I'm pretty sensitive to good recordings for movies. Sometimes if an aspect of the record is bad enough, it bothers me. Most movies are pretty good now days, but every once in a while a movie will sound pretty bad - a lot of times in the dialog. This weekend I was exhausted from the week and decided to just relax and do some movie watching. I watched three movies: Saw IV, The Kingdom and Death Proof.
The sound quality, from best to worst: Saw IV, The Kingdom, Death Proof
(My enjoyment, fyi, from best to worst: Death Proof, The Kingdom, Saw IV)
The Kingdom
In some scenes, how they mic is horrible. The scene at the beginning, where the terrorists are talking on the rooftop, the mics are picking up all kinds of noise. In the board room, when Jamie Fox is briefing them, there is a lot of background noise on some mics, and basically non on others. When they switch cameras the background noise goes quiet, then they switch again and it comes back. Horrible.
Death Proof
I noticed that regardless of the level I set the volume, high frequency peaks (SPOILER!@#@!: ...like when the car revs up right before driving at the girls) would have slight distortion. I couldn't tell if it was the recording or my system, so I called a friend who is also into audio to try it on his system. He popped it in and noticed the same thing at the parts I mentioned. I thought it might be distortion from my end, but it happends regardless of sound level. Anyone else notice this? We think it might be style (since good sound quality wouldn't match the poor video quality QT was going for) and purposely added. The dialog in the other scenes is great, and most aspects of the sound is pretty good.
Saw IV
The dialog, even in difficult scenes, was always clear. The sound work was excellent and dramatic. Why couldn't the better movies listed above have been done by Saw's sound crew?!
