Popular movies with bad sound (or) win me brownie points in class.

Nalouto

My audio production teacher has challenged anyone in my class to find a large budget movie (an English / widely distributed one) that has terrible audio in it. Someone actually called him out quickly with the movie "Brick" as example, which has a few really unfortunate audio scenes, but he had talked about it in a previous class so it didn't count. >_>

I've done some looking and while his claim seems mostly accurate, I'm sure he is wrong!

so I'm sure someone here can name one or two popular movies with noticeably bad audio. GO!

noir_blood

I wouldn't classify Brick as having a large budget. Or widely distributed for that matter.

Hmm, haven't seen it in a while, but Blair witch project? Though again, that didn't have a big budget either.

Pheezer

noir_blood wrote: »

I wouldn't classify Brick as having a large budget. Or widely distributed for that matter.

Hmm, haven't seen it in a while, but Blair witch project? Though again, that didn't have a big budget either.

and the low-fi production quality was sort of the entire point.

saltiness

Terminator 3 had pretty terrible sound effects.

Improvolone

Any kind of time frame? If it's only in the past ten years or so, I'd imagine everything "big budget" has been ADRed.

Carcharodontosaurus

What about Cloverfield? I don't recall if the sound was particularly horrible, but given it's meant to simulate handheld camera footage it might have some dodgy sound sequences.

Alternatively, you could be a complete smartarse and choose any science fiction movie set in space that has spaceship fighting sequences. There shouldn't be any sound due to the vacuum. 8-)

EggyToast

If older movies count, Reds has an audio track that clips all over the place.

What does he mean by "bad" though?

RUNN1NGMAN

The DVD version of Star Wars: A New Hope, ep. IV, etc, etc. (the one with the CGI scene with Jabba the Hutt and Han). The audio track on that is a mess—the channels on the 5.1 audio track are all kinds of messed up. At one point, an X-wing flies across the screen from right to left, and you hear it going from left to right.

It's especially egregious because those DVDs were hyped as the THX-remastered super audio and video versions of the Star Wars Trilogy.

TychoCelchuuu

The music also got ridiculously drowned out at some points, like during the Battle of Yavin, but they said that was on purpose so maybe it doesn't count.

RUNN1NGMAN

TychoCelchuuu wrote: »

The music also got ridiculously drowned out at some points, like during the Battle of Yavin, but they said that was on purpose so maybe it doesn't count.

Good call! I remember the first time I watched DVD and was expecting that big fanfare followed by the John Williams goodness, and it was like someone had turned the music down to 1 and the lasers up to 11.

Nalouto

EggyToast wrote: »

If older movies count, Reds has an audio track that clips all over the place.

What does he mean by "bad" though?

Pretty much this. He's an audiophile, so he means things like badly mastered sound, blown out sound effects or voice recordings, or music/ambience drowning out the dialogue. As previously stated though everything these days has had a fair amount of ADR done on it, but hey, old movies count.

I guess it's comforting in some way, I just thought there would be a few more famously badly recorded movies.

Sol Invictus

Nalouto wrote: »

EggyToast wrote: »

If older movies count, Reds has an audio track that clips all over the place.

What does he mean by "bad" though?

Pretty much this. He's an audiophile, so he means things like badly mastered sound, blown out sound effects or voice recordings, or music/ambience drowning out the dialogue. As previously stated though everything these days has had a fair amount of ADR done on it, but hey, old movies count.

I guess it's comforting in some way, I just thought there would be a few more famously badly recorded movies.

It's too bad he didn't say you could pick from albums. Oasis' and Metallica's new albums would certainly come to mind as being poorly mastered pieces of crap that sound rather okay on a cheap radio but bad with any other kind of equipment. It's so bad at some of the fans resorted to buying the Guitar Hero release of Metallica's album because it didn't have the f'd up sound quality.

Trus

What about something like Roadhouse/Deathproof where they purposefully made the audio bad?

Mojo_Jojo

Seven was mixed with deliberately quiet speech, maybe that?

Doc

Bullitt. The audio on that one is all over the place.

Scroffus

Primer had some pretty bad sound, but it wasn't really big budget (the bit at the fountain, I couldn't even hear what they were saying).

DrFrylock

Scroffus wrote: »

Primer had some pretty bad sound, but it wasn't really big budget (the bit at the fountain, I couldn't even hear what they were saying).

