Expert: Alessandro Machi - 3/30/2007

Question
Mr. Machi:  The eternal, never ending distraction of the background MUSIC that is present during every commercial, skit, movie, etc, etc is the most frustrating condition of my life today (after politics).  Many times I simply turn the TV off in disgust.  I would dearly love to view the TV program '24', but the combination of mostly 'whispered' dialogue together with the continuous background music makes it impossible to know what is being said.  I have brought up this subject among friends, and I have never found a single person who disagreed with my complaint.  I just cannot understand that those who purchase the creation of a commercial to advertise a product would permit the discussion of the product to be obscured by background music.  What in the world is the rationale for this preposterous condition????

Answer
I agree with you Jim. Background Music should NEVER obscure dialogue unless it somehow is adding to the plot of the story. Although not quite the same thing, I think the Director Robert Altman was known for having actors sometimes interrupt each other, something that also is usually a no no, but in Altman's case he made sure the interrupting usually added to the film's overall excitement or character development rather than subtract.  

Perhaps you have uncovered a diabolical plot in which Brand B, a competitor of Brand A pretends to make a commercial singing the praises of Brand A, but then Brand B (pretending to be Brand A) purposely does obnoxious things in the commercial so people get annoyed and resolve that no matter what, they won't buy Brand A.  Apparently You-Tube is beginning to unwittingly spawn this type of phenomenon when political ad campaigns periodically get slipped in under the radar on their website and use this backhanded technique.

When I do "basic" audio mixes I take the position that the dialogue is supposed to be heard at all times, I guess that means I believe in old school sensibilities. I actually monitor my basic stereo audio mixes in mono rather than stereo as this forces me to observe if at any time I cannot hear the dialogue crisply and cleanly. The audio speakers in my studio have to work twice as hard when I monitor in mono because all sounds are coming out of both speakers at the same time. I have observed audio mixes where the second half of a word cannot be heard in mono, but it can be somewhat be heard in stereo. If I can hear the dialogue clearly in mono, than I should also be able to hear it clearly in stereo as well. Whereas it's possible to hear dialogue clearly in stereo but then not hear it as clearly in mono, so mono becomes the great revealer, yet nowadays it appears that few people monitor their mixes in mono.

Another "old school" trick that I have discovered is to never mix the music louder than the dialogue, otherwise people will be raising and lowering the volume on their television set whenever a scene switches between a raucous music soundtrack to a then a much quieter dialogue scene.  Years ago I remember seeing the animated movie Oliver Twist in the theatre. A Billy Joel song opened up the movie and it was WAY TOO LOUD! If this audio mix was left this way for the DVD release, the viewer would probably lower the volume level during the song and then when the song ended they probably would forget to raise the volume back up, so the result is the audio in the next few scenes (and perhaps throughout the entire movie) are heard at too low of a level. I prefer a great sounding song, when it is part of a movie soundtrack, to be just a teeny tiny bit "low" (versus too loud). I'd rather the viewer raise their volume control output ever so slightly at the beginning of a movie during the song because they like the opening song so much versus the ensuing dialogue scene. Because the song was slightly low in volume on the DVD, the viewer will have already actually slightly raised the volume and they'll probably hear the dialogue scenes more clearly as a result!

Years ago, Freaks and Geeks (a shortlived high school age Comedy on NBC) was guilty (in my opinion) of ridiculously loud music tracks followed by barely audible dialogue scenes. I've never used a TV remote more in my life to adjust audio, which is generally considered a no no when it comes to watching a TV show.  The television viewing audience should be able to listen to an entire television show without having to adjust the audio level even once.

Interesting topic you came up with and thanks for sharing.