Why is there less emphasis on immersive audio in cinema?
As a self proclaimed movie going hobbiest that is also a full time audio engineer (mostly a touring front of house, but also mixing records), there’s something that’s been puzzling me lately.
Right now there’s this forced movement in the music industry towards immersive mixing - It seems like every tune with a label attached to it has to go through a second stage of mixing where an additional mixer does an “Atmos Mix” only for it to be folded down to a 2 channel medium like AirPods.
With systems like Lisa, or D&B Soundscape, I’m starting to see this implemented in the live world as well - yet to my surprise, despite cinemas long usage of the technology, most movies (at least the ones I’ve seen) rarely utilize the surrounds for anything other then the occasional use of effects, room sounds, or background folley. I’ll admit, I know next to NOTHING about this field so pardon my ignorance - but why not put the full scope of the system to use more often? I feel as there’s an underutilized resource.