​Thanks to the crew at Dolby Atmos HQ in Soho, I was invited up to watch ‘The Idealist’ in their Dolby Atmos theatre. It was interesting watching a film in Dolby Atmos, which you wouldn’t necessarily equate with using sound in that particular way. For example, you’d expect Dolby Atmos to apply to movies like ‘ Edge of Tomorrow’, ‘Gravity’ or ‘The Avengers’, where the extensive surround speaker system could be fully utilised with explosions, space ships and the cyclone effect of spinning around in space.
 
However, the Danish ‘Idealisten’, or ‘The Idealist’ as it was released over here, was a slow paced, dialogue heavy, static shot piece with no special effects. How did it fair in Dolby Atmos? It was brilliant.
 
The soundscapes was thinner than with big action movies, so it was easier to work out and notice the subtle placements of the audio. The dialogue was clear and present, which other atmospheres and effects set specifically to where you experience them as if you were walking down the same street and were hearing those sounds with your own ears. You felt like you were amongst the atmospheres.
 
Where you really felt the effects of the Dolby Atmos system in its full glory, was the nuclear bomb footage which sounded incredible. That’s how a bomb should sound and feel at the cinema. The contrast between the soundscape of the bomb footage and the rest of the film, fitted in nicely with the theme – the outrageousness of the event made worse juxdiposed with the tranquillity of the Danish way of life.
 
What topped off the experience brilliantly was the subtle sequence at the end, where our protagonist is sitting in the government offices, contemplating the injustice of it all. Above him hangs a painting of Denmark, representing an older, more innocent time. The audio gradually grows – not of the room atmosphere, but of what we would hear should we be standing in the field featured in the painting - birdsong, country summer and a gentle breeze that gradually grows ands until it surrounds us. I don’t recall are more creative and effective use of Dolby Atmos to absolutely absorb you and enhance the poignancy of a particular scene.
 
In short, Dolby Atmos isn’t just for the big hitters - it works to enhance subtleties also.
 

Those who tuned into the Oscars this year, and watched long enough to see the technically categories, would have seen American Sniper’ take the Oscar for sound editing. In fact, this is the second year in a row that a Dolby Atmos movie won the Oscar for best sound editing, the previous winner being Gravity.

Since its debut in June 2012, Dolby Atmos has been used in more than 200 feature films from all the major Hollywood studios and by international filmmakers, and this will increase year by year.

I was fortunate enough to be invited to the Dolby Atmos Screening room in Soho for a screening of Dawn of the Planet of The Apes. I had never experienced the sound in a Dolby Atmos studio before, and it was quite simply incredible.

Unlike 5.1 or 7.1 mixes, Dolby Atmos places speakers around the room, including the ceiling, which allows the sound mixers to manipulate the sound in such a way as to intrinsically enhance the narrative.

With 5.1 and 7.1 mixes, we have on occasion been presented with a wall of sound where the details of each noise becomes entwined in the general level. What we get with Dolby Atmos is an army of apes all grunting and talking around you, all of which is audible individually. Small details and the slightest movements become audible, and when the rain is falling you feel like you can hear each droplet land from a different area of the room.

With the roll out of Dolby Atmos at home, as well as mobile devices, and the release of Dolby Atmos Blue Rays, we are entering a new age of audio. Details of how to set up your home Dolby Atmos system can be found on the Dolby website.

To learn more about Dolby Atmos at home,
http://www.dolby.com/us/en/home/index.html

This blog comes to you in conjunction with @3DtheFuture 
 

 

 

 

Last night, Elephant Sounds were lucky enough to experience the Dolby Atmos suite at the Dolby headquarters in London. It's a rapidly expanding area and has really changed the playing field in terms of what sound designers can achieve for games and films. With the technology that Dolby has developed through it's atmos theatres, it's revolutionised the sonic experience that you can get from a movie theatre. 

Guy Hawley, Senior Director, Cinema Sales and Services at Dolby Laboratories was kind enough to answer some questions about it.

1/ How many cinemas currently in the UK are fitted with a Dolby Atmos suite?

There are currently 11 Dolby Atmos screens in the UK and two in Ireland. Introduced in April 2012, Dolby Atmos has been adopted by exhibitors around the world. More than 650 Dolby Atmos screens have been installed or committed to in more than 40 countries with more than 150 exhibitor partners.

 2/ How many postproduction facilities at the moment are fitted with the new Dolby Atmos suite?

