Expert: Alessandro Machi - 6/7/2009

Question
I have no idea to whom I should address this but here is my complaint:
About all movies have background music so loud,usually I cannot hear what the actors and actresses are saying.

Why cannot one make a movie without all the music.When we converse with one another we do not need that so why do we have to have it playing on every movie?
Thank you.
Charlotte

Answer
You are probably right Charlotte.

Including "wall to wall" music can sometimes make a scene feel more important or keep you in the moment more easily than not having it in there, so it can become a crutch to the filmmaking process.

Today's attention span is fleeting and there are so many more viewing choices that it may be forcing the overuse of music to help keep the viewer viewing. Music has probably become the sophisticated viewers "canned laugh track".

Movies must now compete with more interactive forms of media and the overuse of music, sound effects and special effects appears to be one way to stay competitive.

It is also possible that either the studio pays so much money for the music that they want to get their money's worth, or the opposite can be true as well, they get a better deal for the music in exchange for using the music more prominently as this can then help with soundtrack album sales.

Either way, the music may become overdone. I am also shocked at the lack of remedial music and dialogue mixing knowledge when it comes the relationship of music volume to dialogue volume that some productions appear to forego.

It appears that the most basic of all rules, that music CANNOT be louder than the dialogue by any noticeable amount, is a rule that is not always followed and results in poor overall audio mixing.

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