I Have Had It with Mumbling Actors

I do this as well, same for TV movies and it's not about hearing loss at all. Since being converted to captions I feel like I get a better understanding of the movie itself. Then, there's TV shows like The Strain, where if you don't have the captions running you might miss some peripheral info coming from things like TV or radio broadcasts that are playing in the scenes.

Then there's British accents which I really need captions for. I really want to see the upcoming Bond in the theatre but I know there's stuff I'm going to miss b/c of no captions.

 

I have a full surround system and it has settings that will boost dialouge and reduce background noise - of course it means that you are not hearing it as it was originally meant to be heard and you lose some of the impact of the surround sound. I tend to have this turned on for normal TV watching, particularly sport as it boosts up the commentary. For the special movie experience I tend to turn this setting off and just turn up the volume so you get that full immersive sound - just means you have to keep the remote handy if it gets really loud.
In the theatre I don't usually have a problem, unless the actor is really mumbling or in the case of Tom Hardy as Bane there is a mask in the way... (Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon do an amusing skit on this in The Trip)
Vocals low in the mix and quick talking tends to catch me out, particularly different accents. I'm OK with British usually

 

Hugh Laurie on House used to deliver his lines in such a low register I had to start switching on the closed captioning to understand him.
Benicio Del Toro takes mumbling to the next level in Usual Suspects.
And Caviezel's got nothin' on Kiefer Sutherland. Especially towards the end of 24, everything he said was a loud whisper. And a perimeter.

 

Mmmm,mummblemumblemumble.

Memumblemumbletoo

 

I've never had a problem with Hugh Laurie - either with his normal Brit accent or American. Note, the reason why many native British speakers, or Australian for that matter, go low (or breathy) is because it helps to disguise their native accents and to sound more American. It's a linguistic trick, like when foreign language singers sound english-neutral while singing, but have heavy accents when speaking normally.

 

CBS (in particular) needs to go back to their 1970's processing and modify it for 5.1:

 

I have to disagree. The music track for this show is the most intrusive of any show on the air, especially the non-stop drums. I only watch it for the pretty scenery.

 

You're not gonna necessarily get the same audio from all CBS stations. Some stations got 5.1 Dolby right away after the digital transition. The CBS station here in Knoxville had 2.0 Dolby for the better part of a decade before they finally moved up to 5.1 . Thingies ain't necessarily equal at all CBS stations. So, both of you could be partly right....

 

Indeed. Out of all the shows mentioned here 24 is the only one I can remember having a problem with — fast pace excited speech and mumbled whispers made it hard to follow.

I suspect Americans may have a problem with Elementary because of the English accent. The dialog is perfectly clear to me.

 

No problems for me. He's fine in the Marvel movies as far as I'm concerned.

Funny, the people who actually work on the show appear to disagree with you.

 

I didn't mention the whole issue with Bane in my earlier post, (mainly because I never had much of a problem figuring out the majority of what he was saying, but also) because he's an example in a league of his own - Nolan really cranked his obsession with incoherent characters to 11 with this one based on what I can tell from the experiences of so many!

 

As Iron Man? He's fairly intelligible. As Sherlock Holmes? No way. I usually don't have a problem with English accents, but his is incredibly difficult to understand.

 

fake english accents, at that.

 

Never had any issues with English accents, been watching British TV shows and movies since I was a little kid.

 

I remember being so excited when Downey's "Sherlock Holmes" came out.

I walked out of the film...good movie, sure, but I couldn't understand a dang word he said.

 

x1000

 

I am French and it's almost impossible for me to understand what nowadays actors say whereas when I speak to an american or english civilian I can easily understand what they mean.....

 

...and imagine..as a native english speaker not understanding WTF they are saying....

maybe one day they will realize spoken words are mean to be understood. Movies are not just a visual medium.

 

Eric Braeden, who plays Victor Newman on the soap opera The Young and The Restless really has a tendency to mumble.

At least he did a few years ago when I remember the show being on everyday in the break room at work on my lunch break.

And heaven help you if you tried to change the channel when it was on...

 

I'm a hillbilly and I've had trouble with the dialog in some hillbilly movies in recent years! Usually, the only Ang-lish that gives me a problem is severe Scottish. I think that part of the problem is all the junk noise inserted into today's films. It interferes with dialog. As much as I like The Prestige, it has some very annoying scenes where the noise makes the dialog hard to make out. The first time I played it, I stopped the film and raised the centre channel 2 db . That helped some. Film mixing often makes mumbling dialog even harder, IMO. The use of rumble is out of hand. Ambient noise is everywhere. Look out, Atmos is coming!

 

Totally agree@!!!! Center channel mixes suck these days.

Maybe they bury the dialog these days because most screenplays are just stinkers.

And Scottish people speak English????

 

There is a new number 1, a new champ at mumbling her way through her performance. She's the actress playing Pandora on Sleepy Hollow.

She's Shannyn Sossamon Here's her IMDb page: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0815370/?ref_=tt_cl_i5
Series link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2647544/?ref_=tt_ov_inf

In her defense, she is on screen solo about half the time she's on. She's whispering incantations, calling demons up out of yes, Pandora's Box. That voice has become the voice she uses in all dialog scenes as well. It's hard enough to try to make out what she's saying in the summonsing scenes, with plenty of audio drama to accompany the visual special effects, but at least you aren't falling behind in the plot - she's bringing a new demon into play. But when she's exchanging lines with the main characters, you realize you can only make out every tenth word she breathes/vents out.

 

I wonder if it because nobody cares what these people mumble anyway. People watch movies with their phones and tablets in hand..so who is paying attention?