Why are we so dependent on subtitles?

I'm a total movie and TV buff! I watch stuff everywhere - on the train, at home, at the cinema, while working out, doing dishes, even in the bath! But no matter where I'm watching, I always find myself doing one thing... (dramatic pause) ...using subtitles! I know, I know, it's a horror! But honestly, I just can't help it. I love having that extra bit of help to make sure I catch every word. And let's be real, sometimes it's just nice to have a little extra reading material while you're watching. So, yeah, I'm a subtitle user and I'm not ashamed to admit it!

Turns out, I'm not alone in my subtitle dependency! We polled a YouTube audience and a whopping 57% of you said you feel lost without subtitles - you just can't understand the dialogue without 'em! But didn't it used to be different? We chatted with Austin Olivia Kendrick, a total audio genius who works as a professional dialogue editor for film and TV. She's like a sound surgeon, making actors' words sound flawless! So, we asked her: what's going on? Why do we need subtitles so badly now?

Austin admits, 'I do use subtitles, actually. A lot of the time!' So, we asked her, 'Why do you think we're all so reliant on subtitles nowadays?' She thought for a moment before responding, 'You know, it's a question I get asked all the time, and there's no easy answer. It's really complex and layered.' So, we dug in to explore the reasons behind our subtitle dependency. Is it because of our increasingly noisy environments? Our decreasing attention spans? Or maybe it's just because we want to make sure we don't miss a single detail? Whatever the reason, it's clear that subtitles have become an essential part of our viewing experience.

After chatting with Austin for almost 2 hours, I can confidently say that the reasons behind our subtitle dependency are indeed complex and layered. But despite the many factors at play, one thing kept popping up: technology. Yep, it seems that tech has played a huge role in making us subtitle-reliant. Think about it - with the rise of streaming services, social media, and online content, our viewing habits have changed dramatically. We're consuming more media than ever before, and tech has made it easier than ever to add subtitles to our favorite shows and movies. So, has technology enabled our subtitle dependency, or has it simply responded to our changing needs? Either way, it's clear that tech has played a significant role in shaping our viewing habits.

Let's take a trip down memory lane and explore how microphones used to work. Check out this classic clip from 'Singin' in the Rain'! See how the mic is big, bulky, and requires the performer to talk directly into it? The sound then travels through a cable to a box, where a recording engineer captures it on a wax record. Can you believe it? Those early sound recording days were quite the challenge! Mics were temperamental, and performers had to be super focused and positioned just right to ensure their voices were picked up. And get this - all the sound from an entire scene was recorded onto just one track! But fast forward to today, and technology has come a long way. Mics are now smaller, wireless, and way more reliable. We use multiple mics to capture performances from all angles, making it easier for actors to focus on their craft without worrying about being heard. It's amazing how far we've come.

Today, we typically use a combination of 2 boom microphones and lavalier microphones (those tiny ones hidden on each actor's body) to capture production dialogue. And let me tell you, these shrinking mics have been a game-changer! Actors can now be more naturalistic in their performances, speaking softly without worrying about being heard. They don't need to project their voices like they used to, which makes their performances feel more authentic. I love the example of Alec Baldwin on 30 Rock - Tina Fey joked that he speaks so quietly, she can't even hear him when standing next to him! But somehow, the mic picks up his voice and it's clear as day on playback. And then there's Tom Hardy, an actor I adore, but let's be real, he can be a bit of a mumbler. Luckily, the mic can pick up his lines, and then it's up to the dialog editor to make sure we can actually understand what he's saying! It's a tough job, but technology has made it way easier than it used to be back in the analog days.

Back in the day, dialog editors would physically splice together the best takes, but if some lines were still unintelligible, actors would come in and re-record them in a process called ADR (automated dialog replacement). You can see Meryl Streep doing ADR in a scene from "Postcards from the Edge". While ADR is still used today, it's not the most cost-effective solution, since you're paying for the actor's time, the engineer's time, and the editor's time. So, Austin's job is to make words sound better, and that's no easy feat! She shared a story about working on a show where she had to remove a loud metal clang from a word, which required finding an alternate take, matching it to the actor's mouth movement, and then pushing it in. Once she's done her magic, the audio gets sent off to a mixer who ensures that the sound effects and music don't overlap with the human voice frequencies. It's a delicate process, but thankfully, we're in the digital age now, making it all possible.

