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Here's who's to blame for BBC's "mumbling" issue

Photo credit: Scott Free Prods/Robert Viglasky
Photo credit: Scott Free Prods/Robert Viglasky

From Digital Spy

These days, it seems you can't flick on a BBC drama without the sound quality being criticised, but no one has been able to establish exactly who's to blame.

Are the sound editors falling asleep on the job? Are the actors simply no good at projecting their voices?

Well apparently, it's the latter - oh, and all that money we spend on flatscreen TVs is a complete waste, because it's not helping.

After sound-related complaints against the likes of Happy Valley and Jamaica Inn, the BBC previously issued a new set of guidelines to prevent it happening again. But happen again it did, with viewers ending up miffed about the mumbling in Tom Hardy drama Taboo.

Photo credit: BBC/Red Productions/Ben Blackall
Photo credit: BBC/Red Productions/Ben Blackall

Now BBC drama sound recordist Simon Clark has told The Guardian that he and his colleagues at the BBC just record EXACTLY what they hear and "so it ain't us" that's the problem apparently.

He said: "[Some actors are doing] what they call 'realism' and what we call 'unintelligible'.

"I have recorded people on a set, and I've looked at my assistant quizzically and they've looked back at me and shrugged and we've no idea what they said."

He added: "Some actors are quite... rigid in the way they do things."

That sounds like it's got pretty awkward, then.

Photo credit: Origin Pictures / BBC
Photo credit: Origin Pictures / BBC

[Ben Daniels in Jamaica Inn]

However, it isn't just the questionable enunciation - the TV you own and how you've decorated your house are adding to the issue.

Yes really.

"The sound that comes out of most flatscreens is appalling," commented Clark.

He went on to say that putting the telly on the wall is ideal if you have nice, smooth walls for sound to bounce off, but add curtains and bumpy wallpaper, and you should prepare for lots of mumbling.

So in summary, we have to put up with slightly shoddy acting and redecorate our living rooms.

Wonderful.


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