You Need a Few More Sound Facts

Re: “At These Decibels, the Audience is Listening . . . and Shaking,” by David Kronke (Calendar, June 20).

As a veteran motion picture sound effects editor and supervisor, I’m always pleased when my field garners public attention. While I appreciate the adage that any publicity is better than none, this morning’s article set a new high on the laugh meter for those of us whose job it is to “shake the theater.”

Did it occur to Mr. Kronke to double-check the technical facts about modern digital formats with a real authority instead of a movie producer? They’re sloppy at best, downright wrong in several instances, and can only manage to confuse moviegoers:

1) The dynamic range limitation prior to digital was not so much the speakers, as stated by “Batman Forever” producer Peter Macgregor-Scott, but the antiquated analog optical soundtrack on the prints, a process dating to the late 1920s.

2) Dolby Stereo and Dolby Stereo SR are 4-track, not 2-track, processes (Left, Center, Right, Surround). Only television is (usually) 2-track, like a home stereo.

3) Dolby Digital, DTS & SDDS are competing digital exhibition formats and for all practical purposes are equivalent in dynamic impact, despite Macgregor-Scott’s misstatement to the contrary.

4) THX should not be confused with Dolby Digital, DTS or SDDS. THX is a set of picture and sound quality standards for exhibition, not an exhibition format.

A simple phone call to the sound or post-production departments at a major studio (instead of the PR folks) would have sent Mr. Kronke to the right people to talk to about big sound on big action movies. Instead, he apparently only spoke to a producer (enthusiastic, but hardly a technical authority) and a couple of production mixers.

“Die Hard With a Vengeance” production mixer Dennis Maitland claims that he would have won a proposed bet with Bruce Willis that no dialogue that he recorded would need to be replaced in post-production due to noise. This is a claim of remarkable hubris since the production mixer is long gone by post-production.

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As a sound editor on the latest “Die Hard,” I know that well over 450 lines (including quite a few from Mr. Willis) were freshly re-recorded in post-production and at least 200 of them used in the final mix to replace the noisy location recordings. Additionally, the production mixer contributes little toward the creation of sound effects; he/she is responsible only for recording a location production dialogue track that is as free of background noise as possible. It is the sound editors and the re-recording mixers, under the director’s supervision, who are responsible for creating and balancing all other sounds. Couldn’t Mr. Kronke have spoken with someone who actually makes the big sounds his article is about?

Don’t get me wrong, the film sound community is delighted when our work is noticed, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect a bit more effort at accuracy from the newspaper of record in the city where the entertainment business is centered, especially when that business is now the largest local industry.

Mr. Maitland and “Apollo 13” production mixer Dave MacMillan were right on target about one important thing however: The sound at most theaters still suffers from indifferent presentation. All that matters is selling popcorn, and the projection is handled by inadequately trained assistant managers, not real projectionists. The moviegoing public deserves better for their seven bucks.