Why do a lot of indie films brag about cheap cameras when sound is more important?

[harmonica44]

Bragging that your feature was shot on a DSLR is a whole lot different from bragging that your feature was shot on a Panavision.

And I strongly disagree that people (read: the general viewing public) cares more about sound than image quality.

Well I'm going by what a guy who works at a film festival said. He said most of the movies they reject, are because of poor sound.

One episode was shot on 5Ds. So I'm not surprised you didn't know it was shot with the 7D

I can't say it really bothers me, but then I'm always interested in which cameras/lenses/film stock were used on a film. I wouldn't go and see a film because it was shot on a specific camera, though.

Are thousands of regular consumers buying digital audio recorders? Have recent improvements in technology found a new market for digital audio recorders? No, so why (and how) would they use it as a marketing tool?

True I guess that's a point.

That's it right there in one sentence.

You gotta get the dialogue track perfect. Everything else having to do with sound is icing on the cake.

Well it looks like I'll have a lot of ADR to do in post of my current short film lol.

 

[harmonica44]

Well I met a guy who works at a film festival, and he says that the reason most films are rejected were for bad audio.

You'd think, but no.

While this might be true for a silent film with a musical score, for a film that's heavy on dialog, sound is more like two-thirds of the experience in scenes where dialog prevails over visual action.

The "bad sound" issue is really all about being able to clearly hear the dialog, otherwise audiences are unable to engage with a film. Having worked at and programmed film festivals, I can tell you that people will walk out of films with badly-recorded dialog and an excellent picture, while if the reverse is true -- low-quality picture with good sound -- people will have no problem with it.

And regardless of how people imagine the balance of the sound/image ratio, I think that sound and image should both be as good as you can get them. What you can get away with should not be the issue.

So the dialogue is just not recorded right cause of bad mics, or just bad inexperience or both? Both probably.

Don't think this really works because silent and B&W are hardly comparable.

Both sound and visuals are very important but it's become very trendy to make the point that people won't watch movies they can't hear properly. But not being able to hear something must be equivalent not to being able to properly see something, and I doubt people would watch movies like that after.

And clearly the answer is because people (everyday people, not freaks like us) use cameras and like cameras. Cameras are sexy whereas microphones are... well, not.

True that's a point.

 

[Alcove Audio]

"Sound is half of the experience" means that sound and picture are two parts of an integrated whole.

Your ears work all the time, even while you are sleeping; it's a part of natures early warning sytem. In fact, the ears start to work at about 19 weeks while the child is still in the womb - the only sense to be fully involved before birth, which is why a newborn recognizes the sound of its mothers voice; the eyes don't fully focus for several days after birth. Sound is the only sense we have that works 360 degrees (surround, if you will) and can make sense of vertical as well as horizontal spatial relationships without moving the head or body. Loud sounds can even be sensed tactilely. You can "turn off" your eyes by closing them; it is only with great difficulty that we can completely turn off sound; even jamming your fingers in your ears only mutes sound.

Sound that is difficult to hear triggers the instinctual "something's wrong" section of our brain. We semiconsciously turn our concentration towards figuring out what the "threat" may be. If there is no "threat" we "tune it out" but in the case of a movie with poor audio that nagging "something is wrong" feeling stays with us. Since we are adapted to our technological world this instinct is somewhat muted, but dialog that is difficult to understand "bothers" us at the most basic level. The audience now has to "work" at processing the audio information and it detracts from the rest of the movie experience.

Filmmaking is entirely about creating believable visual and sonic illusions. "We suspend our disbelief and we are entertained." Anything that pulls the audience out of the illusion detracts from the movie-going experience.

 

[harmonica44]

Sounds about right. I was thinking back to the 1933 King Kong, and even though you can understand what the characters are saying, it probably wouldn't fly by today's film festival or industry standards.

 

[CamVader]

Sounds about right. I was thinking back to the 1933 King Kong, and even though you can understand what the characters are saying, it probably wouldn't fly by today's film festival or industry standards.

You really can't compare the two any more than you could compare cars of 1933 and today. Expectations were very different back then and people were easier to please. If something doesn't exist, you don't miss it.

In 2089, people will look at our entertainment of today with smug superiority of how limited things were.

 

[Scoopicman]

I apologize, as I made a long comment in my previous post about the "bragging about the camera" part of the post and didn't catch the sound comparison. My short response is that getting good sound is more of a technique than it is an equipment issue.

 

[Gonzo_Entertainment]

I'd watch the original King Kong just for Fay Wrays's boobs beautifully sillioutted in that sheer thing she wears most of the time. It was made at the tail end of the kind of free wheeling era before the eventual censorship code was in full force.

