Lens cap?

[petermorwood]

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow was on one of the Sky movie channels last night, so – since the lens cap question had been itching at me since jaxomsride commented about it in the previous post (yes, I have that sort of mind when it comes to annoying detail) – I recorded the movie on the Sky+ box and had a look.

Reminder to self before watching: this is a movie where aircraft can become submarines, so cut it a bit of slack (or check critical faculties at the door.) Okay, the techie-ness is just about acceptable in a deliberately pulp-style "1930s scientific romance", but I wish the plane-to-sub procedure didn't start with a near-vertical high-speed dive into the sea. Hmmm. Memory says that Gerry Anderson's "Supercar" did the same thing (complete with the same Ju-87 Stuka dive-siren sound effect. Deliberate homage, or just coincidence?) Water doesn't compress, and the effect would be similar to a high-speed dive into concrete, as happens to the pursuing Villainous Flying Machines. So we've got selective compressibility, that can tell the difference between Good Guys and Bad Guys...

But the camera/lens cap business isn't wishful thinking, it's just carelessness: like the scene where an automatic pistol becomes a revolver (that's not "is replaced by"; it's "turns into".) You'd think that in a world full of people willing to hit "freeze-frame" at the slightest provocation, continuity editors would be more careful; it seems the reverse is the case. The camera, size and shape of a brick though it is, comes and goes as required, occasionally hung over Polly's shoulder but just as often nowhere in sight - and that dapper suit she wears a lot of the time doesn't have big enough pockets for other explanations.

(1)The lens cap is in place when we first see the camera; there's a close-up after she opens its case in her newspaper office, right at the start of the movie. She doesn't remove the cap on-screen, but it certainly isn't in place when she's photographing the giant robots, or during any other occasion when she’s taking – or putting off taking – photographs.

(2) It's back in place when she and Sky Captain first see Totenkopf's Space Ark; she removes it to take her last available photo, but doesn't use the shot and doesn't put the cap back on, either.

(3) And finally, it isn't in place in the final scene, despite being specifically mentioned - in fact being the very last line of the movie. Either it was a truly sloppy continuity error (right up there with the disappearing-reappearing tank turret of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) or an equally sloppy bit of direction, since what must then be assumed to be one character deliberately winding-up another isn't properly resolved.

Ah well. Not my problem. And the itch has been thoroughly scratched, so that's all right.

Comments

(frozen)

[pnh.livejournal.com]

I have been extensively mocked by friends for caring about this, but I was bothered by the movie's heavy use of the typeface Helvetica in newspaper headlines, signage, and on the sides of RAF planes. Helvetica was designed in 1956.

(frozen)

[dewline.livejournal.com]

And there are perfectly serviceable shareware fonts that were designed to mimic the RAF and RCAF airplane marking codes of the period available too, designed by one August Horvath, as I recall(perhaps imperfectly). But production schedules are what they are, I suppose...

(frozen)

[petermorwood.livejournal.com]

The devil is in the details...and since Sky Captain was something like 90% computer-generated, it would have been so easy to get those details right (no third-party costume/prop rental company to screw things up - or of course, to blame.)

I wouldn't have noticed the typeface anachronism myself, but I have the same twitch-response with things that I do spot - usually military, based on years of making tanks and planes, or painting figures of everything from Greek hoplites on up. Never mind paying for an expert (whose contract says "must be paid" but not so far as I know "must be heeded"), just send the production people to any general or hobby bookshop, buy the appropriate Osprey titles for the movie's period, and base the major visuals on their excellent colour plates.

(frozen)

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes. I definitely checked a good portion of my brain at the theatre door when I saw it on the big screen last year. Only the parts needed to indulge in the theatre's ideas of movie-watching food and checking some of the nods to other pop fiction from across the media spectrum from video to print were fully functional. I daresay a good number of my fellow OSFS friends (http://osfs.ncf.ca/) who saw it with me will happily confess to the same state of mind.

I didn't even pay attention to the continuity of Polly's camera, sad to say. Or maybe not so sad...?

(frozen)

[petermorwood.livejournal.com]

The camera continuity was just a nitpick; the lens-cap continuity was, because of that last line, rather more to the point. A point which in the event was a pretty blunt one.

(frozen)

[dewline.livejournal.com]

No argument there.

So much for my "put my brain on hold" experience, it seems...

(frozen) If you're going to be picky...

[carpdeus.livejournal.com]

Assume that the plane (which is technologically advanced enough to turn into a submarine) also has a gizmo that penetrates the water to create a hole replete with shockwave to slow the plane down to allow it to "tunnel" into the water until it has slowed enough to wrap the water back around it.

BUt, given it was created by a genius, it does this in the time it takes for you and I to blink.

The 1,634 planes that either pancaked as though hitting cement, tunneled to the bottom of the ocean before letting the water touch (and consequently crush) the plane, or disintegrated because the water refracted the shockwave to an extent that the rivets were shaken out would have been pointless cinematic fluff so they were left out.

Will have to pop the DVD in and check special features on the stuka sound... could go either way.

(frozen) Sky Captain

[(Anonymous)]

Did you find yourself questioning the physics/accuracy etc when tearing around in Crimson Skies? And did you manage to complete all the photo stunts without wondering where the lens cap on the plane was?

I was more bothered that the sequel was a) An X-box exclusive and b) Not nearly as good when I finally got to play it.

When Sky Captain came out it disappointed me that it wasn't nearly as much fun as Crimson Skies had been. Somehow it managed to lose the thrill and spectacle of the game. I know the producers denied being inspired by it in any way but apply the rules of what defines plagiarism and see how many points tally.

Targaid