The reading week was full of captivating stuff, that's why it's quite hard to jump to any other topic. We will definitely return to books in the future.
However, it's time to start a new topic. It is COSMOS!
A great infographic by Jason Powers is attached!
However, it's time to start a new topic. It is COSMOS!
A great infographic by Jason Powers is attached!
Arkadia Getheren Moon from Quora tells us what some common illogical scenes that occur in films are.
Combat
If you punch someone in any area that contains bone, your hand is going to at least hurt. If you strike someone with a heavy object, momentum will be transferred. Combat training may improve your chances of landing or blocking a blow, but it doesn't make your bones stronger. And there's a limit to human stamina.
The distinct sound of cocking a pistol when any reasonable gun user would already have it cocked, especially in a situation where the sound of cocking a pistol is going to alert a target that you'd rather not be alerted. Bonus points for stupid if the pistol happens to be a semiautomatic.
People, portrayed as experienced gun users, who hold someone at gunpoint, being careful to remain in easy range of a duck-and-lunge. Hello? It's called a ranged weapon for a reason!
It's actually extremely rare that someone gets shot and proceeds immediately to a rapid and quiet demise, and if they do, it's either a heart/ascending aorta shot or a head/throat shot, both of which tend to splash about copious gouts of blood that somehow never appear on film. People who have been gutshot realistically take a very long, agonizing, bloody, hellish, screaming time to die. Reservoir Dogs portrayed this quite well.
Roving bandit gangs in post-apocalyptic thrillers that have numerous assault rifles in good working order, plus a worry-free attitude toward expending many cartridges. Clearly, their post-apocalyptic world includes a nearby factory, well-powered and well-stocked, churning out spare parts and ammunition.
Others
Water puts up more resistance the farther you drop before impact. Beyond about twenty metres, you may as well be dropping onto a solidly constructed wood floor. Also, attempting to swim while fully clothed is a bad idea — the wet clothes will weigh you down, slow you down, and wick heat away from your body, all very bad things when you're supposed to be swimming for your life.
When a man and a woman are lying in bed together, it always becomes clear that either the woman is terrifically modest about her breasts with a man she's just (by implication) had sex with, or the bed has some kind of special L-shaped sheet that comes up to a man's waist but a woman's armpits.
Somehow, bohemian art-school students always seem to live alone in very large apartments filled up with knickknacks. Generally, everybody in movies seems to have considerably more money than their visible means of support would cover.
Combat
If you punch someone in any area that contains bone, your hand is going to at least hurt. If you strike someone with a heavy object, momentum will be transferred. Combat training may improve your chances of landing or blocking a blow, but it doesn't make your bones stronger. And there's a limit to human stamina.
The distinct sound of cocking a pistol when any reasonable gun user would already have it cocked, especially in a situation where the sound of cocking a pistol is going to alert a target that you'd rather not be alerted. Bonus points for stupid if the pistol happens to be a semiautomatic.
People, portrayed as experienced gun users, who hold someone at gunpoint, being careful to remain in easy range of a duck-and-lunge. Hello? It's called a ranged weapon for a reason!
It's actually extremely rare that someone gets shot and proceeds immediately to a rapid and quiet demise, and if they do, it's either a heart/ascending aorta shot or a head/throat shot, both of which tend to splash about copious gouts of blood that somehow never appear on film. People who have been gutshot realistically take a very long, agonizing, bloody, hellish, screaming time to die. Reservoir Dogs portrayed this quite well.
Roving bandit gangs in post-apocalyptic thrillers that have numerous assault rifles in good working order, plus a worry-free attitude toward expending many cartridges. Clearly, their post-apocalyptic world includes a nearby factory, well-powered and well-stocked, churning out spare parts and ammunition.
Others
Water puts up more resistance the farther you drop before impact. Beyond about twenty metres, you may as well be dropping onto a solidly constructed wood floor. Also, attempting to swim while fully clothed is a bad idea — the wet clothes will weigh you down, slow you down, and wick heat away from your body, all very bad things when you're supposed to be swimming for your life.
When a man and a woman are lying in bed together, it always becomes clear that either the woman is terrifically modest about her breasts with a man she's just (by implication) had sex with, or the bed has some kind of special L-shaped sheet that comes up to a man's waist but a woman's armpits.
Somehow, bohemian art-school students always seem to live alone in very large apartments filled up with knickknacks. Generally, everybody in movies seems to have considerably more money than their visible means of support would cover.
...Having worked on countless TV shows, movies and commercials, there are many things I've always found comical, even when I (sometimes) understand the reasoning. Here are ten of my favorites (but I could easily add ten more).
The first item is the easiest to understand, because the alternative is extremely difficult to pull off effectively, requiring the combined skills of the crew and the actors (though some directors, Robert Altman chief among them, have successfully pulled it off, or at least part of it). Most others... not so much.
