Watching movies through audio geek eyes. What's your observations?

[Chris Davis]

Re: Watching movies through audio geek eyes. What's your observations?

What network is Letterman on now? RCA owned NBC.

What I find interesting: the desk mics are essentially props or set dressing. The boss is double-mic'd lavs...

His probably was just a prop. Many years ago, I remember seeing a show where Letterman stopped whatever it was he was doing, said "Wait a minute. I think I know what the problem is". Then he unscrewed the windscreen on his desk mic and poured out a bunch of worms.

 

[Chris Davis]

Re: Watching movies through audio geek eyes. What's your observations?

Here are two I recently made:

In the latest Mission Impossible movie there is a Behringer DJ mixer installed in one of the workstations at the satellite relay station.

In the last movie before that, when Laurence Fishburne is standing over Tom Cruise in restraints in an interrogation room, the view through the one-way mirror from the control room has a Yamaha DM 1000 in the bottom of the frame.

So, do you have any observations to share?

I have all kinds of old movies, so I will have to have a look through some of the 1960's and newer sci fi stuff and see if I recognize any audio equipment they had.

I do remember this though, there was a TV show called Time Tunnel (1966–1967) which used old IBM computers/radar equipment as computers (not just studio-created props).

TIME TUNNEL COMPUTERS aka ANSF-Q7 of Air Force SAGE Radar Systems Today - YouTube

TIME TUNNEL COMPUTERS - Wordpress site

 

[Geoff Doane]

Re: Watching movies through audio geek eyes. What's your observations?

Then there's a dj cd player and what looks like a professional beta recorder.

That Beta recorder looks like a Sony DAT recorder to me. Either a PCM R500 or R700.

Hey, I like to think I can geek with the best of them. :blush:

One of my personal favorite TV show props was the gizmo being held by Harold (on the left below). It's the transport panel from an Ampex VR-1200 2" VTR, one of my responsibilities on my first summer job, back in 1979. The keyboard grafted on below the transport panel is even more obscure. It's the qwerty keyboard used for titling tapes for an Ampex ACR-25 dual 2" video cartridge recorder/player, a truly massive and complicated piece of broadcast equipment, that was the other half of my job that summer.



GTD

 

[Geoff Doane]

Re: Watching movies through audio geek eyes. What's your observations?

Then there's this scene from Tomorrow Never Dies, where James Bond and the villain's henchmen trash an SSL. According to a trainer at SSL, the the production actually bought the console, had it commissioned, and then used it in the fight scene.

James Bond - Tomorrow Never Dies - Recording Studio Punch Up - YouTube

GTD

 

[Chris DeVoe]

Re: Watching movies through audio geek eyes. What's your observations?

Then there's this scene from Tomorrow Never Dies, where James Bond and the villain's henchmen trash an SSL. According to a trainer at SSL, the the production actually bought the console, had it commissioned, and then used it in the fight scene.

James Bond - Tomorrow Never Dies - Recording Studio Punch Up - YouTube

GTD

I thought Phil Spector was the only one who did that.

The singing into the mic wrong thing drives me nuts! The most egregiously abused one is the venerable SM55. Pretty much any photo featuring one being used by anyone other than Elvis, they are singing into the solid metal top!

It looks like people other than sound pros get annoyed by this.

 

[Ivan Beaver]

Re: Watching movies through audio geek eyes. What's your observations?

Back when TV was first finding its way into American homes there was a show called "Captain Video". It was pretty much shot in an office annex or warehouse. The "steering wheel" or "hatch release" was an old wall-mounted fire-hose reel and the Morse code key was an office stapler. They were pretty much using the same things we used at home to play "spaceman" short of taping together old cardboard appliance boxes to make our "spaceship". It was a great day in the neighborhood when someone got a new hot water heater, bathtub, kitchen range or the like. Those big old boxes were like gold for us kids.

And for summer time sliding fun we used the old waxed cardboard to sled down any hill with that slick, long prairie grass.......

I pity todays kids peering into electronic games.

I loved sliding down hills on boxes. Or even better yet was to crawl into the boxes and ROLL down the hill with some other friends inside. Getting all banged up was part of the fun

 

[Ivan Beaver]

Re: Watching movies through audio geek eyes. What's your observations?

The radio spl meter has been used quite a number of times as a sensor of sorts

 

[Chris DeVoe]

Re: Watching movies through audio geek eyes. What's your observations?

Any complicated question can be easily answered by a Simple-Easy to understand- WRONG answer!

H.L. Menchen, one of the greats!

 

[Robert Lofgren]

Re: Watching movies through audio geek eyes. What's your observations?

I thought Phil Spector was the only one who did that.

The singing into the mic wrong thing drives me nuts! The most egregiously abused one is the venerable SM55. Pretty much any photo featuring one being used by anyone other than Elvis, they are singing into the solid metal top!

It looks like people other than sound pros get annoyed by this.

For some reason the directors doesn't like to have a big piece of metal in the middle of the actors face covering most of it and a sm58 isn't as cool looking (even if they share the same capsule)