This time it is “SS-GB” (Feb 2017)
Tony Scott
Why does yet another TV drama have mumbling dialogue – and what’s the solution? Following the backlash against the BBC series “SS-GB”, we investigate the return of “Mumblegate”.
Pat Heigham
Headline of the letters page in “Radio Times for week following publication date 01/03/2017. More disgruntled viewers!
Does anyone know the Sound Recordist and Dubbing Mixer? Look up names on IMDb.
Bernard Newham
There was an IPS session about this at BVE 01/03/2017. I was just passing when the chap was saying "it isn’t us, it’s actors and production".
Pat Heigham
This is what AMPS (Association of Motion Picture Sound) also believes.
A very experienced Sound Mixer, with whom I worked a lot, originally BBC trained, posted this comment after the Jamaica Inn furore:
"… To me, the problem lay with a poor actor who could not convey his part correctly. I had the privilege of working with the late Ray Macanally, Irish actor, Oscar winner and acting teacher in Dublin. He was very friendly with the Sound Crew and when we showed interest in acting technique – he was an expert – he would spend time demonstrating to us how to use voice control to convey emotion, appear to whisper and make yourself CLEAR! It was a revelation when he stood in the corner of the room and did his ‘whisper’ trick – we made out every word! Training was the key. But who needs training these days…."
Barry Bonner
As a "very experienced" Sound Supervisor I agree with him!
Alasdair Lawrance
Another episode of Mumblygate: here< from R4’s “Today”. I’m offering a prize for the biggest amount of b*ll*x detected…..
“… I think the actor, in this case Sam Reily, has made a choice, that he doesn’t want to speak with, you know, perfect crystal clear diction, and I think he’s made that choice because he is playing a very ambiguous character – a man working for the police force in Nazi-occupied Britain – and he’s not quite sure that he wants everything that he says to be understood: that would be, I guess, the thought process going through his mind and, in my experience, if an actor makes a choice about how they are going to play a role, it’s very hard to make them change their mind about that, and also if you say “speak up” they will say “that’s not what my character would do and .. I’m guessing this is what has happened here … ”
Alec Bray
I thought directors directed. Silly me! But surely that is the point of a director – to direct the act and actions of the crew and cast – that is, the "performance", and a director should tell an actor to do it the way the director wanted, not necessarily the way the actor wanted to play it. The director has the performance overview after all.
All those years and years ago, the first appearance of Sonny and Cher on "Top of the Pops", Sonny and particularly Cher were unhappy at the way that they were being shown in rehearsal. Eventually the director came down to the studio TC2 floor and basically had a half-hour argument with them. Finally, the director went back to the gallery, with the parting shot "You’re in England now, and in England the director calls the shots!"
Dave Plowman
Fine in the days when the BBC made the programme. These days, well known talent may own the company which makes the prog and employs the director.
Nick Ware
It’s easy to stick your neck out / get stroppy / etc., when you’re staff!
Mike Jordan
And it hits The Guardian today (21 February 2107). I like the reference to “’Allo ‘Allo” in the URL! (www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/feb/20/i-will-mumble-this-only-once-bbcs-new-nazi-drama-ss-gb-hit-by-dialogue-complaints)
The reviewer suggested that not only were subtitles needed for the German language bits but in the English spoken bits as well.
Not right for a professionally made (?) programme but when I help my local school with show sound, I have in the past had to tell one of the actors to “Imagine you don’t have the radio mic on and speak up, out and clearly to me in the back row” They show surprise but it really works.
Youngsters’ speech is so bad – like – nowadays that nobody can – like – understand what they are saying. Especially when they are telling everyone what they have bought in to show off (not brought of course – even people on “Dickinson’s Real Deal” can’t get it right).
Even the BBC is talking about it!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-39038406
“Dirty washing in public” comes to mind!
Dave Plowman
“… Look at sound levels…” , eh? Didn’t they spend many thousands on new loudness meters to sort that? So a monkey could read them?
John Howell
If you are talking about the transmission of a recorded programme, the monkey has to actually be there with a volume knob that works. I have been told (repeatedly) that the sound volume on pre-recorded programmes cannot be controlled when on air. Obviously live stuff has a Sound Supervisor at the helm so he can apply a professional ear. (Unless of course a lengthy VT insert is played in and the studio is bypassed to allow them to rehearse the next item).
I have said it before and I’ll say it again: Give any Sound Practitioner a fader in a Network feed and a running order and tell him/her to keep the PPMs flying there would be a dramatic reduction in complaints about sound levels. With rehearsal, the results at programme junctions would be vastly improved. Obviously nothing can be done about the balance of voices against effects and music.
Nick Ware
By the way, PPMs are very last century now! Today it’s all about loudness, compression, normalisation, and how close to 0dBfs you can safely go. All open to personal judgment and interpretation of working practices, hence the wide variations we hear.
John Howell
Oh yes, I know PPMs are passé, I was speaking metaphorically!
I have been out of the business for a while now: is there a universal standard for metering nowadays in the same way that BBC Specification PPMs were accepted industry-wide, you know: levels, attack time, hold time, release time, etc.? Is everyone singing from the same hymn sheet? (at the same volume!).
