Things you're tired of seeing in movies

[p51]

In any old war movie, the one guy who seemed to know everything going on, when nobody else does. Think of the "Sarge" character in "The Big Red One," who wasn't even shocked when they liberated a concentration camp, as if any GI back then would have had a clue the first time they'd come up on one, unless they'd heard of other being liberated before they got to one.
NCOs are usually well ahead of the other enlisted soldiers, but they only know what they can learn!

Or seeing CIA agents with ID that says they are members of the CIA. That is all well and good for the FBI but your a spy so you don't go around advertising it, at least I don't think they do as I have never knowingly met a CIA agent.

It depends on where you meet them. In the right place, you'll see logos and related info for "The Company" all over the place. heck, I once went to a military hiring fair and the CIA and DIA booths had their logos all over the place. The CIA recruiter said he the most common comment he got was people saying they expected him to be sitting around like in an empty booth.
But in the field, yeah, you won't see anything with a CIA logo. In the Army, I saw people who if I had to bet, would have put money on them being with the Company, but you never knew for sure.

 

[Riceball]

Or seeing CIA agents with ID that says they are members of the CIA. That is all well and good for the FBI but your a spy so you don't go around advertising it, at least I don't think they do as I have never knowingly met a CIA agent.

Not entirely unrealistic depending on what position/role the CIA agent has and where they are. Stateside, esp. in any CIA building I wouldn't be surprised to see them wear ID, even less so if they're just an analyst, drone operator, or a simple clerk. But an actual CIA spy out in the field, yeah, they probably wouldn't do that. But then again, most spies don't do the kinds of things we see in the movies, most of the time they're working from the embassy and their field work typically involves handling people who work for "the other side" and get them to provide with the information and/or documents they want. There's generally not much risk for most spies since all of the major nations have a gentleman's agreement to not do anything to each other's spies. Now, in some little dirt ball of a 3rd world country run by a ruthless dictator, a rogue nation like North Korea, or one that's effectively lawless like Somalia then yeah, you had best be careful since they would almost certainly not hesitate to make any spies they caught disappear.

 

[Strikerkc]

I can just imagine some star wars nerd CIA spy reading the RPF, and having a good belly laugh at how utterly wrong we probably all are.

 

[Riceball]

What's been bothering me lately are some, what you might call, cinematography tropes, camera angles that are being overused. The big one for me is where they film characters talking, almost always the protagonists, from kind of far away and often with some furniture or a wall in the way giving the suggestion (at least to me) that someone is listening. But once the scene plays out we find that it was simply what the DP thought was an interesting camera angle and it turns out there was no one else there after all. It bugs me because every time they use that sort of camera angle I always get the feeling that someone is eavesdropping and it's kind of disappointing (in a way) when it turns out that there's no one else is there.

On a similar but slightly different note, there's shooting from behind a character that's eavesdropping or playing the peeping Tom. They always frame it so that the character listening/looking in is off to one side of the frame, you see their subject off to the other, then after a minute or two watching them do this, someone slips in behind them and points a gun at their head. This is done either by a 3rd party and the subject is left blissfully unaware of what's going on, or it's the subject themself who has slipped away and snuck up behind the person spying on them. It's gotten so predictable that once you see the scene set up you know that it's going to happen. I saw this most recently in Wu Assassins and as soon as I saw the scene, I immediately told my wife that he was going to get caught and sure enough, he got caught.

 

[p51]

I can just imagine some star wars nerd CIA spy reading the RFP, and having a good belly laugh at how utterly wrong we probably all are.

Well, a couple of people on this forum (myself included) really could give specific answers to these questions but know that they shouldn't. I suspect a third on this forum I know of might be able to as well...

 

[DARTH ANIBAL]

Shhh...

Think good OPSEC.

 

[edge10]

Well, a couple of people on this forum (myself included) really could give specific answers to these questions but know that they shouldn't. I suspect a third on this forum I know of might be able to as well...

You could tell us, but then you would have to... you know.

