In the new comedy-drama Babylon, young ingénue Nellie (played by Margot Robbie) is catapulted to silent film fame.
But a few years later, the advent of talkies threatens her rise, as the chaotic sets of silent films are replaced by pristine sound stages equipped with state-of-the art recording equipment to capture actors' voices.
Babylon is far from the first film to chronicle the rocky transition from silent films to talkies — the most famous of these, Singin' In The Rain, is directly referenced — but it coincides with another seismic shift in the film and TV world: the curious rise of the use of subtitles by modern audiences.
Netflix recently revealed that 40 per cent of its users regularly turn on subtitles, while research by a British charity found young people are almost four times more likely than older viewers to watch TV shows with subtitles, despite having fewer hearing problems.
There are of course countless reasons why someone who is not hard of hearing might choose to turn on subtitles.
But while rapidly evolving sound technology is an important part of why the dialogue of a film or television series can be difficult to catch, there are other significant cultural factors at play too.
Big mics, bigger voices
Hollywood-based dialogue editor Austin Olivia Kendrick says she gets asked constantly why dialogue is so difficult to hear these days. Each time, she reassures people that they're probably not losing their hearing.
"It's a combination of factors, both on the creative side of things as well as the technical side, that has led to this evolution of dialogue being difficult to hear," she tells ABC RN's Breakfast.
Much of this stems from changes in technology, beginning with the first talkies in the 1920s.
"Sound recording was pretty primitive at the time," Kendrick explains.
"Microphones were really huge and had to stay in one spot, so frequently when actors were being recorded, they were specifically instructed to stand in one spot, to point their mouths towards where the microphone was hanging above their head, and project towards that microphone."
The result was clear, concise vocals that were easily audible through the tinny television speakers of viewers at home.
Hollywood actors were also instructed to use a very specific tone and accent.
"The transatlantic accent that was so prevalent back in that era of filmmaking kind of served a dual purpose," Kendrick says.
"[It] was the popular dialect amongst the upper class in America, but it also helped with the way that the microphones were recording.
"They couldn't quite capture that lower end of the actors' voices, and the transatlantic accent really has that nasally punch to it … That accent was actually helping the microphones to pick up everything."
As microphone technology improved, actors could move freely, with lapel mics attached to their clothing and booms following them from above.
"This has allowed the actors to have a much more free performance, much more naturalistic, but because of that, it leads to this speech pattern that can end up being more mumbly," Kendrick says.
"On top of that, because they are now moving, you get clothing rustles, you get clicks and pops, you get background noise."
And even if audiences want louder dialogue, editors can't just boost the volume in post-production, as they have to preserve "a sense of scale to the ear".
Then there's the issue of increasingly sophisticated mixing and speaker technology. While the first talkies were released with a single audio channel, today's films can have as many as 128, with sound choreographed around a cinema.
These detailed soundscapes are then down mixed to adapt them for wider distribution on fewer channels, although Kendrick says some producers still push for movies to "sound big".
The result is dense, complex audio, which most of us then hear through the speakers on the back of our TV or perhaps on a tablet or smartphone — not exactly the immersive experience a director might hope for.
Dialogue meets rock 'n' roll
Yet it's not just technology that has changed the way we hear dialogue — shifting culture has also played a part, particularly in Australia.
Thorsten Kaeding is the curator of sound at the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.
He says when the first Australian films and, later, television shows were produced, they emulated British broadcasting, "specifically that tight, London, upper-class BBC accent".
"What you hear in terms of voices is mimicking that, with very little deviation in the Australian context," he says.
"You end up with very stilted language and dialogue … It's almost like a set of speeches, rather than a conversation."
After World War II, Australian media began to be heavily influenced by American culture, specifically rock 'n' roll.
"The big impact is that cultural shift to youth culture," Kaeding explains.
"The language changes, the words change. Some of the words that we think now sound old-fashioned, like 'groovy', when they were first coined, become really profound markers of a cultural shift from a very formal way of speaking [to] much more free-form."
At the same time, migration to Australia was exploding, bringing new accents and modes of speech that bled into popular media.
This only increased with new technology that allowed for lower budget, more experimental filmmaking.
"The amount of material that is being produced now is exponentially greater than it was even 20, 25 years ago, so I think that gives space for a lot more different voices and a lot more experimentation," Kaeding says.
In pursuit of authenticity
The advent of reality TV was another shift for dialogue.
Audiences had to adjust to speech that was unscripted, mumbly and sometimes barely audible — and, judging by the success of the shows, they liked it.
"[In reality TV] we hear different voices, people from different places and different backgrounds, and I think that resonates with people a lot," Kaeding says.
"That notion of it being conversational, that you're hearing unfiltered, unscripted conversations, for many people makes it feel more real."
Meanwhile, productions that toyed with similar sound — like beloved mockumentary The Office or hyper-authentic mumblecore films of the mid-2000s — accentuated naturalistic performances and improvisation.
Filmmaker and director of Griffith Film School Herman Van Eyken says dialogue must now compete with increasingly dense soundscapes to make productions feel real and believable.
"Authenticity is a very strong pillar, it's one of the big parameters in filmmaking," he says.
But in pursuit of grit and realism, directors can end up alienating audiences if their dialogue is too hard to grasp.
"Dialogue is usually very carefully written — one of the basic rules is you write as little as necessary, which basically means if you miss what is necessary, you miss out," Professor Van Eyken says.
"If your [production's] sound is incomprehensible and becomes mumbling, I would strongly advise to make it comprehensible because otherwise you kick your audience out [of the story]."
This is where subtitles seem to come in handy — and Kaeding says this might be a blessing in disguise.
"As you give space to different voices, what you're doing is … trying to represent real people, real situations, real voices that people can connect to," he says.
"The ability to engage with [increased diversity] in language with subtitling is something that's really exciting.
"That's where we're heading, and I think that'd be a fantastic place to get to."
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