Getting in a flap!

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You all know that Lionsgate film intro with all the shiny gear wheels? :-)



Well, anyway, Lionsgate nearly broke the house! I had started the hired DVD disk and turned the volume somewhere around the usual setting.  There had a been a couple of wimpy trailers...when all of a sudden the Lionsgate intro started. The entire house shook like a leaf! The walls and ceiling creaked and vibrated incredibly violently! Of course I quickly turned it down...

We were about to watch "Abduction" on an ordinary, hired DVD. I chose Dolby 5.1 rather than DTS. It wasn't long before we realised that the film makers  took their bass rather seriously. Every so often there would be a loud roar and the curtains across the double doors to the IB enclosure would waft 6" in and out! I'd never seen this happen before! It became a habit with frequent excursions of the full length, heavy velvet. Great fun! The first motorbike scene sounded as if the bike was right in the room!

The film was panned on IMDB with a 4.3 score. It's true that there were weak moments. Not least Sigourny Weaver's wooden acting!

The scenes between the two young stars were much too "teenage movie/Moonlight" and completely superfluous. (except for teenagers perhaps?) We all had the human biology lesson. We do get the picture!

There were moments in the story where the suspension of disbelief was hanging by a burning thread.

The action plot still managed to hold the excitement for us. We would happily have given the film an overall mid-5s... except for the incredibly weak ending. Which limply burst the rapidly deflating balloon.

Bass-wise this film has to be a firm 8 or even a 9!

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Weird vibes!

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Hardly worth a post on its own but I have noticed a couple, or three, audio oddities this week.

I was down at the snow-covered beach photographing the sea ice for another of my blogs. Out across the sea it sounded as if several large manufacturing workshops were working away. Probably an inversion layer but what could be making so much "machinery" noise out of doors to carry for so many miles across the sea? The nearest land is about 10 miles away. With no guarantee that several hundred people are beavering away out of doors in sub zero conditions with heavy machinery. Absolutely no sign of any ships or boats. Very odd.

Later, I was descending the stairs in a four story office block. Halfway down I was subjected to a VLF vibration of immense proportions. A very uncomfortable experience indeed! As I exited the building I spotted a large defence helicopter some way off. Could this have excited the incredibly heavy air vibrations I experienced? I can't think of anything else which would have enough acoustic energy. There was no sign of any building work in the neighbourhood. The sound was clearly located in just one section of the middle run of stairs. Above and below it was quite inaudible.

Case three is ongoing. A neighbour, who lives two hundred yards away, brings his lorry/truck home with him. The house shakes to the sound of the diesel motor even at this considerable distance. He used to start the engine at 4am and leave it running for 20 minutes to warm up. Lately he has been leaving at more sociable hours. Though the effect is always the same. Even in the closed bathroom the engine sounds incredibly loud. Or rather the frequency with which the room vibrates in sympathy is very loud. It doesn't actually sound like an engine. More of a heavy beating in the upper infrasonics. More felt than heard.

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