Real conversations are nothing like most movie conversations. In real life we talk over each other, interrupt each other, go completely off track and have to be reminded (or not) what we were talking about. We stop and start and repeat ourselves and say "ah" and "um" and "so" and "you know" and "like" way more than characters do, and we take very long pauses while contemplating replies, or while (rudely) answering calls, checking emails or texts or surreptitiously sexting lovers. And unless those activities are germane to the plot or character development, you won't see them in a TV show or movie. In other words in real life we "waste" a lot of dialogue and time that would double the length (and cost) of a typical film.
To get an idea of how different they are, read a few pages of any screenplay from a Hollywood movie with a high-stakes trial, like A Few Good Men (easy to find online) and then read at a transcript from a real trial. Oddly the screenplay will be very easy to follow and understand while the transcript will be very difficult to read fluidly, or even to piece together without hearing it. Also, a lot of activity will be crammed into any page of a script, while a randomly selected page of transcript will be unlikely yield any discernible progression at all
When was the last time you hit the button for the elevator and the door opened within 3-5 seconds (at which point, if it doesn't, you angrily hit the button repeatedly and ask what's taking the damn elevator so long?). In general everything happens much faster in the movies, especially where technology is concerned. Test results that take weeks in real life take hours in movies, information that is extremely difficult to track down is readily available with a few clicks on a computer. Similarly, surveillance video in movies is much easier to track down and enhance—and is much more likely to yield crucial information—than it is in real life. Likewise with wiretaps and phone conversations, hours of which are usually required to yield potentially valuable evidence. You can only zoom in so far before you're staring at a mess of pixels, and that's assuming there was enough light or the subject is even remotely in focus.
Real people don't usually turn off the TV the moment the story about them is finished. They do this in movies because leaving it on would require additional production to appear on the TV, which is money not necessarily well spent. This is one I believe can easily be avoided by simply extending the news story long enough to allow the scene to cut away or leave us staring at the befuddled viewer, and the cost of having the fake anchors babble about fake news or the weather a few minutes longer would be nominal. Another option would be to simply record audio from the TV, which would be a good project for an intern and be just as effective if the camera pans away from the screen.
The first item is the easiest to understand, because the alternative is extremely difficult to pull off effectively, requiring the combined skills of the crew and the actors (though some directors, Robert Altman chief among them, have successfully pulled it off, or at least part of it). Most others... not so much.
Real conversations are nothing like most movie conversations. In real life we talk over each other, interrupt each other, go completely off track and have to be reminded (or not) what we were talking about. We stop and start and repeat ourselves and say "ah" and "um" and "so" and "you know" and "like" way more than characters do, and we take very long pauses while contemplating replies, or while (rudely) answering calls, checking emails or texts or surreptitiously sexting lovers. And unless those activities are germane to the plot or character development, you won't see them in a TV show or movie. In other words in real life we "waste" a lot of dialogue and time that would double the length (and cost) of a typical film.
To get an idea of how different they are, read a few pages of any screenplay from a Hollywood movie with a high-stakes trial, like A Few Good Men (easy to find online) and then read at a transcript from a real trial. Oddly the screenplay will be very easy to follow and understand while the transcript will be very difficult to read fluidly, or even to piece together without hearing it. Also, a lot of activity will be crammed into any page of a script, while a randomly selected page of transcript will be unlikely yield any discernible progression at all
When was the last time you hit the button for the elevator and the door opened within 3-5 seconds (at which point, if it doesn't, you angrily hit the button repeatedly and ask what's taking the damn elevator so long?). In general everything happens much faster in the movies, especially where technology is concerned. Test results that take weeks in real life take hours in movies, information that is extremely difficult to track down is readily available with a few clicks on a computer. Similarly, surveillance video in movies is much easier to track down and enhance—and is much more likely to yield crucial information—than it is in real life. Likewise with wiretaps and phone conversations, hours of which are usually required to yield potentially valuable evidence. You can only zoom in so far before you're staring at a mess of pixels, and that's assuming there was enough light or the subject is even remotely in focus.
Real people don't usually turn off the TV the moment the story about them is finished. They do this in movies because leaving it on would require additional production to appear on the TV, which is money not necessarily well spent. This is one I believe can easily be avoided by simply extending the news story long enough to allow the scene to cut away or leave us staring at the befuddled viewer, and the cost of having the fake anchors babble about fake news or the weather a few minutes longer would be nominal. Another option would be to simply record audio from the TV, which would be a good project for an intern and be just as effective if the camera pans away from the screen.
To most people—at least in my world—"a drink" offered at someone's home or office doesn't mean a glass of whiskey in a rocks glass and take 6 seconds to produce. I could easily spend 15 minutes mixing even a vodka and tonic as I try to track down a fresh bottle of tonic, cut a lemon and eat some peanuts while talking. At a bar it's worse, as no one ever gets mixed drinks. It's "a drink" or "a beer", and I don't remember the last time I was with anyone under 60 who didn't specify what kind of beer he wanted, let alone a bartender who didn't rattle off the options. Again, I can think of many ways to improve this nonsense, number one being some valuable product placement and having someone order a Sam Adams, Jack and Coke or Grey Goose on the rocks. Or at least a vodka and tonic, gin and tonic or dark and stormy.