The post-production community has responded really well to the new technology. Today there are more than 40 digital cinema mastering and duplication facilities and more than 55 sound mixing facilities equipped to support Dolby Atmos worldwide.

3/ How many UK cinemas will have Dolby Atmos installed by this time 2015 in your  estimation? 

While we can’t share predictions, we expect to see the success and momentum for Dolby Atmos to continue. Dolby Atmos has been embraced by all the major Hollywood studios, seven Academy Award winning directors, and 16 Academy Award winning sound mixers, among others.

4/ How long did it take you to develop the Dolby Atmos technology?

We’ve based our technology on years of research into how humans actually perceive and process sound. Dolby Atmos was developed in close collaboration with filmmakers and sound teams, who were consulted in its creation and who appreciate the creative expression that Dolby Atmos allows.

5/ How do you think Dolby Atmos adds to the cinema experience?   

Dolby Atmos gives filmmakers and sound experts the creative freedom to place or move sounds anywhere in the theatre, including overhead. With Dolby Atmos, sound comes alive from all directions. This creates a soundfield so realistic that film audiences feel as if they are a part of the action and in the film itself, not just watching it. Even quiet and subtle scenes have a heightened sense of realism.

For the latest list of Dolby Atmos titles, visit http://www.dolby.com/us/en/experience/dolby-atmos/movies.html

To learn more about Dolby Atmos, visit http://www.dolby.com/us/en/cinema/index.html

This blog comes to you in conjunction with @3DtheFuture 

 Adam Daniels of 'Point1Post'  based just five minutes from Elstree Studios, kindly takes the time to talk to us about the new Dolby Atmos suite that they have recently installed, and how it changes the potential for cinema sound (frequently referred to as '3D sound').

Currently the number of cinemas housed with the Dolby Atmos sound system are limited – what prompted your decision to install the 45 speaker set up for the Dolby Atmos studio this point?

Adam:
Dolby Atmos was introduced in 2012. In just two years every major Hollywood post production facility has installed an Atmos system. These companies include Warner Bros, Fox, Sony and Technicolor on the Paramount Lot. Last year eight out of the top ten biggest grossing films at the US box office were mixed in Dolby Atmos. It is shaping up to look like a similar story this year. The number of cinema screens that offer Dolby Atmos is increasing on a weekly basis. The timing was right to become part of the next chapter in film mixing. 

How have your clients been responding so far when viewing the studio?

Adam:
It is fair to say that every client who has experienced Dolby Atmos in our room has been blown away by the potential. Sound supervisors, editors, directors and producers have all become very excited by the new creative possibilities available to them. They love the immersive feel and how smooth the panning is. It is the discrete speaker outputs and full range surrounds that make this possible.

From a mixing point of view, is mixing for Dolby Atmos significantly different to mixing for 7.1 or 5.1. Is there a different style incorporated? 

Adam:
The workflow that Dolby has created for Atmos is fantastic. It completely integrates with the industry standard Pro Tools platform. You mix the film just as you would any 7.1 or 5.1 project. The only difference is that you can now pan sounds in the x,y and z axis using the Dolby Atmos panner plug-in. Traditional 5.1 created the sense of movement by raising and lowering the sound on each wall of the theatre. In Atmos each speaker is individually fed from the processor rather than being part of an array. The addition of speakers on the ceiling literally puts you in a dome of sound. There are 118 sound objects available to individually pan through the x,y,z space. The mixing potential is huge!!!

In your view, is there a particular genre of film that stands out as being particularly suited for a Dolby Atmos mix?

Adam:
Dolby Atmos is suitable for every genre of film. I think with time that subtle details will become just as valued as the more obvious FX driven applications. A scene in a busy market could have you surrounded by chatter and a sense of movement as the crowd stroll by. In a horror film the sound of somebody walking on the creaky floorboards overhead could be genuinely creepy. Another example could be a couple having a romantic stroll in the woods. You could hear the branches move, the wind blowing the leaves and individual birds tweeting all around you. Quite simply Dolby Atmos takes the cinematic experience to the next level.

As a sound mixer, what has been the toughest challenge with providing a Dolby Atmos mix?

Adam:
Delivering a Dolby Atmos mix just involves good communication with the sound crew. We spend a couple of hours explaining and demonstrating the workflow if the editors have not used Atmos before. The sound crew can then pre plan which sounds are most likely to be used as objects in the mix. This makes the process very simple. We dedicate a certain number of objects to Dialogue, Music and FX. Pre assigning the objects before the mix streamlines the deliverables process when we generate the masters in various formats for the client.  

