Things you're tired of seeing in movies
- Thread starter Joosh
- Start date
The point is, the effort required to keep track of that, and the amount of repetition required, wearing out the actors and maybe not ever getting as good a performance as that one good one two hours ago when the martini glass was wrong, is very time consuming and expensive and unless you're Stanley Kubrick you don't have the luxury.
Well, it's about timing: you don't speak with your mouth full of foodSo, to take a bite and then chew it and swallow it...and then speaking your lines...time is money!
Every time an actor "plays" with their food it REALLY pulls me out of the scene. Like constantly picking at it with a fork, moving it around on the plate, trying to NOT have to actually "eat" the food.
You just described my children.
Riceball
Master Member
Given how many takes a single, even brief, scene can take, can you really blame an actor for not wanting to eat the food in a given scene? That one shot you might see in the finished scene on screen could easily have been take 11 out of 16. Would you really want to eat what's probably cold food for a potentially countless number of takes?
I totally understand the practical on-set reason for this scenario.
It still irks me every time.
joberg
Legendary Member
When my father was making movies (that was his passion, as a hobby on the amateur circuit in Europe) the crew was OCD about continuity!!
Sometimes I wonder how a simple thing like two people eating/drinking at a table for a scene can be so messed-up by the pros
If they can't take care of such simple shots how can you count on them for the complicated ones?
All good points have been made about it: timing, practicality, food getting cold between takes, editing the best scenes during that part of the movie, etc... But, how come we could do it, us little amateurs, and the pros couldn't do it?
You have fake movie set food and drink bottles. Plates are glued to the table so nothing gets "moved". Nobody touches it at all during the scene, they simply hold their utensils and lean over while speaking to each other. All cups would be opaque so you could not see the changing quantity of liquid within.When my father was making movies (that was his passion, as a hobby on the amateur circuit in Europe) the crew was OCD about continuity!!
Sometimes I wonder how a simple thing like two people eating/drinking at a table for a scene can be so messed-up by the pros
If they can't take care of such simple shots how can you count on them for the complicated ones?
All good points have been made about it: timing, practicality, food getting cold between takes, editing the best scenes during that part of the movie, etc... But, how come we could do it, us little amateurs, and the pros couldn't do it?
Which would mean that the solution to the second complaint (continuity issues) was solved by and is the reason for the original complaint (actors not eating the food in the scene).
On the topic of food, what irks my wife and I is how often people get up from a meal with a mostly untouched plate of food. Occasionally there is an emergency, sure, but most scenes, they just get up to go do something normal. Ever heard of a doggie bag? Or just forget continuity and show a mostly empty plate... the food just vanished when the camera wasn't on it. At least it's more of a normal way to leave a meal. One of our pet peeves for sure.
And since I'm ranting... why does EVERYTHING in a sci-fi universe have to have lights on it. I noticed in the last couple of episodes of Mandalorian... EVERYTHING had lights. I get that you want to make something mundane look sci-fi... but we're living in a world now where LEDs are common place, so it's not impressive anymore. Just have normal props doing normal things. A box can be just a box with lights on it.
And since I'm ranting... why does EVERYTHING in a sci-fi universe have to have lights on it. I noticed in the last couple of episodes of Mandalorian... EVERYTHING had lights. I get that you want to make something mundane look sci-fi... but we're living in a world now where LEDs are common place, so it's not impressive anymore. Just have normal props doing normal things. A box can be just a box with lights on it.
Indy Magnoli That is 100% Star Trek The Next Generations fault!! Growing up I thought all the light patterns were so cool. Now I work in electronics and an array of blinking lights is annoying. Honestly the only thing that matters on the Tricorder is the screen... a screen that is so small it's illegible so there's room for a bunch of pointless LEDs. It's not about sense, it's about adding visual interest... I get that, but it's so overboard as to be laughable.
Riceball
Master Member
What's even worse is when it's on military personal equipment. Why would send out troops carrying things that are lit up all over, lighting them up like a Christmas tree.
p51
Sr Member
Yeah, just like EVERY space suit in sci-fi has to have lighting on the face of the person in the bubble helmet.
On "Space: Above and Beyond" it was especially vexing on a show that tried better than other military sci-fi concepts in other ways, to have lights on the faces of those trying to move tactically.
They often do that with NVGs in movies. I've never worn them, but I would assume you don't see the eye pieces lit up because you'd just shoot at the green circles in the dark.
I remember reading about some scifi show, I forgot which (maybe BSG reboot), where the actors said they couldn't see out because their faces were lit up by the pilot helmets.
p51
Sr Member
I'd never thought about that. All the NVGs I wore (usually PVS7s) had eyecups and I never once saw a green glow on someone else (and for sure they'd pick up such a glow if you could see them). I think the movie NVGs are orders of magnitude brighter than the real ones so you can see that glow.
And you're right, that'd defeat the purpose of having them.
Similar threads
