Modern movies are a glorious thing, but they’re also riddled with problems. Modern movies are falling into a set of weird choices and weird habits that can make movie-watching something of a nightmare. Since there are so many problems with movies, I decided to tackle two of them here, and we’ll come back to this topic in another article.

The first problem I have is a bad audio mix. What I mean by this? Let’s say you open your mailbox and have a couple of Netflix movies sitting there (I almost did this example driving to Blockbuster, but then I remembered it was 2016). You put the Blu-Ray/DVD in the player of your choice and you sit down and you have to turn down the volume because there’s a lot of explosions and stuff like that. Then people start talking and you have to find the remote because they might be whispering! Then another explosion and now you’re deaf because the damn thing was so loud it pierced ears. This can be annoying. Hell, it’s one of the easiest ways to get me out of a movie, to be honest. So why is this happening? Well, when movie audio is downmixed, they downmix it to a 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound setup because that’s the optimal way to watch a movie. You see, in 5.1 surround sound, each speaker has its own job of it. The center speaker handles dialogue, the 2 side speakers are for explosions and “bwaam” noises in Christopher Nolan movies, the subwoofer is for “dat bass”, and lastly the 2 (or 4 if you have 7.1) satellite speakers are for surround sound. effects. That’s really cool and all, but I’m not in a position to buy a 5.1 surround sound setup. I am a very poor college student who can only afford to eat ramen noodles 4 times a week (the other times I eat the carton the ramen came in. I have a sad life). I set my dad’s stereo from the 80’s to be my “high fidelity” audio setup which replaces the stereo sound from my TV with a slightly less horrible stereo sound. So when the DVD/Blu-Ray player outputs a 5.1 signal, my poor stereo speakers can only play the 2 front side speakers. That’s why the explosions are so strong. The dialogue goes to a nonexistent center speaker, which is why it comes out so low.

So what is the solution? Add two dialogue tracks. One mixed into good super old stereo and the other mixed into 5.1/7.1 snazzy pants goodness. This way I can set the volume to a comfortable volume and leave it there. This may sound like a super easy solution, but I’d hazard a guess that mixing audio is a very difficult task and not an easy one to accomplish. However, I think it’s worth it and shows that movie studios are willing to go the extra mile for those who still want to see their favorite movies, but might not be the most well-off.

Well, we’ve done an audio problem, so let’s end this article with a visual problem. These are probably the two biggest problems I have with modern movies today. Shaky Cam and jump cuts. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the concept of shaky cam, I’m sorry I have to be the one to tell you about it. It’s basically the worst form of visual storytelling imaginable. That’s not the most revealing description, is it? OK, the shaky camera is exactly what it sounds like. It’s basically the director telling the cameraman to shake the camera as hard as he can. This is to make the action seem frenetic. It sounds stupid, but it’s real. The problem with shaky camera is that it gets worse with terrible, fast, jerky editing. This too is just what it sounds like. It’s the use of a million and a half different cuts to convey frenetic action. However, in reality, it often makes the scene impossible to understand. These are just the tools of the incredibly lazy. Using these two tools together makes action scenes in a movie difficult to watch and impossible to understand. You have to actively try to put the pieces together when the actors are being beaten, because the shot never shows it. You hear a flurry of sound effects and see a blurry mess of hands and faces, but it’s just audio and visual crap that the director is trying to pass off as incredible action.

The solution to this problem is actually quite simple. Hire better directors. Directors who are good at their jobs will make the action look good without the use of cheap tricks and quick editing. There are fantastic directors when it comes to shooting action. Take the Wachowski brothers. Sure, they’ve done a couple of bad things in the last couple of years, but the first Matrix movie is incredibly well directed. There are uses of wide shots so we know exactly what’s going on, there’s just the right amount of slow motion so we really feel it when characters get hit. The score is used to perfection, so when the hero takes a heavy hit, the music slows down and becomes quieter. The Subway scene in The Matrix sums it all up.

Contrast this from Alex Cross. The camera is literally shaking. You don’t see the hits connecting. You see the main character punch the villain and then after a cut you see the villain react. This is probably to cover up the fact that the actors were not properly choreographed.

If you can get a director who knows how to shoot action scenes, and who knows what you want the actors to do and how to choreograph them to do it, then you don’t need a terribly shaky camera to cover anything up. . You don’t need to skip edits because you want the audience to see your work.

There you go. These are the 2 biggest problems I see with movies right now. I’ll be back to do another article on 2 more problems with movies.