In your own words, how does the Dolby Atmos mix add to the magic of the cinema experience?

Adam:
Dolby Atmos immerses you in the most natural and lifelike soundfield ever available in the cinema. Unlike the visual 3D formats there is no need for additional headwear. I think it is the best thing to happen since the introduction of Digital Cinema. 

Follow Point1Post on twitter: @Point1Post
This blog comes to you in conjunction with @3DtheFuture 

Point1Post's Dolby Atmos studio:

3D Sound – What is it?

Those fortunate enough to see the Oscar-winner ‘Gravity’ in 3D in their local cinemas would have marvelled at the technical wizardry of the 3D visuals in front of them. What they may have been less aware of was the importance that the sound mix played in this spectacle. In fact, unless they were lucky enough to watch ‘Gravity’ in one of the 300 cinemas that house the Dolby Atmos sound system, they would not have experienced ‘Gravity’ in all its audio glory.

So what was different about the sound in ‘Gravity’? Originally, the film was mixed in 7.1. However, it was then remixed as a Dolby Atmos mix, which was launched in 2012.  Dolby Atmos uses speakers placed all around the cinema, including the ceiling, with the sound designers having mapped the direction of the sounds, so they move physically throughout the theatre to match what is happening on the screen. The effect of this is to have waves of audio coming out to parallel the 3D visuals that you are experiencing on screen. A film like ‘Gravity’ showcased this system perfectly, with the dialogue and action whizzing round the speakers in a 360 degree cyclone.

This new Dolby Atmos has revolutionised 3D sound and moves beyond the parameters of 5.1 and 7.1 mixes to really bring 3D visuals to life.  Although not the first film to be mixed for Dolby Atmos, (‘Brave 2012’ was released with a Dolby Atmos sound mix) it is the first film to win the Oscar for the Dolby Atmos sound mix, really raising the profile.

Another method of delivering 3D sound into movie theatres is by binaural sound.  Binaural sound can only be experienced by wearing headphones, as it represents a true reflection of the audio as if you were actually in the room with the actors.  Binaural sound has on-set production implications, as well as practical implications of introducing it into cinemas. For instance, to record binaural sound you typically attach two microphones where each ear is on either side of mannequin head, which is placed to reflect the position of the camera’s vision. What this does is record accurately the sound in the room to reflect distance and movement of the subjects. The problem with this is that sound recordists on set bust a gut to record good clean dialogue so the audience can follow the story. Now, the dialogue you hear on a film is not typically accurate volume-wise to the distance of the actor away from the camera, but it is an accepted white lie which enables the audience to actually hear what is happening without having to try to hard, thus bringing them out of the engineered construction of the story.

 A binaural sound recording would not deliver such clean audio, as when the actor moves away the dialogue would become quieter and potentially be lost.  Binaural sound also has production implications on set. For example, many sets are constructed and are actually ‘half’ a world, i.e., the half we can see.  A binaural sound recording would have to reflect what was happening on either side of the framed image and the implications of that would be constructing bigger sets to encompass everything you may hear in that environment. This would have production cost implications.

In addition to these other issues, headphones would have to be worn in cinemas, detracting from one of the pleasures of going to the cinema - feeling part of an audience. There would be no feeling of shared experience, which is significant.  Having said that, you would also not have to ‘share’ the experience of somebody noisily eating his or her popcorn.  There is also the issue of the musical score. It would not sit comfortably onto top of this distance relative soundscape and would seem jarring, I feel.  However, nonetheless, it can be effective when used properly.

Moving forward, it would seem that ‘Gravity’ has rubber-stamped the success of the Dolby Atmos mix, and will hopefully pave the way for more cinemas installing this sound system, to enhance the growing number of 3D movies hitting our cinema screens. I for one can’t wait. To follow the growth of 3D film developments go to @3DtheFuture on twitter!

This is a blog set up for the purpose of discussing all aspects of 3D sound in TV and movies, in conjunction with @3DtheFuture. 

With the rise of 3D films, what are the implications in the sound world? What is 3D sound? Does it compliment the 3D experience?

Also, we will be looking at the implications of this on a production level. How do we record 3D sound? How easy and practical is this on a set?

The purpose is to get a dialogue going on the development of 3D sound and if  we can bring this to someone's living room, or is it something confined to the movie theatres.