Can you provide some examples? THe way one lights a scene is to show the eye the lightest point so that even if the actors are underexposed you still "think" you are getting the full spectrum of exposure. I would say if anything they got more and more creative with lighting. "Miami Vice" often shot with available light or "Reigh Over Me" often shot with available light at night too only because the camera is so light sensitive -- but if anything it just shows their ability to push themselves creatively rather then anything else.

Gresham's law applies here.

Well I can't really provide any examples right off the top of my head but my personal view is that it is expensive to provide good lighting and the movie makers have decided to substitute what they call creativity for adequate lighting. Bad trade IMHO.

As for dark movies. I don't rent them and I don't watch them so Hollywood is losing at least my business with this practice.

What is really a mystery is why, in the age of Dolby, digital recordings, great audio equipment and highly talented audio techs, that we have such crap for audio in mainstream films. In contrast, the audio on Fox News, CNN, any network news broadcast and TV sitcoms is 5 stars including when it is broadcast in 5.1 Dolby which is becoming the standard for delivery on DirecTV HD and probably Dish HD.

Same deal as dark video for me. Hand me muddy audio on the soundtrack and it's off to another channel.

I wonder if it is (audio-wise) lazy monitoring. I can't tell you how many times I've seen low audio on something simply cuz the editor or sound mixer had their speakers turned up and "thought it was loud enough."

I'd like to see some examples of "dark movies." I haven't noticed it as a regular thing, honestly, and I watch about 10 movies a week. You want a dark movie? Watch the Relic sometime...

All that aside, there are so many elements to a movie that it is unrealistic to expect everything is going to be perfect. At some point, you just need to be done - and it isn't a matter of artistic laziness as it is a matter of resources.

Regarding the audio, films tend to be mixed much at a lower volume and loudness level than everything else. And it's the way to do it if you want the best quality from a good listening environment + good equipment.

Everything else tends to be undergo a lot of compression so that things sound louder and you can hear things over background noise. A lot of people listen to radio in the middle of traffic so it makes sense for the broadcaster to compress the crap out of the audio.

2- As far as lighting goes, the only time Hollywood movies are shot with natural lighting is when it's a doc or when they want to go with a verite/documentary/reality TV look.

Other than that, they definitely spend a lot of money lighting a movie (big crews, big lights, etc.).

As far as lighting something dark/light, it's an artistic choice. e.g. in Godfather I and II, the dark lighting is definitely part of the film (and they spent effort making it look that way).

If you can't see the detail (that the filmmakers intended) then perhaps your TV is not setup correctly?

While I'm sure Hollywood pays attention to DVD sales, their primary target is the theaters. So far as lighting goes, remember that video can reproduce about half the range of brightness levels as film.

Therefore, on your home TV, you get to choose between crushed blacks or blown-out whites.

The studios will re-color correct the film for DVD. So the half the range of brightness levels doesn't apply quite as much.

Yes, the dynamic range of film versus video is certainly part of the explanation for the dark film issue. But just watch any Batman movie versus say Vanity Fair or some other period piece that is shot outside in the daylight. It is, as they say, like night and day when viewing on a state-of-the-art LCD. The dynamic range problem only occurs for dark scenes which, unfortunately have become a Hollywood favorite.

But the audio is the real problem and I think much it starts with the recording itself. Record a whisper and guess what you get - a whisper. Pretty hard to make that sound like anything else and it is hard to fix by mxing. So that is just a problem with the direction. The other problem is that many actors just don't know how to read their lines. I've seen many examples where you can easily follow the half of the conversation form Cate Blanchett but struggle to make out anything her mumbling partner has to say. Don't they teach dictation in acting studios anymore?

And none of this explains the phenomenon that 50's movies seem to have great audio and great video when transferred to HD and shown over DirecTV on the MGM HD channel or HD Net Movies.

When movies were made in the 50s the olny way to put a soundtrack on film was the optical soundtrack. The S/N is horrid so one compressed the life out it. Today you've got around 100dB dynamic range ona film soundtrack and cinemas are very quiet.
Read Jay Rose's excellent book, "Audio Postproduction for Digital Video". He goes to some lengths to explain mixing for your target delivery.
The same goes for mixing for vinyl. CD or mp3. Ideally audio is mixed differently for those three mediums.

Probably also worth a mention that the Dolby system attempts to deal with this as well though different profiles.

Bob.

Dark has been around awhile. If you remember the scene in The Godfather, when the Don is talking to people asking for favors in his office during his daughter's wedding. It was somewhat of a watershed moment in cinematography, very stylistic, most dp's would have chosen to light it a little less dramatically. But I rmember sitting in the theatre the first time I saw that, and the cinematography absolutely added to the drama of that scene, making it unforgettable.

I know what you're saying about dark, overall, I think it is miused as an element of style, so is bleach bypass and desaturated colors and the cold blue look. What else is new, more followers than leaders, more bad films than good.

But I disagree about the quality issue, I think film quality now is absolutely amazing. To take two completely different looks... The Bourne Ultimatum and Amelie. One is a dark action film that is absolutely state of the art, what I would call "old style" film making as much of the footage is actully camera generated. And Amelie, which is a romantic comedy (which are always shot bright and shiny) but the color timing of Amelie was just breathtaking in it's beauty. Like nothing I'd ever seen before

Audio, too, is used similarly. Muddy dialog is not because they lack the skill for clear, sharp dialog. Many comedies have very crisp dialog tracks because they want you to hear every last word so you don't miss a joke. Drama's and action films seem to play this down a bit, not something I appreciate either.

I find that the dynamic range of film mixes exceed the size and scope of most home theatres. The effects and music swells are louder than the dialog. I did manage to appease my wife who is constantly scolding me to turn down the movie during a chase scene, then asking me to turn up the sound durning an intimate conversation, by taking my center speaker and extending the speaker cable so I can put it on the coffee table as we watch a movie. Now, the dialog is always loud enough and the loud effects are, well, still too loud for my wife.

Not sure about audio, but visual part is easly explained, since you seem to be talking about watching at home.

No matter how good your HDTV is, it's still pretty much total crap when compared to a good CRT. Add compression your satellite/cable company uses, and I'd be surprised if things looked anywhere near good.

Personally, I find that the compression artifacts are the most bothersome (and the quality of the cheaper consumer displays). As far as the consumer LCDs and such go, the colors are a bit wacky and the scaling artifacts are too much.

Now go into a Sony store, and the TV looks decent but the bluray source has all sorts of compression artifacts in it. Hmm... Or they show PS3 game footage, which is just not rendered anywhere as well as movie CGI and doesn't look so hot (e.g. computer games tend to have aliasing). On top of that, the game might be 720p scaled to 1080p (more scaling artifacts).

The CRT does have its flaws, but what I've seen in stores isn't too compelling (partly because they set up their displays poorly).

Since Bourne was mentioned earlier, I'd add my two cents here. Don't remember which one of the series it was (maybe all of them) but the "handheld look" with all the exaggerated jiggles was about enough to make me throw up. Honestly, the first time I tried watching it I had to turn it off. I am able to watch it now, so I guess it demonstrates how adaptable the human mind is. Maybe I spend too much time with DeShaker, trying to make my stuff look like Steadicam output.

This is a ludicrous thread. You don't like dark scenes? That means Hollywood's Video standards are declining? Also you don't like when people in movies whisper because it sounds like a whisper?

You know what I hate, when movies show people swimming and, like, the actors are all wet? I mean, what ever happened to people being dry, you know?



You like things brightly lit with a narrrow dynamic range for audio? Watch infomercials or daytime talk shows or TVLand.

Or adjust your TV.