It almost makes it feel like the acting performances themselves are weaker than they really are. ... (On a side note, my money's on this whole scene being ADR...)
It would be a safe bet that the whole scene is ADR and therefore, that the acting performances were actually "weaker than they really are". ADR almost always weakens the performance.
It's striking how the lack of sound effects immediately sucks much of the drama and credibility out of the scene.
"Striking" perhaps to non-filmmaking members of the public but it shouldn't be striking to anyone who has ever actually directed, produced, edited, (etc.) a film.
I agree it should be a case of 'well duh' but it's too often not in reality...
It's certainly not the reality for professional directors, producers or those few talented amateurs who have a realistic shot at breaking into the industry. Most, maybe the vast majority, of those who call themselves amateur filmmakers are not (IMHO) really amateur filmmakers, they are actually hobbyist filmmakers. While neither hobbyist nor amateur filmmakers make a living from making films and are therefore both technically amateurs, in my personal view, the true amateur filmmaker is one who approaches filmmaking as do the professionals, just without the financial resources and without (yet) the financial returns. The hobbyist on the other hand approaches filmmaking differently, according to their interests, those areas of filmmaking which they personally enjoy the most.
The difficulty for the hobbyist is becoming trapped in a vicious circle of essentially producing "nothing" films. Due to very restricted resources they are limited to mainly (or entirely) drama based films and in addition, neglect/de-prioritize sound design which, as you say, "
sucks most of the drama and credibility out of the scene/s". It's a simple equation; drama film minus drama/credibility = zero, a "nothing" film. While many festivals will screen "nothing" (or "very little") films, commercial distributors are not at all interested in them because extremely few members of the public will pay to watch them. Not a problem for the true hobbyist but true hobbyists seem to be few and far between, most want to be something more than a hobbyist. To move beyond hobbyist means having to actually get up and move! Buying a better camera, getting more resources/budget or even writing/procuring a better script is not getting up and moving, they're just potential ways of becoming a better hobbyist!
If, for example, in addition to directing, scriptwriting is one of the hobbyist's areas of interest then again, it's a simple equation; a half decent script with 70% of the drama/credibility sucked out of it is the same as a script which is only 30% as decent but hasn't had the drama/credibility sucked out of it, which is also the same as a script which is only 20% as decent but has had 10% extra drama/credibility added to it. To make a half decent film (and compensate for 70% of the drama being sucked out of it), the hobbyist would have to write a script which is 170% better than half decent, and such great scripts are extreme rarities! Of course, we can exchange the scriptwriting example with any of the other film crafts hobbyists tend to be most attracted to. Rather than attempting the near impossible, a far more achievable route is to work with the equation rather than trying to fight against it. IE. Reallocating time, effort, study and resources to those filmmaking areas (which significantly impact drama/credibility) which are not the hobbyist's primary area/s of interest. For example, putting in the effort to write a 70% decent script and allocating far more to only sucking out 20% of the drama results in a 20% better film overall than the other examples. Pretty much by definition, this is moving beyond being a hobbyist, IE. Changing focus to the needs of the film rather than focusing on the needs of the filmmaker.
The truth is, much of our (the sound peeps) contribution here, is selling the importance of sound/sound design rather than discussing how best to employ it, most of the rest of the time we're either advising on the cheapest sound equipment possible or trying to come up with suggestions on how to escape from inescapable holes which filmmakers have dug for themselves. Much of our "selling" efforts appear wasted because most are simply not interested in making decent films, they're only really interested in fulfilling their hobby and dreaming/hoping of landing the effectively fictional role of "professional hobbyist filmmaker". [/rant over]
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