 

[PantheraGem]

What's been bothering me lately are some, what you might call, cinematography tropes, camera angles that are being overused. The big one for me is where they film characters talking, almost always the protagonists, from kind of far away and often with some furniture or a wall in the way giving the suggestion (at least to me) that someone is listening. But once the scene plays out we find that it was simply what the DP thought was an interesting camera angle and it turns out there was no one else there after all. It bugs me because every time they use that sort of camera angle I always get the feeling that someone is eavesdropping and it's kind of disappointing (in a way) when it turns out that there's no one else is there.

I think we (as the audience) are supposed to feel like we're the ones eavesdropping. Thing is, it's (over) used now to look edgy or something. Spielberg used this to great effect in "Schindler's List" so that we felt we were eavesdropping on a very high stakes chess game Schindler was playing with Goth.

Now, it just "looks cool".

 

[p51]

The 'news' camera angles that are popular for now. It's one of things that I didn't like about the BSG re-boot, a camera following something and then does a double-take as a space ship enters the frame from an unexpected angle.....????
That, and the camera shaking when an airplane or car roars right past. It's not a documentary!

 

[p51]

Things that are quick in real life, happening slowly on movies:
1. When the power goes out in a large area, you see it go out building to building or block by block. I've never seen a large scale power outage occur from a distance, but I'm pretty sure it all goes out at the same moment...
2. When a digital countdown for a bomb gets to '0', it pauses before it blows up. Generally, the millisecond it gets to zero, the boom has happened.

 

[Laspector]

Do things really have self destruct mechanisms? Seems every kind of vehicle in movies has one. I don't know that I would feel too great flying around in something with one. One quick glitch in the system and blooey.

 

[p51]

Do things really have self destruct mechanisms? Seems every kind of vehicle in movies has one. I don't know that I would feel too great flying around in something with one. One quick glitch in the system and blooey.

Components of certain aircraft and vehicles do (and did) in the military. But, no 'self destruct' button I'm aware of other than in some spy planes (because you wouldn't want a bad guy nation getting their hands on a largely intact U-2 or SR-71 in the height of the cold war).
Most self-destruct in the military was instructions on what to do if you're going to lose something you want to deny to the enemy. For example, plenty of soldiers would tape thermite grenades to the steering columns of Jeeps in WW2. That way, you only had to yank the pin and run and the Germans/Japanese wouldn't be able to drive it later from the quick way to disable it. And the 'Norden' bomb sights on many US bombers was considered a secret level device as to how it worked. the bombardier, if going to bail out or if the plane belly landed on enemy soil, was to take his .45 auto pistol and pump at least one round through the center of it.
I also know B-52s had self-destruct buttons for some devices on the plane, but I don't know if they still have that.
I worked on a test of some new M1 tank upgrades right before 9/11, and there were ways to disable some of the stuff connected with that, but I can't go into the details.

Now, as for movies, I think 'Alien' had the most realistic and plausible self-destruct mechanism in all of sci-fi history. There was a very specific and lengthy procedure which was even marked how to 'scuttle' the Nostromo if ever needed. You could even read how to do it off the inside cover of the panel Ripley opened. I can think of several reasons why you might want to be able to nuke a large space ship in transit, and it was pretty clear they were just melting down some manner of fusion engines by cutting off the cooling (perhaps like a crown sheet failure on a steam locomotive). "Nuclear bolt" is mentioned in the directions, though...

 

[Treadwell]

Speaking of camera angles: this isn't about movies, but rather broadcast TV and especially videos for YT and other non-broadcast material.

You have a host speaking to camera. Then they cut to another camera off to the side, usually handheld, at a sort of "behind the scenes" angle that shows the host speaking but also light stands and stuff.

FOR NO REASON.

In editing it's nice to have another CLEAN angle in case you need to stitch things together. But that's not how these are being used. They're just other angles....because.

DRIVES

ME

CRAZY

 

[Riceball]

Components of certain aircraft and vehicles do (and did) in the military. But, no 'self destruct' button I'm aware of other than in some spy planes (because you wouldn't want a bad guy nation getting their hands on a largely intact U-2 or SR-71 in the height of the cold war).
Most self-destruct in the military was instructions on what to do if you're going to lose something you want to deny to the enemy. For example, plenty of soldiers would tape thermite grenades to the steering columns of Jeeps in WW2. That way, you only had to yank the pin and run and the Germans/Japanese wouldn't be able to drive it later from the quick way to disable it.

