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Old 10th Jan 2010, 8:20 pm   #21
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Default Re: Historical accuracy in films

Now I know who makes all those comments about goofs and anachronisms on the Internet Movie Database.
www.imdb.com
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Old 11th Jan 2010, 12:45 pm   #22
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"Glorious 39" was in cinemas a month or two back about the months leading up to WWII. A radio was featured, I think it was an RAP so all good. When said receiver was switched on, light emanated not only from the tuning scale, but from the large speaker cloth area too! Clearly a pigmy lamp had been placed inside the set for instant switch-on and dial ambience, but the loudspeaker itself had gone. What puzzles me is this - the radio was was being "listened to" by two actors of fairly advanced years (70s at a guess). They must have known it looked farcical, I'd have thought one of them might have said so. It would only have taken a bit of cardboard or something inside to shield the lamp from speaker cloth.
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Old 11th Jan 2010, 2:37 pm   #23
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Default Re: Historical accuracy in films

Hi
The director is often to blame for these errors. I have a friend whose job is to furnish sets for many West End productions, and often she has to run off and find something that he likes the look of though she knows it isn't period.
I remember supplying some items for a semi-pro 'recording studio' set for a TV programme set in the 1980s. I had a mixer and a Revox ready for them, but the director preferred the look of a Nagra 4, though it was too modern and would not have been seen in any recording studio as it's a portable machine!
Glyn
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Old 11th Jan 2010, 2:39 pm   #24
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Default Re: Historical accuracy in films

I really like that Hovis Ad , Yes DaC90 as useual !Has anyone noticed an even later set in the bombed house? looks like an early 50s regentone laying on its front to me
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Old 12th Jan 2010, 12:00 am   #25
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I remember having a chat with a lighting-cameraman who was making a short documentary with a friend of mine (who went on to become the producer of Tomorrow's World! - but he was a nephew of Karel Reisz) in 1969 and he was using a Nagra which looked very much like a 4 (or IV). According to Wikipedia the first IV came out in 1968 and further developments of it (including the stereo) came out in the 70s so it wouldn't have been too new for the 80s, but as you say, not likely in a recording studio, but then neither would a Revox have been, unless you mean the Studer models. A Nagra would be more useful to a professional than a domestic Revox.
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Old 12th Jan 2010, 9:36 am   #26
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Default Re: Historical accuracy in films

Quote:
Originally Posted by David G4EBT View Post
..........anyone who can copy Morse at about 10WMP will recognise the word being spelt out in this Kraftwork track:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXD6Gtinvbc&NR=1

Well then!!?...................

Well as someone who doesn't understand Morse Code but knows how to use Go Ogle i have come up with NOTHING!!!!!

Please put me out of my misery, i love this track and have often wondered!!

James.
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Old 12th Jan 2010, 9:42 am   #27
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Default Re: Historical accuracy in films

"Radioactivity is in the air for you and me".

There are several pop songs containing morse for example the song “Miss Morse” from the album “One Nation Underground”, but some of it is obscene.
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Old 12th Jan 2010, 10:31 am   #28
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Default Re: Historical accuracy in films

Like Rejectostat, I too have often wondered how these set dressing mistakes can get by so many people involved in the production "chain". First, the production designers followed by the set dressers, the studio staff (from floor manager to sound to cameras to scene men), the editors and not to mention the engineers! I put it down to the director's whim (as Glyn said) or the typical lackadaisical attitude of today's program makers and publishers.

Brian
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Old 12th Jan 2010, 11:37 am   #29
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The production designer will generally understand the period detail of any historical drama with a reasonable budget, whether film or TV. The director will often modify or disregard the designer's advice though, either for dramatic effect or to save costs. Precise historical accuracy isn't the main priority in a work of entertainment.

Directors use DAC90s a lot because there are plenty of them around and they are instantly identifiable by the average viewer as an 'old valve radio'. It may seem odd to us, but many people simply wouldn't recognise a historically accurate radio as a radio at all.

