12-31-2013, 01:05 PM
Still haven't seen it. Just thought I'd mention that we watched the first Hobbit movie with the audio balance shifted all the way to the right -- a direct result of DOOM party shenanigans days before.
Regarding the DOOM party, DM had brought Saving General Yang, filmed mostly in southern Siberia and employing a cast of locals who are descendents of Tuvanese throat-singers. While few throat-sing anymore, they have adopted a most peculiar oral tradition: they speak both Mandarin and Cantonese simultaneously. The director, using a sophisticated COBOL program, managed to separate out these two dialects onto right and left audio channels. In this way the home viewer has a choice of listening to the characters speak naturally (simultaneous Mandarin and Cantonese), or one or the other by shifting the audio balance entirely left or right. We watched the movie all three ways, the last being Mandarin on the right.
But in the aftermath of that long night of mayhem, I completely forgot to recenter the audio balance.
So when LCF and I later watched the first Hobbit movie, I was forever looking at the right edge of the screen, sensing from the sound that something ominous was about to impend from over there.
As for how familiar I am with The Hobbit, well, I studied it in college. It was required reading. But for some reason I don't remember much of it (this was circa 1975). So I suppose that will make it easier for me to enjoy the journey as Jackson deems to spin it. Let me see when LCF wants to go see it.
Regarding the DOOM party, DM had brought Saving General Yang, filmed mostly in southern Siberia and employing a cast of locals who are descendents of Tuvanese throat-singers. While few throat-sing anymore, they have adopted a most peculiar oral tradition: they speak both Mandarin and Cantonese simultaneously. The director, using a sophisticated COBOL program, managed to separate out these two dialects onto right and left audio channels. In this way the home viewer has a choice of listening to the characters speak naturally (simultaneous Mandarin and Cantonese), or one or the other by shifting the audio balance entirely left or right. We watched the movie all three ways, the last being Mandarin on the right.
But in the aftermath of that long night of mayhem, I completely forgot to recenter the audio balance.
So when LCF and I later watched the first Hobbit movie, I was forever looking at the right edge of the screen, sensing from the sound that something ominous was about to impend from over there.
As for how familiar I am with The Hobbit, well, I studied it in college. It was required reading. But for some reason I don't remember much of it (this was circa 1975). So I suppose that will make it easier for me to enjoy the journey as Jackson deems to spin it. Let me see when LCF wants to go see it.