Bernie Newnham
I was trying to find this out for a uni lecture the other week. It all got very complicated very quickly and I gave up after a while. Told the students about the principles, reasons, US CALM law, terminology, and rather gave up after that. Given that it’s all about audio levels, and mainly about commercials being too loud, I rather think that an experienced sound supervisor ought to be able to do just as well with a PPM. But then I’m not a sound man, nor a company trying to sell a new "must have" system.
Dave Plowman
That seems to be one possible problem on the general subject of levels. The mainstream TX feeds only normally peak to -10 dBFS as an absolute maximum. But the chain appears to be able to cope with 0dBFS. Now 10dB is very noticeable to anyone. Subjectively, twice as loud.
Alasdair Lawrance
And subjectively, we still find commercials (usually) louder than programme, and that’s been true since….well, forever – especially on the smaller channels – Drama, Yesterday, CBS (they show M*A*S*H* in the evening).
I can’t remember the last time I watched anything on ITV 1.
Dave Plowman
On ITV 1, I’d say that’s not as true as once was. Even if just maximum peaks. But of course nobody who pays good money to have a commercial made and shown is going to put up with dialogue which isn’t clear. So you can have that contrast too.
The smaller commercial channels – especially the ones showing repeats only – seem to have even poorer technical standards than the norm – which I suppose is understandable. I’d guess they are near totally automated. It’s quite interesting to look at transmitted audio levels on some of those older shows. Absolutely no way were they made with peaks of only PPM 3 or so – which says something wasn’t lined up when transferring into the server. And that’s before the Dolby errors on things which originated on Beta or M3.
No matter how good any type of meter is, you still need someone who knows how to read it and act on that information.
A proper PPM gives lots of information to one who understands how to read it: far more that just the peak level.
Commercials are no different to any programme junction. One in the middle of “The X Factor” is very unlikely to jar, level or content wise. Unlike one in the middle of some poignant drama. In other words, there’s more to it than just levels.
Chris Woolf
One of the benefits of present day loudness measuring systems is the ~avoidance~ of exactly that issue – a person who knows how to read the meter and act on that information. A programme can be run through loudness metering inside a computer (and faster than real-time) to be checked, and have its overall level increased or reduced to fit a prescribed norm. Gradually the various on-line content delivery systems (Spotify, i-Tunes etc) are moving to loudness control, and we can be sure that all broad and narrow-casters will implement it in full.
So the overall balance gets adjusted in production, but the perceived loudness is fixed by the delivery system… without any need for trained or untrained personnel.
Dave Plowman
You don’t need training to run that prog through a computer and tell it to ‘normalise’ the sound?
I think that comes under the heading of you don’t need training to transfer material into the server either.
Personally, I think the whole loudness thing somewhat of a red herring. It’s rare to complain about the sound balance within a programme. So is this automatic device only going to raise or lower the overall level of that prog? Or is it going to interfere with the mix that ‘we’ have used our skills to perfect?
It will be interesting to see how it copes with live programmes too.
Tony Grant
It’s funny how you get ideas! I recall there was an institution called the BBC which began with some new-fangled device called ‘Wireless’. And blow me, they’re still at it! Nowadays they seem to prefer the term ‘Radio’, but there’s lots of speech, including drama, and you can hear it all clearly, although they have introduced a technical system called DAB which often cuts….whilst…..ening in…ur car. So, perhaps that’s their riposte.
Nevertheless, seeing as how they have some staff somewhere who are able to cope with intelligible sound, perhaps someone still at work could suggest to them that the send some ‘radio’ staff on attachment to television. Or perhaps all the drama, etc. is made by ‘independents’? Ah well, back to the drawing board.
FYI, the Mumbles are in South Wales, and would seem the ideal location to host an awards ceremony for the most indecipherable programme/s produced each year.
Pat Heigham
The radio staff would have to learn bloody quickly how to keep the mikes out of shot, and personals hidden in costumes. OK for personals to be seen outside clothes on panel shows but look a bit out of place on a Dickens drama.
I’ve often wondered if they could be disguised as a button, or brooch, but all that takes time.
Dave Plowman
But there is ‘time’ when making a drama. Preferably before it comes onto set, where it is possible to have clothes made (or chosen) which are rather more transparent to sound – if you really must use personal mics.
Of course that takes time and money, and planning. And producing a ‘Hi-Fi’ dialogue track seems to be well down the list of priorities.
After the complaints about “Happy Valley”, I’d say they did a re-mix on (some) later episodes in an attempt to improve clarity, with notably more clothing rustle.
“… they have some staff somewhere who are able to cope with intelligible sound…”
Very true. When I complain about the appalling vocal quality that is oh so common on TV these days, and point out that the very same presenter on radio (and through exactly the same reproduction chain here at home) sounds just fine, I never get a satisfactory answer.
Now I know, of course, that a personal mic is never going to sound as good as a radio studio one – but also know from my own many years of experience that they don’t have to sound as muffled as they often do.
And I do listen to drama on radio too. They seem to manage to give the impression of intimate dialogue while making it perfectly easy to understand.
