i.e. Dialogue totally inaudible, lighting terrible, pace virtually none.
The whole thing came together to create production values paid for out of someone change pot.
Just awful. BBC, please stop experimenting with methods that only please a few pretentious viewers and get back to giving the majority of licence fee payers what they expect.
I agree, the dialogue was so inaudible I had to use subtitles, something I have never done before. Half the cast just seemed to mumble. Apart from that the rest of the production looked very promising and I am looking forward to the next two episodes.
shareThere was a sound problem during the broadcast last night. Apparently the producers were on the phone frantically trying to get them to fix it.
It's been fixed for tonight's show, so try again. When you can hear it (which I could) it's very good.
Oh - a sound problem! Well, that does explain the problem some have had. Thanks for the info.
shareThat was just an excuse, the make lead always mumbles like that and it was done deliberately, only the gimmick back-fired.
shareBy the male lead you mean Sean Harris?
shareIt wasn't a gimmick, and only the twittering classes seem to feel the diction was anything much out of the ordinary. So what backfired? Certainly not the gimmick-that-wasn't-a-gimmick.
Just souls jumping on the bandwagon.
That's what I think too. It was going to have detractors and some would like it more than others, but this whole "scandal" just snowballed out of control.
shareI'm worried it will adversely affect Poldark, which is also set in Cornwall, though a bit earlier (1780s, iirc).
Poldark has been shooting for a couple of weeks. I suspect they've been using similar Cornish accents (might even have hired the same dialect coach). I wonder if they'll consider looping some scenes, now that this thing has happened with Jamaica Inn?
What a mess.
Is looping being applied less than it used to and also general post production work? There seems to be a fashion to capture the moment of filming as if it was a documentary, I might be wrong.
shareDeleted it from our HDD after 30 mins. Had heard on the radio about the sound issues and mumbling. Saved us 150 mins to watch something else!
BBC – please refer to ITV’s Doc Martin. Cornish accents fine and no mumbling!
Is looping being applied less than it used to and also general post production work? There seems to be a fashion to capture the moment of filming as if it was a documentary, I might be wrong.
No, that's been my impression as well, esp with costume drama.
I can understand that some had problems understanding the dialogue - but what was wrong with the lighting? It very powerfully conveyed the inn, especially, I thought, and surely there was no problem seeing what was going on.
As for how much the production cost - no, that's just a nonsensical exaggeration, surely.
Please, BBC, go on producing something which is a little more challenging than the normal run of shows. Viewers who enjoyed it do not need to be cast as "pretentious", thanks.
I agree. I could see everything perfectly well. There was no electricity, for God's sake, and the sun rarely shines. What do people expect?
shareSo because there was no electricity everything has to look drab and miserable? You're easily pleased.
shareNo, I am really not. I think a lot of the BBC British period drama stuff is not nearly as good as people claim it is. Downton Abbey is a gussied-up soap opera with posh accents and good production value. But the writing is hackneyed and the direction is almost non-existent. Mostly it's just people standing there talking and overhearing each other, with anvilish music swelling in the background telegraphing everything that's happening. You get a few tracking shots and that's about it.
All I mean is I don't think everything looks drab and miserable, I think it looks realistic. When there is no electricity at night, it's dark. When people are living in rough buildings, things look rough. The outdoor scenes are beautiful. Gloomy at times, but beautiful. They just went with what they had there, after all. The weather there is cloudy, so it was cloudy. Better that than artificial sunshine.
Jeez, why do you care so much that I like it? If you ask me preferring perky polished period stuff with perfect hair and makeup and interiors? That's more pretentious than liking this. Because it's fakery masquerading as something else. It's white-washing the past, and why do that?
Shows set in the present day, like Breaking Bad or True Detective, are dark and grim too. That doesn't make them pretentious. Ever seen Banshee? Talk about "dark." Physically and otherwise.
I've been camping out in the middle of nowhere with no electricity. It's REALLY dark. Not gloomy, just dark. And I also talk really fast and people constantly have to ask me to repeat myself. One of my close friends is a successful trial lawyer who mumbles VERY badly and can hardly be understood in normal conversation when there's any noise in the background, like in a restaurant. But he manages to pull it together for the courtroom.
People don't talk like they are in elocution class.
Don't get me wrong, I think Sean Harris should have been made to enunciate more. His muttering is detracting from his scenes and is unfair to his fellow actors IMO. You can't focus on what they're saying, because you are trying to figure out what the Hell HE just said.
But that's one actor and I won't punish the rest of them for it.
I think it's worth pointing out that Downton Abbey is not made by or shown on BBC, although the company who do make it (ITV) have produced some excellent drama recently(such as Broadchurch). I don't think anyone pretends it is anything more than rather grand, dramtic soap, though.
The rest I agree with - what's wrong with having dark and dreary in a place that would be dark and dready and terrible? That's the story. Anyone who wants more light just hasn't yet taken on board the nature of the story.
As for Sean Harris - I'll wait until I've seen the whole thing to judge, I think. But I am finding him pretty riveting so far.
I don't think anyone pretends it is anything more than rather grand, dramtic soap, though.
LOL, there are plenty who do exactly that!
ITA. Some think it is far more nuanced and sophisticated than it really is. Not most viewers who see it as stated above. But some are really drinking the spiked tea.
shareI didn't have a problem understanding anyone, and I';m not English. but I have watched lots of UK period dramas set in Cornwall and other parts of the West Country, so that must have helped a lot.
shareHa ha no I was being serious.. Of course it was hyperbole to illustrate a point - the use of obvious exaggeration to convey a point has been a part of the English Language since time immemorial - and no that isn't hyperbole.
So you can keep trying to pretentiously convince yourself this rubbish is actually beyond mere mortals, while the rest of us know you can't polish a turd and switch off.