 

[rayw]

Hubba-hubba.​

 

[Nate North]

I think all these quadrillions of threads about how one part of filmmaking is more important than another are misleading to those trying to learn about film. Every part of a film is important, and though these threads don't explicitly say otherwise, they seem to insinuate that you can skip one part of production value in favor of another. There may be times when that's been effective for someone determined to put together a movie with scotch tape and bailing wire, but it's not good advice to tell people that they don't have to have good actors or cinematography as long as they have great sound design. The real truth is that people like movies with all of the above, and it' never been any other way. Go for a well rounded consistent product.

 

[spinner]

I'd watch the original King Kong just for Fay Wrays's boobs beautifully sillioutted in that sheer thing she wears most of the time. It was made at the tail end of the kind of free wheeling era before the eventual censorship code was in full force.

"...yes, but how did it sound?" spinner asked.

"There was sound?" Gonzo replied, bewildered....





-- spinner

 

[Kholi]

I think all these quadrillions of threads about how one part of filmmaking is more important than another are misleading to those trying to learn about film. Every part of a film is important, and though these threads don't explicitly say otherwise, they seem to insinuate that you can skip one part of production value in favor of another. There may be times when that's been effective for someone determined to put together a movie with scotch tape and bailing wire, but it's not good advice to tell people that they don't have to have good actors or cinematography as long as they have great sound design. The real truth is that people like movies with all of the above, and it' never been any other way. Go for a well rounded consistent product.

Indeed.

The pieces of the puzzle should all paint the same picture if possible. Perhaps if you don't have enough money you can pick and choose which are most important to you, the reality of it?

It is ALL important. Like you, I wish people would start teaching that instead of one versus the other.

At the end of the day, though, if I have to choose between sound and image, or a good sound mix and foley versus great cinematography...

I'll go with sound.


As far as why people brag about cameras? Well, because what else are you gonna brag about?

Making an actual good product? No.

 

[Alcove Audio]

Every part of a film is important, and though these threads don't explicitly say otherwise, they seem to insinuate that you can skip one part of production value in favor of another... Go for a well rounded consistent product.

I have already said that:

"Sound is half of the experience" means that sound and picture are two parts of an integrated whole.

The capture of the visuals and the capture of the audio are the two and only two purely technical aspects of film. The rest, even though they can be highly technical, are part of the art of filmmaking.

The issue for ultra-micro-budget filmmakers is budget allocation. If you have good story/script and solid acting the sound quality is one place where you cannot make sacrifices. The ability to easily understand the dialog is implicit in the "sound is half of the experience" mantra. Distracting sound, like excessive noise and overly roomy dialog, pull the audience out of the illusion.

My business is audio post. Yet 90%+ of my posts are about capturing quality production sound. You can "sacrifice" a detailed audio post if only you have quality production sound. Quality production sound is actually a large money saver, and something that is very much under the control of a very large percentage of indie filmmakers as long as they learn and apply the proper techniques that are just as, if not more, important than the gear that is used. Having the proper gear makes the job easier.

The other bias of my posts is my assumption that the people who frequent IndieTalk aspire to be professional filmmakers. This requires professional gear that can withstand the rigors of frequent extended usage. Ten years ago you couldn't get a decent production sound mic for under $600, and most semi-pro cameras had passable audio implementation (XLR inputs, decent bit/sample rates) - think the Sennheiser ME-66 and the DVX-100. These days there are many low budget alternatives, but they will not stand up to "hard" usage, they will not provide professional options, nor will they produce the same results as better quality gear.

 

[sonnyboo]

What I mean is a like for example. They brag about how the show House was shot on the 7D.

It was shot with the Canon 5D mk II with full cine lenses and tricked out with kits from RedRock.

The reason is because most Hollywood features and TV shows use Panavision 35mm film cameras that are valued at the hundreds of thousands of dollars (Panavision cams are for rent and never for sale). So it is significant when someone uses a fraction the amount of $$ to make beautiful images on par with the big boys.

Was that really that hard to figure out?

 

[chilipie]

It was shot with the Canon 5D mk II with full cine lenses and tricked out with kits from RedRock.

Don't know about the rigs, but they used Canon EF primes and the 24-70 and 70-200 f/2.8 zooms… think the focus pullers had fun

 

[PaulGriffith]

That episode had a lot of soft focus and they'd rack too far and go back quite often. I love DSLR's and what they do, they didn't look as good as their normal cameras though. They did fit into a little cave with a couple other actors.

They used the RR remote follow focus setup because a focus puller and camera op couldn't fit there together. The focus puller was watching it on his own monitor a distance away.