Dialogue Clarity Quotes

We're so used to everything being properly manicured, like you can hear every footstep in a movie, you can hear every bit of dialogue, and everything is in its place.

The long version of the play is actually an easier version to follow. In all of the cut versions the intense speeches are cut too close together for the audience and the actors.

I've been on movies where I literally couldn't hear what the other actor was saying. It's very awkward.

The best sounds a kid will get is in a movie theater, with huge speakers, turned up loud. I always mix my music really loud. I don't care if you don't hear all the dialogue. The audience are not idiots.

When you say the name Gilligan, you know who that is. If a show is good, if it's written well, you should be able to erase the names of the characters saying the lines and still be able to know who said it. If you can't do that, the show will fail.

Dialogue is the ideal means of showing what is between the characters. It crystallizes relationships. It should, ideally, be so effective as to make analysis or explanation of the relationships between the characters unnecessary.

A lot of people forget that today. They come to the point where you walk on a set and the first thing you know you're looking at the sound man and you're saying to yourself, "How the hell can they get any sound when nobody is talking!" They get all mumbly. You can't make out what they're saying! And you're 6 feet away from them! Whereas in the old-time movies, you hear them, you understand every word they're saying, and you didn't have to put on your loudspeaker.

The first thing I do in the editing room is the 'radio edit,' where you listen to the dialogue and don't even look at the visuals. The rhythm, the music of the comedy, has to work.

If you're going to make a film, and you're going to have dialogue, and you want to take the characters seriously, let's understand what they're saying. If there is going to be technical dialogue, let's render it in a way that the audience can understand it and expect that it's not going to be so far over their heads.

If readers tell you that stretches of dialogue or narrative were too long, that they couldn't tell who was talking, that's something that can be fixed.