Why did old american movies sound so different?

force1@sh.itjust.works to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 27 points –

Whenever I watch old movies the characters always have a different tone than they have now. It seems to have changed somewhere from the 2000s. Is it just me or did something change?

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There used to be a stylized “Mid Atlantic” accent that many actors developed and the news at the time would use the same accent. With more modern movies, there was a move to actors with regional accents of their own, as well as a change in the way acting stopped emphasizing “projecting” their voices so the people in the back of the theater could hear them. Since movie audio is all recorded and mixed digitally, any lines that didn’t record well just get ADRed.

So, sort of a "Queen's English" or "BBC English" in the UK.

It's more correctly known as "received English", old chap.