Mumble.. Mumble.. Stumble.. Mumble.. Stop.. Stumble.. Stop
Poor acting, a director trying to make some sort of statement: life is very hard by candlelight? A West County accent is best delivered at the volume of a deathbed confession? Everyone in the late 18th century dressed like a drab?
Amateur, congealed and coagulated tripe.
Yep, spot on and good to see I'm not the only one who isn't a pretentious luvvie round here and can actually say something is rubbish when it is rubbish and not try to play the Kings New Clothes pretentious nonsense.
shareI can't understand Joss at all - that annoying mumble!! I live in Cornwall so I find the Cornish accent is easy to understand even when mumbled... But the accents are driving me nuts... They sound nothing like a Cornish accent. Why is it that actors/directors seem to think that all Westcountry accents sound like a Bristolian mash up with country bumpkin!
And why isn't the vicar albino? As far as I can remember from the book, the vicar being albino was important in the build up of who he was/impression he gave??
The Beeb spokesman claimed "sounds issues". That's b\s they can tweek the knobs all they like, they can't do anything thing about slurred muttering which was the method of acting in this production.
But it's not just this production it's endemic throughout tv and the movie world. Diction used to be an actor's skill irrespective of accent. If I listen to an old movie every word is crystal clear. What's the point of doing it any other way if you can't follow the story?
Can someone tell me if they still over dub these days - I think it's called ADR, I suspect rarely?
So far there have been 8oo complaints, no doubt more will follow tonight. Say no to mumbling let the entertainment world know that you have had it with sloppily delivered lines and directors who think "realism" is more important than actually able to follow the story.
shareI think Joss is the biggest culprit and I genuinely do not see the others doing it at all. Maybe a tad, but nothing major. It's mainly Joss.
I think as an American I am used to it because it has been around for years now. The Godfather movies included that method of speech (especially from Brando, LOL), and many others. Many TV shows? Same thing. It's realism and so long as I can make out what they are saying I don't care about precise and perfect diction.
Most people don't speak with precise and perfect diction. I'd rather the characters behave like real people than like actors "performing" the character as though they were on stage and needed to be understood by the people in the back rows.
Crisp enunciation is more suited to the theater and to singing. I am not saying movies can't go that route, but to me the realistic speech is just as valid a choice for a movie. And in truth the medium of film allows for it, while theater does not. I think it's a good thing when film-makers make choices that are uniquely suited to film. Why not explore the medium?
But again, I agree about Joss. HIS speech is just too incoherent at times and it is distracting, to the point where you can't focus on what the other actors are saying because you're too busy trying to figure out what HE just said.
Brando had mumble-speak down to a fine art - you could hear every word he said. All those method actors knew that first and foremost the audience needs to understand. But the poorly delivered lines we get in so many TV dramas and films is disgraceful and often is a combination of the interfering surrounding acoustics and actors just not bothering. In days gone by directors would fire them, now, that's incredibly difficult.
shareWell, I am not finding it to be a problem but I guess a lot of people are, so it is a problem.
But did you see "True Grit"? The recent version with Jeff Bridges? It was really hard to understand what Rooster Cogburn said sometimes. Because he was a rough frontiersman and that was just how he talked. But I managed to figure it out and it did not lessen my enjoyment at all. In fact I found it all the more enjoyable because it was a part of his characterization.
But I am not enjoying it with Joss.
BTW I think some people did have trouble understanding Brando back then.
When authenticity take priority over clarity then there is serious problem. In life you have the opportunity to ask the person speaking to repeat if you didn't hear it properly. As it is impossible to speak to an actor on the screen - one day maybe - then allowances have to be made.
shareOP.
I watched it on iplayer, and the dialogue is fine, i didnt miss a word spoken. The lighting is good, as it adds realism. They lived in darkness when it got dark, they only had candles and they cost money, so often it was just dark.
The pacing is fine, production values are good, you clearly dont know what you are talking about.
"Fiery the angels fell; deep thunder rolled around their shores; burning with the fires of Orc"
Maybe it was the iplayer. I did not have a problem either.
shareWell not everybody has acute penetrable hearing as you seem to have. No one could quote the slurring voice sample from Jamaica Inn that the BBC News played, it was just a nasal droning sound. Over 2000 complaints, I think something was wrong, don't you?
shareI assume it was, just not for me on the device I used. I feel lucky.
I don't have super-hearing or anything. I guess I am just used to the mumbling method of acting. Also I don't mind having to fill in a blank here and there.
Like when that guy came to warn Joss about the Constable coming he pointed a gun at him and said something about a "bullet in your kidney." The threat was pretty clear, even if I didn't catch the few words that came before them.
Again, I only said it wasn't a problem for me and for a lot of others, so it wasn't a universal problem. But it was a problem for enough people that yes, it was clearly an issue that should have been fixed before it aired.
Why roll out this hoary old chestnut in the first place? How many adaptations have been inflicted on the UK public already? Those of us who enjoy period drama know this story by heart, and filming yet ANOTHER version of it with the latest 'in' faces won't wash! As for production values!!
While we know the era depicted was candlelit, the lighting was diabolical, most of the dialogue was inaudible, and what could be deciphered was delivered in the most ridiculous array of accents imaginable! It certainly wasn't any dialect i recognised, and being Cornish i'm qualified to comment! Why can't the BBC film some original drama instead of recycling the same work, again and again?
They USED to be a quality broadcaster, and the
head of drama in years gone by would have lit his cigar with this script!
A waste of time, money...and electricity!
Sometimes the accent was Bristolian, so much for authenticity. lol!
It was only Joss i couldn't understand. The rest were ok once i turned the tv up.
'Barba needs a pimp cane...'