I’m wondering if it is a reaction to ‘digital’ sound. Let’s make everything sound like it’s coming from an AM transistor pocket radio.
BTW, I lashed out on an expensive DAB radio for the old car. And an expensive DAB roof mounted aerial. Which cost more than many radios complete. And DAB reception round London – and the parts of the country I’ve tried – is vastly superior to FM. Basically, rock steady. While FM in London tends to be affected by tall buildings, etc.
Pat Heigham
London DAB reception might be fine, but Leatherhead has dead spots, whilst driving around, and I frequently use the A303 to the West Country. Dead spots along that route! Most irritating if one is enjoying R4Ex, which is not available on FM.
Also, BBC iPlayer does not carry radio channels via the Freeview TV system, only via computer. Can’t wait for my free TV licence!
Dave Plowman
Can’t say I’ve driven on every single road in the SE – but it’s rare to have a DAB reception problem, unlike with FM. But do note I paid out for a decent active aerial. Results using the supplied one with the radio – or adapting the original wing one to the DAB socket – were dreadful.
My ‘new’ car has the factory Bose upgrade, which would have cost quite a bit. I think that uses screen aerials as there are no obvious external ones. On a recent trip to the south coast via Billinghurst – all on fairly minor roads – I was reminded of why I prefer DAB reception.
Ian Hillson
The punning continues… "We can’t Herr you… BBC’s Nazi drama is marred by mumbles" by Susie Coen in the “Daily Mail”.
“SS-GB”, the gift that keeps on giving!
Geoff Fletcher
Ve don’t have veys of making you speak!
Pat Heigham
A well-respected sound colleague, also BBC trained initially, was given a masterclass by an actor he worked with, in how to ‘act’ a whisper, so that it appeared to be such, but was perfectly audible for pick up. Simon Clark’s comments in “The Guardian” are very valid – the poor sound mixer can only provide an accurate recording of what happens on set. It must be down to the artistes to deliver, not only a performance visually and in character, but also in speech! Thus, intelligibility has nothing to do with levels, as the spokesman is bleating about, but delivery.
The Sound practioners on “Jamaica Inn”, for example, are highly experienced in their field, and render a perfect recording of WHAT THEY ARE PRESENTED WITH
Stop blaming the recording guys and look to the source!
Dave Plowman
“… be there with a volume knob that works….”
Quite. But the suits want to say it has been made or checked on their meter and it was perfect so mustn’t be touched.
Anything that comes from the TX play-in system seems to only ever come out as it went in. And who does the checks when loading in?
“.. Give any Sound Practitioner a fader in a Network feed ..”
I think that’s been known for many a year. But complaints are cheaper to deal with than taking real action to prevent them being needed.
The vast majority of programmes are OK within themselves. But you only need to look at a PPM across output to see that something can happen between different ones.
“Newsnight” picked up on the mumble in “SS-GB” – and offered their solution. Showed a scene re-voiced using R4 announcers.
John Howell
It’s at 38 Mins 53 Secs into Tuesday 21st February’s “Newsnight” and the problem is diction, there is no doubt that the acquisition process was satisfactory, so those comments about ‘sound mix’ are incorrect.
Oh I’d dearly like to hear the dubbing mixer’s comments on this!
Dave Plowman
On that clip the vocals weren’t as muffled as often happens. But they may have chosen it as easy to re-voice being mainly a wide shot.
You never seem to hear the dubbing mixer’s comments: more often a colleague defending them. But really it’s the job of the location people to get usable and understandable dialogue. Chances are the sound recordist did complain about the diction but was ignored. Short of ADR, there’s only so much that can be done in post.
Ian Hillson
Maybe “Newsnight” didn’t have the original “SS-GB” script so they had to choose a bit where they could hear the dialogue they wanted to re-voice ☺!
Dave Plowman
I wonder how many people anyone knows who you can’t sit down with and have a conversation without subtitles? Unless they actually have a speech impediment or whatever?
Mike Giles
Does anyone have an input to the acting fraternity? Surely, as individuals, they must be getting the message by now.
We enjoyed “The Replacement” for the most part, (though last night’s escape from the car seemed a tad unlikely), but even then we looked at each other occasionally for explanation of the recent dialogue, usually to no avail!
Alec Bray
My wife and I watched the last episode of the "The Replacement" at the broadcast time at our Daughter’s house up t’North, via Sky and a Sony TV. The sound levels were all over the place: at one time barely audible (well, actually, inaudible), at another (when a character was angry) so loud it nearly blasted us out of our seats. My wife had her finger on the remote for the whole programme, raising and lowering the volume for each scene.
When we got home yesterday, my wife rewatched the episode (‘cos we had missed so much dialogue) from a Virgin Tivo box recording made via VirginMedia and replayed through a Siemens TV with an LG sound bar. The sound did change in level as might be expected in a drama, but there was no need for fiddling with the remote sound control. Basically audible all the way through.
Help!
Dave Plowman
I didn’t have too much problem with the words on “The Replacment”, but being of Scots origin may have helped.
But I thought that the end of it – where all is revealed – was terribly rushed, given the slow pace of the rest of it.
I did wonder when they last made a car you could start by ‘hot wiring’.