People who come to your house to visit in the movies are much more impatient than real people, ringing doorbells and knocking again after waiting about two seconds for someone to open the door.
Streets are always wet. Unless you're in the industry it's unlikely you've ever noticed this but in most big movies (and all car commercials) a large water truck is always on hand to spray down the streets that appear in the shot. Why? Dry streets look dull and dusty, while wet ones reflect light and shimmer. Obviously you don't see this in westerns, but watch a typical movie in an urban setting and pay attention to the streets. One can only assume it rains a lot more in movieworld, albeit not when the cameras are rolling.
The odds of highly defined shadows being evident on the sidewalk during a bad downpour are very low, unless of course the rain is coming from rainmakers placed off frame on an otherwise sunny day, as it almost always is in movies. Oddly, these shadows are generally muted by large scrims that mute harsh sunlight and serve to even the light and allow the cinematographer to direct the artificial lights where he wants them without interference by passing clouds or darkening skies. But when it rains, in most cases the scrims would have to be placed too high and be too big to be practical and so natural sunlight is allowed to rain down on the scene along with the fake rain, unless the cinematographer got lucky and shoots on an overcast day, which is very difficult to predict and plan for.
No one finishes a meal, at restaurants or at home. There are notable exceptions, like a Soprano's-type movie where gorging on big meals is key to the development of the characters. But watch a typical drama or family scene and notice how frequently people leave the table without coming close to finishing, and, if you really pay attention, how rare it is to see anyone actually eat and swallow anything. The reasoning here is simple and even comical. Assuming it takes 6 or 10 takes of a large dining scene—say Thanksgiving—no actor is capable of consuming 6 or 10 times an average serving. To remedy this, buckets are strategically placed beside each actor, and while they may take hearty bites of food and chew them realistically, the moment the director calls "cut", the food is spit into the buckets.
Next time you fly on a typical airliner, try to have a conversation with the person beside you without at least slightly raising your voice. And just for fun, place your iPhone in the seat beside you and record a few minutes of your dialogue. While the words might be discernible, much more prominent would be the noise generated by the deafening roar of the engines just outside the windows. Apparently in movieworld planes are much quieter.
People who come to your house to visit in the movies are much more impatient than real people, ringing doorbells and knocking again after waiting about two seconds for someone to open the door.
Streets are always wet. Unless you're in the industry it's unlikely you've ever noticed this but in most big movies (and all car commercials) a large water truck is always on hand to spray down the streets that appear in the shot. Why? Dry streets look dull and dusty, while wet ones reflect light and shimmer. Obviously you don't see this in westerns, but watch a typical movie in an urban setting and pay attention to the streets. One can only assume it rains a lot more in movieworld, albeit not when the cameras are rolling.
The odds of highly defined shadows being evident on the sidewalk during a bad downpour are very low, unless of course the rain is coming from rainmakers placed off frame on an otherwise sunny day, as it almost always is in movies. Oddly, these shadows are generally muted by large scrims that mute harsh sunlight and serve to even the light and allow the cinematographer to direct the artificial lights where he wants them without interference by passing clouds or darkening skies. But when it rains, in most cases the scrims would have to be placed too high and be too big to be practical and so natural sunlight is allowed to rain down on the scene along with the fake rain, unless the cinematographer got lucky and shoots on an overcast day, which is very difficult to predict and plan for.
No one finishes a meal, at restaurants or at home. There are notable exceptions, like a Soprano's-type movie where gorging on big meals is key to the development of the characters. But watch a typical drama or family scene and notice how frequently people leave the table without coming close to finishing, and, if you really pay attention, how rare it is to see anyone actually eat and swallow anything. The reasoning here is simple and even comical. Assuming it takes 6 or 10 takes of a large dining scene—say Thanksgiving—no actor is capable of consuming 6 or 10 times an average serving. To remedy this, buckets are strategically placed beside each actor, and while they may take hearty bites of food and chew them realistically, the moment the director calls "cut", the food is spit into the buckets.
Next time you fly on a typical airliner, try to have a conversation with the person beside you without at least slightly raising your voice. And just for fun, place your iPhone in the seat beside you and record a few minutes of your dialogue. While the words might be discernible, much more prominent would be the noise generated by the deafening roar of the engines just outside the windows. Apparently in movieworld planes are much quieter.
At night when people are driving, whether in a well-lit city or on a dark suburban street, their faces are surprisingly well lit. Next time you're out on the road after dark, check out the passengers in the front seat and see how easily you can make out their facial expressions. Then go home and watch a movie, and you'll notice that it's much easier. Why? Most often the solution is a light bar placed strategically on the dashboard pointing at the passengers, creating, once you notice it, a very artificial and inexplicable light source on the actors' faces.
Yeah, that was a long post. Cheer up, guys, next there will be only funny pics.