Carving out frequencies for dialogue is a delicate task. You want to create space for the dialogue to shine through without getting muddied by other sounds in the same frequency band. But even with all that work, some lines can still be hard to understand. There's this misconception that if you want your movie to feel 'cinematic', you need to have a loud, bombastic sound design. Some people are like, 'Just turn the dialogue up!' But it's not that simple. We want to preserve the dynamic range, which is the difference between the quietest and loudest sounds. If the dialogue is as loud as the explosion that follows it, the explosion won't feel as impactful. We need that contrast to give our ears a sense of scale. But here's the thing: you can only make something so loud before it gets distorted. So, to create a wide dynamic range, we need to bring down the quieter sounds instead of pushing the louder sounds even louder. That means explosions get louder, and dialogue gets softer. Which brings us to the Christopher Nolan approach...

Ah, Christopher Nolan - the king of cinematic sound design! But let's be real, his films are often criticized for having dialogue that's hard to hear. Like, seriously hard to hear. To the point where you're like, "Subtitles, please!" But here's the thing: Nolan actually likes it that way. He's said in interviews that he gets complaints from other filmmakers, saying things like, "Dude, I just saw your film and I couldn't hear what anyone was saying!" And Nolan's all, "Yeah, that's kinda the point." He wants his films to be experienced in the best possible way, which means mixing them for top-notch theaters. But here's the thing: most of us aren't watching his films in those kinds of theaters. We're watching them on our TVs, laptops, or even phones! So, the sound mix that Nolan intended isn't always the sound mix we get. And that's the crux of the matter.

So, you know how some movies have that amazing surround sound experience? Yeah, that's thanks to rerecording mixers who work their magic to create an immersive audio experience. They typically mix for the widest surround sound format available, like Dolby Atmos, which has a whopping 128 channels! But here's the thing: if you're not watching the movie in a theater that can handle all those channels, you're missing out. That's where downmixing comes in. It's like a game of audio Tetris, where the mixer takes the original 128 tracks and condenses them into fewer channels, like 7.1 or even stereo. It's a tricky process, but someone's gotta do it! And let's be real, our TVs at home aren't exactly designed for optimal sound quality. I mean, have you seen how thin they are? My TV at home is almost as thin as my iPhone! So, even though it's outputting the same mono or stereo sound as an older TV, it's still gonna sound worse because of those tiny speakers. It's all about compromise, folks.

Okay, so we've got these tiny speakers on the back of our super-thin TVs, and they're supposed to magically make the downmixed audio sound amazing? Yeah, right! When you take a movie mixed for 128 channels and squash it down to just 2 channels, it's gonna sound muddy, especially when the speakers are pointing away from you. And don't even get me started on watching movies on your phone or laptop - it's not exactly an audio paradise. So, when you combine subpar speakers, mumbly performances, dynamic range that favors explosions over dialogue, and a flattened mix... it's a wonder we can hear anything at all! And it seems like the industry knows this, because TVs are now coming with all sorts of "intelligence" modes and settings like active voice amplification. It's like, yeah, sure, I'll just tick this box and magically the dialogue will become clear! But let's be real, that's just a Band-Aid solution. We need a real fix for this audio conundrum.

Let's face it, movies are gonna keep getting mixed with that cinematic sound in mind, so pristine dialogue might be a thing of the past. But hey, there are solutions! First, you can upgrade your home speakers or only hit up theaters with top-notch sound. Or, you know, just relax and don't stress about catching every single word. And then there's option three: just keep those subtitles on! Subtitles aren't just for people who are deaf or hard of hearing; they're for anyone who wants to make sure they don't miss a thing. Plus, accessibility has come a long way, baby! Laws are in place to ensure theaters have captioned screenings, streaming services have standardized them, and speech recognition tech has made them available on pretty much every YouTube video and TikTok. And let's be real, toggling subtitles on and off is super easy. So, go ahead and give your ears a break – your brain (and your sanity) will thank you.

So what do you think about this. Leave the comments down below. Remember it's your 24hrs to enjoy. Stay blessed. Stay bubbly.