It is known that there is nearly no film in the world that has been produced perfectly with no mistakes and errors. And so with this essay I’d like to describe and analyze those concentrating only on the most common mistakes in film productions due to limitations of the lenght of the paper. I’ve chosen 10 films as an example, which are best 10 of 2010 for IMDb Database. Those are: Inception, Toy Story 3, the Tourist, Crazies, the Social Network, Kick-Ass, Due Date, How to train your dragon, Buried, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1.
First of all, I found that very often one can notice errors in continuity of a movie. For example, when the staff didn’t pay enough attention to the set, and what we get as a result: «When the car rolls through the car wash and is outside, in one shot the driver's side door is open. A few shots later the door is closed. Next shot after that the door is open again». Or when even an actor forgets his own look in a previous shot: «A scene at the truck stop where the sheriff is being pulled down, and under the rig, his right hand is not bandaged as he hits the ground, and it appears the left one is. As he lands on the bottom of the bay his right hand is bandaged again».
Another obvious mistake is having a daylight and night in one scene: «When Arthur collects Cobb in Tokyo, they leave the hotel room and go to the roof for the helicopter at night. When they are on the roof, it is daylight». Same mistake can be seen with weather conditions as well: «When Saito enters the helicopter and tells Cobb about the inception plan, hard rain is hitting the helicopter window. Subsequent shots show no rain». Disappearness of something can be noticed by the viewers almost in every film: «When Judy shoots the hunter inside the semi-truck, blood covers the inside window. It disappears once they begin driving».
We can see that there are all sorts of continuity errors in film production. I suppose, the only solution for preventing them is to have a special person, whose work would be to take records of the scenes, have photos each time there is a crusial thing to remember, preview previously taken shots of the film to make sure everything is on its place and in right order. I think, those kind of positions actually exist in a film crew, but probably they forget about their responsibilities, and pay less attention than needed to these kind of trivia.
I’ve also met factual errors in some films, usual viewers do not pay attention to them, but there are some who notice. Here is an example from one of such: «The mayor says that shutting down the water supply in the spring time would be bad for the farm economy, because the crops would not grow. Corn (and all crops) in Iowa does not grow with irrigation; the water supply comes entirely from rain».
Another huge mistake comes from anachronism, for example: «The deejay at the 2003 party is mixing with a music software called Serato Scratch Live, which did not get released until May of 2004». Errors in geography are quite common as well: "The boat in the swamp had a license on the side that started with an A. The A would match with a state that started with an A, yet the movie was taking place in Iowa. (In the credits, it said the movie was filmed in Arkansas and Georgia, so this must have been Arkansas)". Visibility of the crew of equipment is highly not recommended, as it can totally ruin the whole atmosphere and impression that film tries to give to its viewers. «When Cobb confronts Mal at the hotel, in front of the open window with billowing curtains, a crew member's fingertips can be seen through the sheer fabric».
Though these kind of errors are severe mistakes of the whole production crew, in my opinion, they are still quite easy to solve. Factual, geographical and anachronism mistakes can be avoided during the pre-production, it just needs some deeper research. As for the crew visibility, that’s entirely of the production team responsibility, especially of the camera man. He is the actual person who sees what is being shot, and what are the borders, over which the team shouldn’t be seen. During the production period, the director cannot pay that much attention to those little things, he concentrates himself on the overall effect of the work. Therefore, these mistakes fall on sholders of the crew. Of course, with new technologies it is now easy to hide some mistakes during the post-production. But as we can see, it is rarely done well.
No comments:
Post a Comment