OTT platforms have highly evolved in all aspects, especially in the graphics and sound sector

The introduction of VFX(Visual Effects), SFX(Special Effects) and other amazing effects have been added to characters. In the cinematic era, skilled actors made the movie enjoyable, whereas, in the OTT(Over-the-top) platforms, strong audiovisual effects are used to enhance the movie. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMC-f0AUr6s

Moreover, characters are created in the OTT products. VFX is one of the highest-blooming industries in the current times (economic times, 2022). Which will soon take over the tasks of actors, leaving many cinematic industry workers unemployed. In certain movies, the characters created with visual and graphical effects have already replaced the actual human actors, which announces a threat to the workers of the film industry (Park, Sungwook and Kwon, 2019). These characters are given various sounds with a higher intensity than the original human actors. OTT has a great sound response when compared with conventional cinema. This is because the movies and series available have extreme upward and downward compression (Kaptain, 2021). 

Although, it has been disagreed that the sound effects created by OTT platforms can be quite fake (Collins, 2017). But these effects over-intensify the sounds and take the movie to an extremity which sometimes is not required. Furthermore, these effects also cause damage to the ears if earphones are used, and even the brain is trained to hear sound in a compression pattern. Binge-watching such audiovisual effects may even lead to diseases like Alzheimer’s, as these new OTT technologies cause rapid ageing of the brain (Festa et al. ,2017). 

By Hongli Zeng (33657348)

References

Collins, K. (2017). Calls of the wild? ‘Fake’ sound effects and cinematic realism in BBC David Attenborough nature documentaries. The Soundtrack, 10(1), pp.59–77. doi:10.1386/ts.10.1.59_1.

economic times (2022). VFX fastest growing segment, Indian OTT content going global: FICCI-EY Report – ET Telecom. [online] ETTelecom.com. Available at: https://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/vfx-fastest-growing-segment-indian-ott-content-going-global-ficci-ey-report/90365475 [Accessed 1 Dec. 2022].

Festa, E.K., Katz, A.P., Ott, B.R., Tremont, G. and Heindel, W.C. (2017). Dissociable Effects of Aging and Mild Cognitive Impairment on Bottom-Up Audiovisual Integration. Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, [online] 59(1), pp.155–167. doi:10.3233/JAD-161062.

Kaptain (2021). Why Does OTT Sound So Good?: A response. [online] reddit. Available at: https://www.reddit.com/r/edmproduction/comments/m094v1/why_does_ott_sound_so_good_a_response/ [Accessed 1 Dec. 2022].

Park, Sungwook and Kwon (2019). A Service of zbw Park, Sungwook; Kwon, Youngsun. [online] Available at: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/205203/1/Park-Kwon.pdf.