I think that a thermite grenade is the most common way the military has for self destructing. When I was in the Corps I was in the DASC (Direct Air Support Center) and we had these remote radios (control units that were separate from the actual radios) in our shelter and they had a plate/decal/marking that told us where exactly to place a thermite grenade on top of it in order to guarantee destruction.

 

[AJK001]

I think that a thermite grenade is the most common way the military has for self destructing. When I was in the Corps I was in the DASC (Direct Air Support Center) and we had these remote radios (control units that were separate from the actual radios) in our shelter and they had a plate/decal/marking that told us where exactly to place a thermite grenade on top of it in order to guarantee destruction.

I recently saw a documentary on the Thunders Runs made into Bagdad and when one of the Abrams Tanks was knocked out I believe they used thermite to destroy any tech they wanted to keep out of the hands of the enemy since they had to abandon the tank.

 

[p51]

I'm sure many of you have seen "Band of Brothers" wherein they attacked a battery of German 105MM guns at Brécourt Manor in Normandy. They used 1 pound blocks of TNT, set off by German grenades as they had plenty of them lying around. I'm sure they'd have loved to have used thermite, as those breech blocks shattering from the TNT wouldn't have made for a good time if you were too close.
FYI, for those who don't understand artillery, yeah, they're built to channel an explosive force toward the end of the barrel, but not something moving as fast and hard as high explosive (and yes, there is such a thing as a low explosive). It's like pumping something way too volatile into the cylinders of your car's engine. Something's gotta give.

I recently saw a documentary on the Thunders Runs made into Bagdad and when one of the Abrams Tanks was knocked out I believe they used thermite to destroy any tech they wanted to keep out of the hands of the enemy since they had to abandon the tank.

Just toss one into an M1 turret's ammo storage (with the armored door to that compartment wedged into the open position) and run like heck. When propellants from the projectiles go off, it goes up like a blowtorch. I've seen a tank's charges in the turret cook off and it's a truly frightening thing (even when nobody's in there). It can get enough of a draft to partially lift a turret up where it's no longer sitting on its rails as turrets just sit in the hole under gravity and are not bolted to the hull. Looks like a rocket motor was set facing with the vents pointed upwards toward the TC's hatch.
Just goggle tank on fire (add Syria if you want) and you'll see some truly horrific ones (I'm sure not all were unmanned at the time, and hopefully those crews were already KIAs before then).

 

[p51]

Maybe I wrote this here before, but every airplane diving or getting ready to crash since 1940, has to sound like the siren on a Stuka dive bomber, even though the real Stukas often didn't even carry the sirens (a Luftwaffe pilot vet confirmed this to me in the 90s).

 

[Senden]

I think that a thermite grenade is the most common way the military has for self destructing. When I was in the Corps I was in the DASC (Direct Air Support Center) and we had these remote radios (control units that were separate from the actual radios) in our shelter and they had a plate/decal/marking that told us where exactly to place a thermite grenade on top of it in order to guarantee destruction.

The old technical manuals from WWII had even better disposal instructions.

The preferred way to disable and M1919 .30 cal or M2 .50 cal crew served machine gun was, I kid you not;

Step 1: Remove the bolt and throw it in a lake
Step 2: Unscrew the barrel
Step 3: Using the barrel. beat the hell out of the receiver and working parts until they're too bent to function.

 

[p51]

When someone asks another how they (or a third character) is doing, you hear the response, "As good as can be expected."

Writers love using that phrase but who the heck talks like that?

 

[PantheraGem]

When someone asks another how they (or a third character) is doing, you hear the response, "As good as can be expected."

Writers love using that phrase but who the heck talks like that?

Actually I kinda do. The best I usually say is "alright" or "ok". People don't like it though. I tell them if I ever say "great" or "wonderful" they should probably worry about me. I'm a lot of fun.