Um yeah, the entirety of Primer was made for the cost of a Honda Civic, it's pretty hard to slap the "big-budget" label on that one. In fact, five times out of 10 six guys and a camcorder would make a more expensive movie.

I found that the audio mix on the DVD of Kevin Smith's Dogma is terrible - the sound effects are alternately too loud and too soft for the dialogue, and I distinctly recall having to constantly adjust the volume on my set to hear in one scene and then avoid waking the neighbors in the next.

Celzrro

Dark Knight. Most of the time, the score was just too damned loud to make out the dialogue.

Szechuanosaurus

Nalouto wrote: »

EggyToast wrote: »

If older movies count, Reds has an audio track that clips all over the place.

What does he mean by "bad" though?

Pretty much this. He's an audiophile, so he means things like badly mastered sound, blown out sound effects or voice recordings, or music/ambience drowning out the dialogue. As previously stated though everything these days has had a fair amount of ADR done on it, but hey, old movies count.

I guess it's comforting in some way, I just thought there would be a few more famously badly recorded movies.

The Fight Club commentary includes an interesting audio-related story. The Dolby technicians were doing their thing, fixing up the stereo and surround sound and they come to the scene where they are driving in a car and Tyler crashes it. They notice that when they are in the car, Pitt and Norton are sitting in the drivers seat and the passenger seat respectively. They notice things like this because it's their job to ensure voices etc. are coming out of the correct speakers relative to the actors position on screen. However, when they crash, they get out of the wrong sides of the car in relation to where they were seated. They get on the phone to production to point out this glaring inconsistency and production just say 'Watch the rest of the movie guys'.

Obviously as Pitt doesn't actually exist, it was actually Norton who was driving anyway. It was intentional that his perceived seating position in the car switched before and after the crash.

I'm paraphrasing from second-hand information here, I didn't sit through the commentary myself so I might not have the story completely correct, but I guess an audio nerd would find it interesting.

KalTorak

The Princess Bride has a lot of dialogue that's just hard to understand - not just stuff from Andre the Giant either.

Szechuanosaurus

inconceivable.gif

L*2*G*X

The second Alien vs Predator. Too sparse sound all around. They reused the same sound effect over and over again for the aliens, although that was more likely the fan edit I watched.

Orikaeshigitae

the first Rambo movie has a lot of weird stuff going on with the audio mix.

Quoth

I'm pretty sure Van Helsing had the worst film score in history, but I don't know if that really counts for what you want here.

Willeth

Szechuanosaurus wrote: »

Nalouto wrote: »

EggyToast wrote: »

If older movies count, Reds has an audio track that clips all over the place.

What does he mean by "bad" though?

Pretty much this. He's an audiophile, so he means things like badly mastered sound, blown out sound effects or voice recordings, or music/ambience drowning out the dialogue. As previously stated though everything these days has had a fair amount of ADR done on it, but hey, old movies count.

I guess it's comforting in some way, I just thought there would be a few more famously badly recorded movies.

The Fight Club commentary includes an interesting audio-related story. The Dolby technicians were doing their thing, fixing up the stereo and surround sound and they come to the scene where they are driving in a car and Tyler crashes it. They notice that when they are in the car, Pitt and Norton are sitting in the drivers seat and the passenger seat respectively. They notice things like this because it's their job to ensure voices etc. are coming out of the correct speakers relative to the actors position on screen. However, when they crash, they get out of the wrong sides of the car in relation to where they were seated. They get on the phone to production to point out this glaring inconsistency and production just say 'Watch the rest of the movie guys'.

Obviously as Pitt doesn't actually exist, it was actually Norton who was driving anyway. It was intentional that his perceived seating position in the car switched before and after the crash.

I'm paraphrasing from second-hand information here, I didn't sit through the commentary myself so I might not have the story completely correct, but I guess an audio nerd would find it interesting.

Yeah I didn't notice this at all until I watched the commentary, but it's brilliant.

I second the 'sound in space' thing, to be honest. It's a comfortable suspension of disbelief but it's bullshit.

Monolithic_Dome

How about movies that use really obvious "generic sound pack" sound effects.

For example, I've heard the Warcraft II "critter pig grunt" in about 1,000 movies. Most recent was Love and Mary

The WC2 Griffon also got used in various things.

