers, this has caused some people to complain about the sound levels.”
I had the opposite experience..saw a couple of kids plus their ears during some scenes..and this was INOX. why cant they standardize these things?
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Madan
October 3, 2022
” I, especially, didn’t feel that when I watched the film the 2nd time at Cinepolis. Inox had absolutely terrible sound delivery. But at Cinepolis, I felt the dynamic range of the sound with the surround speakers picking up the sound of props or ambient factors and delivering them at the right frequency levels (which is to say, under the dialogues, without overpowering them!).” – Interesting, I did watch PS-1 at Cinepolis and had no complaints with the sound either. Actually everything about Cinepolis was amazing other than the price of popcorn and any other eatable, the best multiplex experience I’ve ever had. OTOH Vikram at INOX was an all out assault on my ears. Note then to never watch at INOX if I can help it. Pity because there are two INOX theaters in much closer proximity to my home than the Cinepolis. But the latter is also in a wonderful mall with lots of options so maybe I will treat every visit to the theater as an outing to combine with retail therapy.
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Madan
October 3, 2022
On topic, I agree strongly with the article. But if the makers are delivering a dynamic mix, they need to let exhibitors know. And every exhibitor will use different sound systems so they need to carefully calibrate it. Adhukellam does anyone have the porumai, I don’t know.
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Chanakya
October 3, 2022
I didn’t have any issue with the sound of PS-1. I don’t think I even noticed anything about the sound. I don’t know anything about sound, so I’m hoping that someone with knowledge might answer this question. Could different people have different experiences in the same theatre depending on their own hearing abilities?
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Madan
October 3, 2022
“Could different people have different experiences in the same theatre depending on their own hearing abilities?” – Hearing abilities only if someone’s hearing is significantly impaired, because they will then need it to be louder than others. But what people are accustomed to hearing and which they start to prefer can affect their expectations of how they want the sound to be (this is sort of what Ram Iyer’s post covers too). If you’re like me and hate compression, nothing will convince you to get comfortable with Anirudh’s so-called grunge scores (grunge must be alive only in India then because it died a long time ago elsewhere!). OTOH if you regularly watch mass/masala movies with loud scores and get used to that level of loudness, PS being dynamic will come across as ‘too soft’ to you.
Dynamics is not something people who are not interested in sound engineering, whether by trade or curiosity, discuss. So if something is recorded dynamically and you don’t like it, you might dub it ‘bad sound’. Vice versa. Neither Anirudh’s loud BGM nor Rahman’s not so loud BGM for PS combined with softer mixing is BAD sound per se. Bad sound is if something is either unintelligible even in theaters equipped with the best sound systems or if it is scratchy and distorted in similar settings. If either is not the case, we are either reacting to the dynamics or lack thereof or to the sound system in the theater or both.
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Ganesan Kandasamy
October 3, 2022
I had a chance to watch this in IMAX at Shaw Punggol Waterway Point. with this being the first tamil movie to be filmed for IMAX, I just had to see what the fuss was all about and I was not disappointed. It is also showing in IMAX Laser which supposedly has better PQ so I think I’ll use that as an excuse to watch the movie a 2nd time 🙂
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H. Prasanna
October 3, 2022
@Kunal Just curious, is there a way to calibrate our home systems to watch the movie as the maker intended?
“It’s not hard to mix a film extremely loud with no dynamic range and match the overall loudness levels of other movies.”
Would sound designers be willing to put out information about what works best in at-home situations?
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Madan
October 3, 2022
Ganesh Kandhaswamy : Ravi Varman said they didn’t shoot it in separate camera for IMAX. But I guess they did the post production processing to fit the film for IMAX.. They have spent money on good things rather than half the budget going to star fees.
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hari prasad
October 3, 2022
I watched PS1 on Kasi first day second show (padam paaka ulla pogum bodhu saw Baddy walk past me!! , that was my paartha vizhi paatha padi poothu iruka moment , but anyways that’s a story for another day) , when the 2nd half began and Jayam Ravi’s character gets introduced , suddenly the sound volume got reduced that lead to huge boos and shouts of “dei operator , sound ah ethu da” , did any of you felt the same while watching it ila adhu Kasi theatre oda problem ah?
