Home Theatre Owners

Hi guys and welcome to my first post for Literally Geeking and I'd like to start if I may with a topic close to my heart. 

I am an avid film watcher, a buff some might say. I enjoy lying on the couch watching a movie with a bottle of beer in one hand and having my Android phone plugged into IMDb’s trivia in the other. Apart from my obvious need for a self help group, where I give myself over to the higher power of Morgan Freeman, I’ve noticed that perhaps it is the people who are not such dedicated film buffs who need the help. In fact I believe the definition of the film buff needs to be appropriated by people who not only watch films and can link the cinema of the Soviet Union to Kevin Bacon but who also know how to watch them. 

I’m not talking about suddenly toasting the joys of world cinema with a 2 year old sauvignon or being the hipster at the independent cinema’s bar who never seems to go into a screening, but the very simple idea of creating an environment appropriate to watching a film and enjoying it for what it is. There are times I know I have been suckered in by Hollywood into watching explosion after explosion and cliché melodrama but if we’re being honest it wouldn’t be so successful if it wasn’t a winning formula. After all, most of us choose a film for its escapism value and the ease with which we can understand and relate to what’s going on (Remember that time you saved the world from giant evil robots), not its real world merits or too make us aware of the plight of some people we didn’t know existed until we’d already cut too deep into the rainforest.  But whilst I could drone on about boring low budget movies making do with few-to-no lines of dialogue and a one instrument backing track, today I’m much more interested in exposing the one issue that affects the majority of home theatre owners. YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG!

 How can something so special be treated so badly?

Too many times I have entered into another person’s living room, sometimes with their permission, and I’m treated to barbaric sightings of poor television placement and surround sound systems that couldn’t shake the dew from a leaf. 40”+ sized telly’s hung over fireplace mantelpieces at impossible viewing angles and shoved in corners to ensure both couches get an off centre view. The speakers aren’t mounted or placed at the optimal positions to enjoy the sound and more often than not they cheaped out and bought the system that has the flat sounding centre speaker ensuring the volume must go up and up and up until they can’t stand to use the damn thing. It’s a tragedy of modern times to rival Romeo & Juliet or that guy from Spaceballs who never managed to save his planet from the greedy air hoarding Druidians.

I’ve discovered that people in these truly horrific situations don’t tend to like the films they watch at home, and I’m sure most of you have passed on poor word of mouth about a film you saw in this manner, depriving poor film studios of a sale and passing the blame onto illegal downloader’s.

Perhaps this situation is unfair. You see for years movie makers have designed the talkies for how they were intended to be seen, in a nice big squareish room with everyone facing the front, not off at Feng Shui style viewing angles. We had stereo sound but with enough speakers that we were all bathed in the warmth that was proper entertainment. Today’s films however have upped the ante into creating that completely immersive experience and are designed with 5.1 or more surround sound (In fact if you go back and check that old DVD collection you’ll find many titles did have that option before they became so darn affordable). Dialogue comes from where the people are, music comes out separate speakers to the dialogue so as not to affect speech and the inclusion of rear speakers allows for encompassing sound and a nice place to put in some special effects and bullet ricochets. All this is of course if you’ve set it up right.

Now ask yourself how closely your home theatre resembles that experience.  Are your couches aligned in rows? Are your floors sticky? Is your seat suitably broken? and just where is your ice cream lady? Maybe that’s too far for a home theatre, even if it does offer some clue as to the appeal of having one at home, but what isn’t too far is knowing that in a perfectly aligned room where the TV is at a good eye line in the middle of a wall with the centre speaker beneath it and a surround sound speaker in every corner, that the people in the middle of that room in seats facing the TV are getting the experience you normally have to pay 2 or more times the cost of the Blu-Ray for along with the added bonus of not needing your shoes resoled or years of Osteopathy afterwards.

My advice to you all is to reshape your living space and build that home theatre. Experience films the way they were intended. Even Michael Bay’s explosive tendencies are much more appropriate when the explosion comes from somewhere your ears can place and when it adds to the atmosphere of the situation rather than distracts or annoys by making it impossible to hear what that car Bumblebee was saying. You may find your old DVD collection is deserving of a dust off, you could be the place for people to go on Saturdays, and recoup the cost with admission prices, but more than anything you might just start enjoying something you’ve spent a small fortune on already.