Roosters

[Guest Theo Hiswrae]

Greetings to the Group,

It seems I'm on a lucky streak...this time I've caught a wardrobe blooper in MLM #216 "Roosters":

At approximately 0:19 Frank Black enters the office of Clear Knight, and his shirt collar is above his leather jacket on the right side as he sits down. The scene cuts away to a medium-shot of Clear Knight, then quickly returns to a close-up of Frank. However, now his collar is tidily tucked away.

Yet when he stands up to shake Ms. Knight's hand and leave, his collar is again up on the right side. During the hand shake, Ms. Knight offers Frank a position with Aerotech (aka Odessa). As he declines the offer, we see another close-up of Frank, again with his collar tucked in.

After giving it some thought, I've concluded that perhaps the 2nd. Unit was tasked with the close-ups for that scene, or something of that nature. And the Continuity Director missed it. Please find 2 pertinent screenshots attached.

(I hope this is the proper forum for this post. If not, please feel free to let me know where bloopers & continuity errors are to be posted. Thx!)

As always, you have my gratitude for the wonderful support I've found here at TIWWA; you fine folks help keep me rolling!

Best Regards,

Theo

[ethsnafu]

Well, well, well. Frank Black had a wardrobe malfunction eh?

As always that's some eagle-eyed perceptiveness and I don't ever recall spotting that myself. Errors like these tend not be as glaring with Millennium as they are with some television shows and films. I know Laura shares my penchant for movies where continuity is all but abandoned (usually as the result of an inexperienced film-maker being at the helm) and characters enter and exit scenes in entirely different costumes and at entirely different times of day. Things like that are great fun.

Congratulations on another great find and thank you for sharing these with us all. I imagine the next time any of us watch "Roosters" we will be eagerly awaiting this particular goof to see it for ourselves.

Eth

[Earthnut]

Theo, you amaze me, you are always spotting something the rest of us have missed.

Last night I was watching Edge of Darkness with Mel Gibson, and he's sitting at a table with a man who took a swig of his drink, leaving some in the glass, put it down, stood up, and poof, the next shot, the glass is empty. Legion must have been thirsty.

[IHaveGoodInstincts]

In Exogesis, Baldwin's shirt changes between the time when he is in the morgue with Hollis and when they both end up in Andy's office afterwards. It's that part where Baldwin tells Hollis to "Run-directly-to-his-office."

And Frank is practically smiling in the shot from Roosters!

[Libby]

I think the continuity people are among the unsung heroes/heroines of TV/film production. Usually, when filming, there's only one camera, so in scenes like the one in Roosters, the entire scene is shot twice, one where the camera was facing Lance, and the second where the camera was facing the actress. The lighting is often set up twice as well, a different setup for each shoot. So, there'd be a time gap between each version, and that's where these slight changes can creep in.

Sometimes, the other actor isn't even there and a crewmember steps in and speaks the lines from the script. On occasions, the two versions can be filmed days apart.

When all the filming is done, the editor decides which bits to use and splices them together, and produces what looks like a contemporaneous conversation.

A similar sort of thing happens with recorded interviews for TV. I recall one particular assignment I did, many years ago, which was transcribing the audio from a filmed conference and an interview. All the producer needed was a rough version so he had a structure for editing purposes. I didn't understand the need, but didn't quibble – the filming was done on a Friday and they needed to work fast on the editing starting on the Monday morning, so I did the transcript over the weekend (double pay!). When I got almost to the end of the filmed interview, the interviewer did the winding-up and thank-you bit and I could hear the interviewee leaving and then the interviewer said, "Ok, let's do the noddies." I could hear someone moving around, there was a brief silence, and then someone said, "Ok, that's enough." Then the audio track ended. When I delivered the transcript on the Monday morning, I asked what the "noddies" business was all about. The entire interview was done with the camera focussed on the interviewee, but because it's a bit boring watching one person all the time, some shots of the interviewer nodding, responding as in a normal conversation, were intercut to break it up a bit. It was strange to realise that the silence on the tape was the interviewer being filmed while nodding in the direction of an empty chair.

[Raven Wolf]

Hey, thanks for that! A continuity catcher after my own heart!

I still grin with childlike sillyness when I point out the Dana Scully "now she's naked/now she's not" scenes in the 1st X Files movie!