Cinema mixing levels poll

[Frank Kruse]

Originally Posted by joachim

Could be this one : https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-filmuniv.../BonseDipl.pdf
It is in German.
If I understand this correctly, he measured the loudness of a lot of movies (absolute loudness of the master), than played those back at his personal playback level, some at Dolby 6, some at 5, some at 4, some at 7.5, ... (page 67).
The correlation of those values (e.g. Dialog LUFS of master measured is -27, but played back at 5, so correlated level is -27 LUFS + -6.6 = -33,6 LUFS) can be seen on page 68.
Dialog levels are close together.

Thanks, he also wrote the whole thing in English, so maybe that's available too? (I actually have it but I'm not going to post without Gregor's permission)

But Steven, you should get in touch with Gregor. He has tons of experience and invested a lot of "brain matter" in this topic already.

F.

[mik]

I would be so happy to have that in english...

[Steven1145]

If I understand you correctly Frank, he played back the movies so that the dialogue was in the same ballpark for all movies. I think that a dialog loudness information value could be a first step in making some sense in terms of playback in cinemas, while leaving the dynamics of a movie untouched. An information value (that influences the playback level) leaves way more freedom than a dialogue loudness target (like R128 is applied in many territories).
But I would definitely love to read the report in English also (my German is too poor) and get in touch with Gregor.

sent from my Galaxy S7 Edge

[Gregor B.]

Hi Steven

The English version of the document can be found here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/sf2nliwhot...SBERG.pdf?dl=0

It goes through all the different aspects of the topic. It also covers many of the arguments mentioned in this thread whether or not a standard should be established.
For the ones who have limited time, I suggest reading introduction and conclusion first and taking it from there.

Best
Gregor Bonse

[Steven1145]

Many thanks, I'll keep you posted on the results of the survey.

sent from my Galaxy S7 Edge

[Steven1145]

Hey all,
I'll be closing the survey around Friday I think. So please pass the link around so that we can gather as many answers as possible. Cheers

[thierryd]

Originally Posted by Gregor B.

For the ones who have limited time, I suggest reading introduction and conclusion first and taking it from there.

I did just that and glanced over the rest of the document.
This is a VERY interesting study. I would say a must-read for anybody involved in film mixing!
Did you ever try to present it to AES (locally or internationally)?

There is some cross-posting of Steven's poll between different forums. It might be interesting to repost your pdf link at Gearslutz as well in this thread:
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/post...ng-levels.html

Greetings,

Thierry

[Steven1145]

Food for thought: http://isdcf.com/papers/ISDCF-Doc11-...nt20160315.pdf
Ioan Allen

[yoerik]

Very interesting reads, thanks to the posters!

In the end there seem to be 2 main reasons why levels are being turned down:

1) too loud mixes
2) a different opinion between mixers and theatres how loud films should be played.

1) could possibly be tackled by mixing specs, at the huge risk of putting serious constraints on the filmmakers/mixers creativity and intentions, and giving up all headroom

2) this is not a technical issue and cannot be solved by any mixing specs nor calibration. No matter how tight you make the specs, if they turn it down, they turn it down and it will sound... quieter

So - as pointed out in the last document - the main issue is who should be in charge of playback levels.
Is it the duty of the theatres to get as close to the filmmaker's intentions as possible, then the key is universal calibration and fixed playback levels.
If however you look at a theatre as a marketplace to sell movies, it's up to the theatres.
Therefore I believe right now it's much more important to get the debate going on whose call it is and finding a concensus between all parties before getting into technical details. Right now it seems a lot of effort is being put in technical details without seeing the bigger picture. It's like picking the wallpaper before buying the house.

[simonchase]

Originally Posted by yoerik

2) a different opinion between mixers and theatres how loud films should be played.

The theatres should not have a say in the matter. If the film is too loud for their tastes then they shouldn't screen it.

What if a theatre chain decided the acting of Tom Hanks was not to their taste? Do they screen his films but re-edit them without him in? Dub him with a different voice and superimpose somebody else's face onto him? You shouldn't be able to cherrypick from a movie's artistic choices.

Cinemas turn down the volume because it's easy to do so and nobody stops them. Only movie studios can stop them, and movie studios seem to have no appetite to do so.

IMHO we should mix at 7 for the premier, and lobby our bosses to lay down the law with the cinemas.