watch Binaural Experiments (for movies)

Hello,

I'm french and it's my first message on this board so, please be gentle with me and my English
I'm not really an experienced video guy (just a sound technician working in the music business), but I'm also keen on making some videos (it's just that I am not really talented ^^'). Still, I've been experiencing with binaural recordings (stereo audio recording technics) and binaural conversions (converting surround mix to binaural) and I was wondering what filmmakers would think about such audio reproductions technics for movies.

For the ones who don't know what binaural recording is, please take a look at the wikipedia page for a brief sum up. But all you have to know is that binaural is the most accurate stereo recording and reproduction technic to date (at least, for humans). When listening to a binaural recording through headphones, you can really experiment what "surround sound" means without the need of expensive speakers (and a good sounding room of course).
I suppose that most of you are thinking that having to listen with headphones is a movie killer, right? And, that's the point I would like to talk about with you. Is Binaural audio a possibility when making a movie or would it be a movie killer?

I personally think that it could bring a lot more to movies than 3D video did, it's just that it's useless in theaters (they already have their big sound systems). On the other hand it can be a big qualitative addition for a DVD/BD/Internet release. Simply adding a binaural track wouldn't affect the post-production workflow, a conversion of the 5.1 mix to binaural (it will not replace a real binaural mix but it's a good way to start) is quite an easy step.
And what about indie filmmaking? When releasing a short movie on Internet, simply uploading a version with binaural audio will certainly be more attractive to people watching the movie on smartphones and tablets!

There is only one real difficulty with binaural audio: the resulting surround experience will vary according to your physical criteria. For example, the radius of your head, distance between both ears and hair cut are some of those important criteria. That is the reason why we say that binaural is a customized way to record/listen to music!
But, there is a good solution to this problem: It is called HRTF, which means Head-related Transfer Function. Lots of research have be done since the beginning of this century in anechoic chambers in order to recreate the way brains decrypt sounds. Nowadays, algorithms can recreate binaural signals and take into consideration all those criteria.

So it may seem quite useless, but I think that it's about time to start working with binaural, especially when a lot of people watch trailers, clips etc... through internet.

I have a sample video for you. I've converted the audio of some scenes from old famous movies (Indiana Jones and the temple of Doom & Back to the Future) into binaural as a demonstration. Those movies were mixed in Dolby Stereo back in the 80s, still you will hear that converting the 5.1 mix (which were re-created later in the 90s from the original mix) still improves the resulting experience on headphones.

KEMAR HRTF: https://vimeo.com/album/2487393
HRTF #1038: https://vimeo.com/album/2487577
HRTF #1049: https://vimeo.com/album/2490732
HRTF #1063: https://vimeo.com/album/2487579

In theory binaural mixes could be quite useful for some movies, maybe particularly for those destined for distribution on the internet or self distribution. In practice though there are several issues which make binaural movie mixes a bit of a non-starter:

1. Movies destined for internet/self distribution tend to be the very lowest budget movies, movies which are usually described as no budget, even though they may have any budget up to $20k or so. At this time these distribution channels usually provide relatively little income, commonly not enough to cover the cost of making the movie, let alone a decent profit. For this reason, the sound mixes on these movies are usually DIY mixes by the filmmakers themselves or at best by inexperienced aspiring audio post professionals. It's quite unusual for films in this sector to have a 5.1 mix and because most lo/no budget filmmakers have little interest in and know very little about sound/audio, most films don't even have decent 2.0 stereo mixes!

2. Compared to the music industry, it's still relatively uncommon for people to watch films with headphones. Playing music through headphones from say a smartphone or tablet can provide a very decent listening experience but the limiting factor of these devices for movies is the size and quality of the screen. Trends in how audiences prefer to watch movies may change in the future and there may come a time when creating a headphone only mix for a movie becomes a more attractive proposition but currently binaural mixes are not really worthwhile for any budget sector of the movie industry.

G