Movie volume levels

[Noise - Citizens Against <cg343@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Peter,                                                           

 This sound bite from today's Globe will probably 
catch your     fancy. As is usually the case, the 
media are so far behind the   times. At least 
they published it. It's a start:                 

Social Studies 
Pg.                                               

 Noises off                                                      

 Recent news about the movies:                                   

"It's not your imagination," writes Desmond Ryan 
of the          Philadelphia Inquirer. "The 
decibel level [in movie theatres] is rising. 
Critics may argue that movies are getting dumb 
and       dumber. But they have also gone from 
loud to louder with the     advent of high-tech 
digital sound systems in the 90's." Before   
digital sound, film sound never exceeded 85 
decibels; a survey ofthree Philadelphia theatres 
found a minimum volume of 84 decibelsin the first 
12 rows and two films were as loud as a 
jackhammer. 

The second sound byte talks about filming on 
location in Los     
Angeles.                                                         

"... One of the annoyances is that people have 
trouble           distinguishing movie gunfire 
from real gunfire."                 


   - Eric