CSI SPOILERS - Why I have trouble watching certain shows

[RCR]

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

Add to that the fact that:

Your clunker of a car will run perfectly for 40 years, until you are being followed on foot by a lunatic in a hockey mask wielding an axe. In which case, it will, of course, fail to start.

And when you're driving, you can have long conversations with the passenger next to you, facing them directly, not needing to look at the road ahead.

And you don't need to lock your car when you park it.

Gee, RickyMaveety - you've really started something here.

[ShortNCuddlyAm]

And if the female lead is wearing makeup, it stays perfect no matter what.

[pshrynk]

If someone who gets murderd has a psychiatrist you have to look no further, just go and shoot him. That would decrease the looong boring program by about 40 minutes, maybe, but what the hell, you can sell more ads.

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by pshrynk

If someone who gets murderd has a psychiatrist you have to look no further, just go and shoot him. That would decrease the looong boring program by about 40 minutes, maybe, but what the hell, you can sell more ads.

Yep ... it's usually the psychiatrist .... I mean, unless there's a butler.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

Yep ... it's usually the psychiatrist .... I mean, unless there's a butler.

[Patricia]

Have you noticed how, in Golden Age detective novels (Agatha Christie, John Dickson Carr etc.) if there's a male secretary then he almost always committed the crime?

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by Patricia

Have you noticed how, in Golden Age detective novels (Agatha Christie, John Dickson Carr etc.) if there's a male secretary then he almost always committed the crime?

Yup .... and I also noticed homosexual undertones in most of those characters. In a society where that sort of individual was suspect simply for existing, they made great mystery villains.

If you ever watch the movie version of "Murder on the Orient Express" ... Tony Perkins got the character down to a "T." Of course, I'm sure it didn't hurt that Mr. Perkins was gay himself (or bi-sexual at least ... he and his wife seemed to have a good marriage).

Wow .... did I wander off topic or what?? Of course, name a thread where someone didn't wander off topic and I'll buy a round of drinks.

[Slite]

Originally Posted by ShortNCuddlyAm

Thankfully I never seem to see too many IT professionals portrayed on TV or film

Which might purely be because I watch so little of either...

I sort of stopped bothering even noticing all the horrendous screwups as soon as computers and IT is inolved in movies when they had Sandra Bullock telnet to an email-address in "The Net"...

[pshrynk]

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

Yup .... and I also noticed homosexual undertones in most of those characters. In a society where that sort of individual was suspect simply for existing, they made great mystery villains.

If you ever watch the movie version of "Murder on the Orient Express" ... Tony Perkins got the character down to a "T." Of course, I'm sure it didn't hurt that Mr. Perkins was gay himself (or bi-sexual at least ... he and his wife seemed to have a good marriage).

Wow .... did I wander off topic or what?? Of course, name a thread where someone didn't wander off topic and I'll buy a round of drinks.

Corrupt a Wish. I try and I try and I try.... That thread is iron bound!

I'll have a zany carter deluxe with a side of hay, please!

[slayda]

Going back several posts, ZP, you actually can correct motion blur. There are algorithms for both motion blur and focus blur. You can even add resolution if you have several shots to work from. However there is no way to add resolution to a single shot of an image.

Sometimes I also get tied up with the inconsistencies or errors and sometimes I just go with the flow. I do find it amusing that in the autopsy rooms the "private body areas" are always washed out due to too much light no matter what the viewing angle is.

Another videography trick I've seen is panning down a famous actress's body where they switch in a body double (or any other pan substitution). There was a movie some years ago with Andie Dickinson did a shower scene where a body double was used. I had a friend who swore that it was her. When I explained how they did it, he watched the scene again and realized I was right.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by slayda

Going back several posts, ZP, you actually can correct motion blur. There are algorithms for both motion blur and focus blur. You can even add resolution if you have several shots to work from. However there is no way to add resolution to a single shot of an image.

Sometimes I also get tied up with the inconsistencies or errors and sometimes I just go with the flow. I do find it amusing that in the autopsy rooms the "private body areas" are always washed out due to too much light no matter what the viewing angle is.

Another videography trick I've seen is panning down a famous actress's body where they switch in a body double (or any other pan substitution). There was a movie some years ago with Andie Dickinson did a shower scene where a body double was used. I had a friend who swore that it was her. When I explained how they did it, he watched the scene again and realized I was right.

well, i'm not surprised you can correct motion blur (technology is amazing), but nonetheless it would be a miracle if they could really get such great results from one frame of a security camera video ! (or a licence plate which goes from a one-pixel blip to a high-def photo with every detail...)

i am generally pretty good at suspending disbelief when i watch a film, otherwise it would get too annoying. and i like escapist entertainment. i actually had almost exactly this conversation with a friend of mine once about shows like NCIS and Cold Case ; he's a photographer and musician and knows a lot about the different programs you can use to manipulate sound and images so we also touched on all the amazing information you can get from recordings of noisy, distorted telephone calls for instance...

anyway my own personal conclusion is, i'll never commit a crime, because i've seen those shows and i know, no matter how perfect i think my crime is, they'll catch me !



so how do they switch out an actress during a pan shot ?

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

so how do they switch out an actress during a pan shot ?

Magic. No. Really. Just as magicians use misdirection to shift your attention for an instant, or momentarily block an object (but in such a way that you don't really notice the block), TV uses the same tricks to jump from one actress to the other... and of course, computer enhancement makes it a lot more seamless than it used to be.

I never got into the CSI shows, but only because I reached my decades-long cop-show threshold at the end of Hill Street Blues, and have never looked back.

Another one for TV Cop trivia: TV cops only need one bullet to hit their mark... sometimes two, for ranging. Bad guys (with the exception of professional snipers) need a clip or two.

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

so how do they switch out an actress during a pan shot ?

Actually, there is a movie by Brian De Palma called "Body Double" that goes into the process with some practical detail. Essentially, they have a set of markers (sometimes with a hidden support structure). They move one actor out of the scaffold and then move the next one in ... making sure that the hands, feet, navel .... whatever .... are exactly where they need to be with the markers.

Then they start shooting again. If push comes to shove, they can always clean things up in post processing.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Actually, they can often do it in one shot, depending on how the shot is set up... for instance, if there is some obstacle blocking the view for even a second (say, a column or curtain passing between the actor and a tracking camera), an actor can literally take a step to the side, and the double steps right in. In shower scenes, steam and shower curtains, and even mirrors, can accomplish the same thing.

I used to laugh it up in action scenes, where a man would go diving into a room through a window, say, land behind a sofa... and the actor pops up to continue the scene. The actual stunt double is still behind the sofa, and the actor was waiting for him to land there before coming up. In-camera (or one-shot) gags are always easiest, but when you know what to look for, it can be painfully (and laughably) obvious sometimes!

[Over]

Originally Posted by Patricia

And (on television) police officers never seem to lock their cars.

And it's not only police officers.

That always confused me.

Another thing that I always thought ridiculous is how the hero would endure being beaten, shot, burned and keep going and kicking ass. In the end, when the pretty girl is tending the wounds, he would complain like a cry baby.