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hari prasad
October 3, 2022
Oh , so this is an issue that everyone faced , my bad 😐 , thought it was only me and the people who watched it on Kasi felt it.
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therag
October 3, 2022
I really liked the sound design in the movie. The last 20 minutes or so was generic action-set-piece effects, but otherwise I was truly immersed in that universe.
For me it was the other way round. The sound in the first half was a little dull (not low enough for people to start cussing the operator), but the second half sound was perfect. That scene where Nambi hit that bell to attract Yaanai Paagan’s attention was wow! One among many scenes that instantly makes this an unmissable theatre watch.
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Yajiv
October 3, 2022
@Ganesan Kandasamy: Glad you caught it on Shaw and had a good experience there. This was my biggest problem with Rex Theatre in SG. The sound mix always seemed off there. Learnt to avoid it after a couple of bad experiences. Heard it went out of business now though.
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Saravanan
October 3, 2022
I am so glad that I read this piece. I was going to complain to the theatre where I watched it (Odeon, UK) about the appalling sound quality. There was distracting surround sounds but the main speakers were firing very low. I felt deprived of a theatrical experience of sound for a magnum opus of this calibre.
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Ravi K
October 3, 2022
It’s disturbing to see (or hear) the “loudness wars” that have afflicted music mastering for a long time has now hit mixing for films. I’m not as attuned to audio as I am to visuals, but I thought PS1 sounded great. It’s not an overly loud, overly compressed sound mix.
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gnanaozhi
October 5, 2022
Madan I assume you are in Pune or Bom and yes the prices as well as the quality of popcorn here should be declared a war crime
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Madan
October 5, 2022
gnanaozhi: Bambai than! This Cinepolis is in Seawoods near Nerul, New Bombay.
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Padhma Ranganathan
October 6, 2022
I watched in Regal RPX (New Jersery). This particular screen that I am talking about has amazing sound and they have even installed speakers below your seats for that surround / atmos effect. So you basically feel the bass vibrate your seat. It is a fantastic experience and I usually watch all marvel movies there, and recently Brahmastra had great sound effect too. As a lot of people here have mentioned, I was very disappointed with the sound in PS-1 (I could only hear it from the front speakers and felt like I was watching a very old movie with sound coming our of the speaker on / below the screen) and complained to no end to anyone who would listen. I watched on Friday of release. My husband watched 2 days later and he said the sound was fine and had a very pleasant experience (he is kind of an audiophile). So I am guessing maybe the theater folks adjusted to the sound after a few shows because they didn’t really know what they were getting in the beginning?
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Madan
October 7, 2022
“So I am guessing maybe the theater folks adjusted to the sound after a few shows because they didn’t really know what they were getting in the beginning?” – This is the problem with digital sound. It gives so much flexibility to sound engineers that volume levels across movies can be all over the place. In analog, the range between maximum compression and maximum dynamics was narrower so the movies fell into a smaller band of sound (with analog equipment at theaters in turn also capable of handling only so much).
There ought to be technology that auto-adjusts the loudness level of all movies/audio clips to an acceptable range as decided by the exhibitor. Presumably there isn’t so in the meantime, movie makers and exhibitors ought to agree to certain uniform standards (which is what OTT platforms already impose on content creators) so that the sound isn’t all over the place. This is the fault of movie makers for starting a loudness war, much more than it is of exhibitors. Naturally, exhibitors turning down the volume because movies are way too loud these days affects the sound output of a film like PS-1 that’s recorded more ‘naturalistically’ or classically, however you name it.
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Prakash
October 7, 2022
One of the worst Sound Experience on IMAX of Ponniyan Selven Movie. It was blaring and uncoordinated. Whoever was the Sound Engineer of this movie must be fired. It is not worth watching this movie in IMAX. Compare this against Top Gun Maverick and people will se the difference. Even the music was below average. Overated AR Rehman.
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Madan
October 7, 2022
” It was blaring and uncoordinated.” – Wasn’t blaring at all where I watched. The discrepancy in volume levels between theaters has become simply unmanageable. If they don’t sort this out, this could become a deterrent against watching in theaters. This is the fourth movie I have seen in theaters since they reopened. 83, RRR and PS were fine but Vikram was very loud to the extent that the score even drowned out the dialogue in places. Wait, I saw a fifth – Chup. Loudish but not deafening.
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