Sometimes factual inaccuracies are difficult to understand though. The first Mission Impossible film has a long action sequence in the Channel Tunnel involving a TGV train. TGVs have never run through the tunnel and it wouldn't have cost any more or have affected the plot in any way if the train were a Eurostar.

Paul
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Old 12th Jan 2010, 3:32 pm   #30
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The one which always comes to my mind is 'Ice Cold in Alex' (aside from Syliva Sims.....) everything is 'period' (1943 I think) until the very last few seconds when the Bedford army truck pulls away to reveal an early 1950's Series I Land Rover!

Barry
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Old 12th Jan 2010, 3:43 pm   #31
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What about the German Sherman? In period, but not correct.
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Old 12th Jan 2010, 10:30 pm   #32
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Default Re: Historical accuracy in films

Or "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines" which has a stunning aerial shot of.........

Goldington Power Station!
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Old 12th Jan 2010, 11:22 pm   #33
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I`ve noticed black and white TV sets displaying colour pictures. At the beginning of "Rab C. Nesbitt" there are two TVs, a Sony KV-1300UB Trinitron colour TV and a Sony TV9-306UB black and white TV, both with colour pictures! I know Rab C. Nesbitt is a comedy show and not meant to be historical, so I can forgive them. But I`m sure I remember an episode of "Life On Mars", supposedly set in 1973, where John Simm wakes up in front of a black-and-white TV displaying a colour test card! It appears most people have forgotten that black and white TVs ever existed.
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Old 13th Jan 2010, 12:01 am   #34
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Default Re: Historical accuracy in films

speaking of life on mars they had a kt3 - in 1973!!
I remember the Rab c nesbitt, 'colour' tvs, one looked like a mono sony 9-51 I think.
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Old 13th Jan 2010, 1:57 am   #35
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speaking of life on mars they had a kt3 - in 1973!!
Strict historical accuracy simply wasn't a priority for the LOM production team, and creating a vague 'period feel' seems to have been all that was required, despite a large portion of the audience having personal memories of the period. The most notorious 'artistic licence' was the portrayal of the Mancunian Way as being in the early stages of construction in 1973 (it opened in 1967.) It's also very unlikely that GMP DCIs were allocated Ford Cortinas in 1973 - most forces with Ford fleets allocated Granadas to senior officers, as correctly portrayed in The Sweeney.

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Old 13th Jan 2010, 9:46 am   #36
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Another Series 1 Land Rover makes an appearance in 633 Squadron!
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Old 13th Jan 2010, 10:09 am   #37
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Default Re: Historical accuracy in films

I think they do it deliberately to amuse geeks
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Old 13th Jan 2010, 11:04 am   #38
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Are we amused?
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Old 13th Jan 2010, 11:08 am   #39
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Quote:
Originally Posted by brenellic2000 View Post
The one which always comes to my mind is 'Ice Cold in Alex' (aside from Syliva Sims.....) everything is 'period' (1943 I think) until the very last few seconds when the Bedford army truck pulls away to reveal an early 1950's Series I Land Rover!

Barry
I noticed this, I knew I wasn't seeing things! Always puzzled how a vehicle can drive for miles with an overheated engine and steaming radiator. Still a good film though.

There is wallpaper covering a modern light switch in the 'Black Beauty' tv series, and a white van going across the hill in the background.

Another film had a four engines aeroplane turn into a two engine one in flight before landing with its four back again
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Old 13th Jan 2010, 11:33 am   #40
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There is wallpaper covering a modern light switch in the 'Black Beauty' tv series, and a white van going across the hill in the background.
One has to differentiate between contemporaneous 'howlers' and an inability to eradicate modernity from one's production: Care is needed for both, though.

The latter is often difficult to achieve (although the Battle of Britain bell-push ought to have been masked), what with framing the camera to mask out immovable modern infrastructure. The former, to my mind, is unforgivable; the result of incomplete and hasty research, and has a subliminal 'knock-on' effect on its viewers, who will eventually come to believe that such historical innacuracies are, in fact, true '...because they seen it on the telly, innit...'
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