Also Wilhelm Scream http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_scream

Szechuanosaurus

I've always wanted to know where that v-shoom-sh noise comes from. Used a lot for explosions but also for menu transitions and all sorts of stuff. I can't think of an example movie unfortunately.

KalTorak

There's also a "surprised crowd makes a gasp/scream" sound that gets used a ton.

Willeth

I don't think you can count the Wilhelm Scream as an example of bad sound, seeing as every time it's used it's pretty much a direct reference in-joke.

Doc

Szechuanosaurus wrote: »

I've always wanted to know where that v-shoom-sh noise comes from. Used a lot for explosions but also for menu transitions and all sorts of stuff. I can't think of an example movie unfortunately.

Doom, if we are talking about the same effect that's everywhere. This might be it:
http://www.entertonement.com/clips/2867/Fire/Noises-Rare-to-Well-done/Fire-ball-impact-and-large-fire-burst-rumble


It was reused in lord of the rings, even.

AtomBomb

I think your instructor is correct. You're not going to find technically bad sound in a movie released by a major studio in the last 10 years that got a wide theatrical release. Most of the things people are mentioning (besides Star Wars, that is a great example) were stylistic choices, not technical errors. For example, I thought that, besides being a piece of shit, Underworld had terrible sound. Whenever anyone stepped in a puddle it sounded like an underwater mine exploding near a titan class submarine that happened to be made out of glass. However stupid I thought that was it was technically sound.

You can find this in TV though since they don't seem to care as much. Bad overdubs would be the most common in my opinion. It's always annoying when all the ambient sound drops out for a single sentence and then comes rushing back in the next one.

Nataneko

The fellowship of the ring. Maybe it was just the way my tv is, but the music was LOUD and the talking was inaudible. I don't remember it being a problem, so maybe it was just a coincidence.

ben0207

No, the LotR films a re mixed way too loudly. In places it's cool, and in places it just hurts my ears.

Withnail & I is a good one. One of the best films ever, but some of the sound effects (and there aren't many) are beyond awful.

BlindZenDriver

Terminator 2 is bad. Audio is compressed so much that even semi-loud stuff is like explosions like fx. when the Terminator does the one-hand pump action on he shot gun. This is a common problem and a more recent example would be "Death proof". However one might see this as an effect rather than bad sound by mistake or lack of skill. In fact it's not uncommon on music CD's also - like the latest U2 album :-(

Getting back to the topic - and this rather old but a classic - in Vanishing Point a lot of the engine sound is wrong both for the situation but also it's not the right engine sound for the car.

Sentry

was it just me, or did Independence Day have some pretty miserable sound to it? Maybe it's just because it's been on like TNT lately... but it just sounds bad.

Virum

The Others was mixed terribly on DVD - I had to have the volume almost all the way up on my tv to hear the dialog and then when a sound effect came it almost ruined my speakers.

Also, Donnie Darko had clipped audio and pops and shit that sounded bad.

Double Deuce

If we're going back a bit to some older movies, I'd say Road Warrior. I'm not sure of the budget of it (I know Mad Max was pretty low, but not sure about the sequel) but I remember quite a few audio problems in it, and I'm not even an audio snob.

The one weird one that jumped out at me the most, and that I still recall as being really off putting, is in the climactic scene where he's driving the fuel tanker and the bikers are attacking him/it. There is a generic-sounding score going on for the first part of the scene, and then it just stops dead, like the track ran out and they didn't do anything about it, so the rest of the scene is just the sound of the road passing by underneath them, and the actors grunting and stuff. It was really weird. I don't know if it was done stylistically or not, but to my ear it sounded horrible and took me out of the moment.

Hypatia

Didn't all of those Bruce Lee movies have notoriously horrible sound syncing? Or does it have to be more recent?

useless4

burn after reading had bad audio in a bedroom scene. pretty much unintelligible because of the volume level.

Pulvaan

one of the aliens movies had really bad sound. like the audio track was so damaged they couldn't fix it for the rerelease. I think it was the third one.

DragonPup

Celzrro wrote: »

Dark Knight. Most of the time, the score was just too damned loud to make out the dialogue.

I would have said Dark Knight because Bale decided to go super deep with his voice in a way that did not work.