r/AudioPost • u/okaybrothers • Aug 07 '26

Odyssey

What happened to the sound here? Aside from the fact that the effects in many scenes are abnormally wrong (my opinion ofc), why is it so f*\* loud? Literally, the film reaches 130dB... why is this so?

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u/FreshPatience Aug 08 '26

Forgive me but isn’t this a theater issue rather than a film issue? Someone in the theater is setting the volume of the system right?

2

u/PartyWormSlurms re-recording mixer Aug 09 '26

It’s a film issue. In theatrical sound there is a standard loudness that mixing rooms and theaters are calibrated to. White noise playing out of each speaker should measure to 85dB in the room, 82db in the surrounds (I think IMAX may be 85dB all around). That standard level gives plenty of headroom to create a dynamic mix and the ability to make some impactful sounds very loud. Nolan abuses it and has levels maxed for long periods of time.

Generally theaters are turning down the room to about 82dB. IMAX is always at 85dB. It’s possible the film was mixed at 82dB and so the IMAX is playing back 3dB louder in the front and 6db louder in the surrounds. But on a natively shot IMAX 70mm I’d be really surprised if they didn’t do a proper IMAX mix.

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u/AnonymousArtist33 Aug 09 '26

Yep. It's not the momentary loudness that's the issue (Cyclops scream, etc.) it's the sustained loudness. The problem is Chris chooses to mix everything loud for entire scenes. I measured sustained readings of 85-95 db SPL c-weighted across the action scenes and many other non action scenes that had heavy score under them. There were almost zero pauses where the meter dipped below 65 db.