logo

This is kind of a continuation of my last post about film projection in Indian theatres (http://passionforcinema.com/film-exhibition-in-india/).

Sound in Indian cinema has come a long way. Today we have sound designers like Resul Pookutty, Nakul Kamte, Kunal Sharma, Dwarak Warrier, Sanjay Maurya, Baylon Fonseca, A. Lakshminarayan and the trendsetting H. Sridhar all doing some exceptional work. If Indian cinema is able to reach out globally, these people have a huge hand in it.

People underestimate the importance of sound in a film. In Indian cinema, we are traditionally used to watching films with blaring scores going wall to wall. Sound in our cinema, at the mainstream level at least has never been about subtlety or detail. That along with the fact that for ages, dialogs in our films have been dubbed in post. Dubbing strips the realism in a movie. Most Indian viewers are not affected because our ears have been trained to dubbed films from as far back as we know. But the international audience is not.

I have lost count of the number of people I have met in LA who during IFFLA come out of the theatre and tell me, “It’s a phenomenal film. But what the hell is wrong with the sound? It’s really cheapening the film! Some of it wasn’t in sync.” And I have in turn taken this feedback to many directors too, who don’t see what the big f’in deal is.

But it is a big deal. Sound equipment and boom mics have come a long way. The excuse that my film had too many exterior locations just doesnt cut it. How did Merchant Ivory shoot exteriors in India and have clean dialog tracks? They’ve been doing it since the 80s. How did Roland Joffe shoot City of Joy in Calcutta or Mira Nair shoot Salaam Bombay in the noisiest streets of Bombay?

It’s about knowing how to control your set while shoot, and spending time cleaning the track up in post. And I applaud the filmmakers in Mumbai today for the importance they are placing on sync sound. Wish Chennai too would learn, for there are a lot of good films here like Subramaniapuram and Paruthiveeran which could have attained the highest level of their realistic themes, had they been shot sync sound. It’s not easy though, but one has to try. Despite all the difficulties he faced, Kamal Haasan pioneered the usage in Tamil cinema with Hey Ram, and even had Shahrukh Khan train to speak in Tamil for it. He continued its usage with Virumaandi, though it could have used a far better clean up job, and word has it that he will continue using it for Marmayogi.

The most important reason directors in India should switch to sync sound is to have an upper hand on actors. When you have a star who likes to control the film, they always have a one-up on you because they can insist on seeing your edit, and enforce changes saying that if you don’t, they wont dub for the film. It’s nasty, but it happens, and happens a LOT!

Apart from dialog, there are your ambiences, foley, hard effects, cut effects, and a lot of times, we just dont find enough detail there. A lot of people still dont bother paying attention to it, because they say its not worth it. I spoke to sound editors and mixing engineers in a post house in Chennai who told me that they dont bother putting in much detail into the work because the exhibition facilities outside Chennai are horrendous.

I wondered how bad it could be, until I went out to a reputed village theatre and saw for myself. And then I figured it was also the case in a lot of city based single screen theatres too.

Theatre owners want to protect their speakers. So quite conveniently, they turn down the levels on the left, right, and surround channels, and leave the center channel (used for dialog) as it is. The international standard level setting for a film is 7.0. And that is what most sound mixers will mix to. But in Chennai, we mix to a 9.0 because the theatre owners will set the levels at 4.0. In the village theatre I went to, the left and rear left channels were not even working. So it kind of pained me watching a film there that my wife and I had spent 9 months making, that I had spent sleepless nights designing the sound for, and not being able to hear half of it at all, let alone hearing it low. Distorting speakers that are not corrected have become very very common. Let alone in India, even in the famous Naz8 chain of the theatres in the US, this is a huge problem!

And in some theatres its the other extreme. Because the films are mixed so high, some theatre owners who want to set the right level will leave it as 7.0 and our ears start hurting.

Come back to the cities where in some screens, the projectionists set the levels so high (on public demand) you wouldn’t hear yourself scream. During the songs, in most theatres, I’ll just walk out because I fear I might lose my hearing.

But in a way, the audience is to blame for this as well. We Indians are the most disrespectful cinema audience in the world. We bring infants to the theatre where they cry and wail and throw the rest of hall off the film. We keep loud, often ridiculous ringtones on our cell phones, refuse to put them on silent, so that in the middle of an intense, emotional scene, the audience’s attention can get diverted. And if we do put them on silent, when it rings, we wont bother walking out with the call, but will instead sit there and talk loudly so the person at the other end can hear us over the movie dialog. Or we pass comments and giggle and laugh, or even discuss our relationship issues, not caring that person sitting in front, behind, or near you doesn’t fucking give a shit and just wants to watch the movie!

Phew! How do you stop this sound? At least on the theatre amp, you can control the sound level. So lets turn it high enough so it masks the ringtones, the babies, the giggling ladies, the gossiping aunties and uncles.

I heard on the news the other day that some theatres in Mumbai have placed signal jammers so that patrons can enjoy the film and inside the halls, people will get absolutely no reception. As a pure film fanatic, I would jump with joy at the thought of it, but its not a solution. There is more to life than cinema, and in today’s day and age, cutting off communication can never be a good idea.

In an extremist frame of mind, I would like to propose that film theatres bring about a rule that cell phones have to be placed on silent and viewers should not make unnecessary noise. The ticket buyers should have a right to complain against a noisy viewer and theatres must take it upon themselves to warn such people, and if warnings are not heeded, refund their money, and ask them to leave.

So long story short, we as the audience have an opportunity and ability to make our cinema better. If we behave in the theatres, the sound in our films wont kill our ears, and people may in fact be motivated to do better, more detailed work. All we gotta do is just shut the fuck up!

5 readers recommend this post  Loading ...

Email This Post To Friends

Related Posts Indian cinema — the culture/tradition argument Bollywood is not Indian Cinema Defining Cinema of Indian New Wave Indian cinema (2): Film theory meets Darr Towards a more credible Indian Cinema Really lucky! Good times for Indian cinema! STOP PRESS – Indian film in Cannes! Indian Cinema is feeling Lucky. Of middle class, insignificant things and growing up with Indian Cinema. The Underrated Series - H Sridhar(Master of Sound Mixing and Audiography)