fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #6036 ]

[ SECRET POST #6036 ]

⌈ Secret Post #6036 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

__________________________________________________

02.

__________________________________________________

03.

__________________________________________________

04.

__________________________________________________

05.

__________________________________________________

06.

__________________________________________________

07.

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 37 secrets from Secret Submission Post #863.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

02. https://i.imgur.com/PAhtNVZ.png

I could forgive the bad CGI, I could forgive the "we're at war!" but it's literally 15 dudes fighting, I could forgive the "we're a major sect!" but they shows maybe 30 people tops in the major sect. But WWX's flute playing? Completely kicked me out of the mood they were building. His fingers were going 50 miles an hour on that flute for a SUSTAINED NOTE. This shit drives me bonkers.

LOL. I read this comment, recognized the fandom references, then got confused because I didn't remember seeing a secret about The Untamed so I scrolled back up, got confused again and then came here to respond.

Anyway... I know what you mean, nonny! Lots of bad fake flute playing in cdramas. And I don't know how the guquin is played, but I suspect a lot of bad faking guqin playing as well.

Lan Xichen too. Half the time his mouth is like a full inch away from his flute, that thing is resting on the man's chin.

Yes! I saw that and thought... is that actually how it's played back in historical times or did nobody tell the guy that the instrument has to actually touch your lips?

Had this issue with the Scorpion King in Word of Honor. Love the actor, love what they've done with the character in comparison to the novel, love his look.
That scene where he first appears, "playing" a pipa? He just sorta strums/hovers his fingers over the strings (that are not even taut, they just flop around) while a very obvious plucking sound is played. It's so obvious and bad and I don't even play a stringed instrument.

How was Fassbender's flute playing in Prometheus?

AYRT

I had to get drunk to watch it (long story) so I don't remember. I just remember the whole movie being shit writing.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2023-07-17 00:52 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2023-07-17 01:35 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2023-07-17 03:17 (UTC) - Expand

Can relate to the general sentiment. My friend and I were watching a movie that involves a watermill, and one, the director apparently did not care that the actors were constantly having to deal with thick, cold mud to walk between any building and any other building (even in early modern times, people did things to avoid that), but two, they treated the sacks of flour like any other heavy thing. Handling them with muddy hands, at one point I think even throwing one down in the squelching mud. The water alone would have ruined it. And a major plot point in the story was that there was famine in the land. The protagonist had been trying not to starve before he got a job at the mill. They work so hard to produce this fucking white powder. And ... yeah. Apparently no one on set saw a problem.

We would have been mad if we hadn't looked at each other and stared laughing, but if it was a thing that happened over and over in different movies, like your faked violing playing, I bet it would get really old, really fast.

Fellow violinist here, totally agree! I try to be forgiving when the actor is at least trying, because yeah being good at faking violin is something that's going to take more than just a few weeks with an acting coach. Sometimes though...they don't even try. The sound editing matching the visuals should be a given though, and yet it's apparently something quite difficult to do because so very very few movies/shows get even close to it. No finger/bow movements on rapid notes? Lots of finger/bow movements on sustained notes? Are you even trying here?

I have to say though that my all-time favorite musical nit-picking in movies/shows is historical music :} booooyyyy your clarinet is about seventy years too modern for your story's time period, your audio is of a modern orchestra when you clearly have an early music ensemble in the shots, did you even TRY for musical accuracy in a period movie about a historical composer?

Not a violinist, but I played several instruments as a kid and I always, always judge the fingering for instruments in TV shows/movies and it's rarely ever right. It doesn't tend to take me out of the thing I'm watching but I will make fun of the thing for it. As you said: it's not hard to fake the basics of it and I wouldn't expect an actor to get the exact correct strings, but so many rarely even get the fingering in time, let alone in the correct approximate places.

I dabbled in electric guitar in my college years, so I usually assume the actors are going to fuck it up and be so fucking fake that when they don't, and actually finger correctly, it's a happy surprise.

doubly so for animation. they didn't have to animate that proper Cmaj fingering but they did and good on them. The sequence of Roger playing "Classical Gas" in American Dad is *chefs kiss*.

I think it's funny when a show or movie has someone playing the piano and they clearly aren't playing it. They just shoot the actor sitting at the piano, then cut to a close up of an actual pianist playing and sometimes... the hands don't match. Like you've got an actress with slender, delicate hands, but the pianist you've chosen is probably a dude. Or vice versa, someone who's got rather thick, sausage fingers then cut to a pianist with slender fingers. It's HILARIOUS.

I find it interesting that animated movies like Coco and The Corpse Bride worked incredibly hard to match characters hands playing to the music (and by all accounts it was a MASSIVE pain in the ass) but real live people won't commit to a week of lessons to learn how to position their damn fingers.

did Jeremy Brett at least do it right? he's my favorite Holmes.

I don't know if this will help or not, but there's an episode of Leverage where Hardison pretends to be violinist, but it only came about because the actor, Aldis Hodge, was learning violin. They tried to be as accurate as possible, within the bounds of the show and story. It's season 3, episode 4, The Scheherazade Job. The DVD commentary is pretty interesting.

Yeah, that episode is annoying because you can't just pick up a violin after 10 years of not playing and play something difficult, your fingers won't be able to do it! But the actual violin playing is pretty good!

I love that episode for this reason (hey, at least they tried lol), and also because Scheherazade is IMO one of the most beautiful pieces ever written.

I can see how this could take you out of the moment, but personally I'm not inclined to blame the actor. IMO it's far more the responsibility of TPTB to make sure there's a consultant on set to help them get the details at least passably right--and actually listen to the consultant's pointers.

If the actor seems reluctant to work with a consultant and brushes it off, then sure, it's on them when they do a bad job of faking it. But otherwise, it's mainly on the production, IMO, to give the actors the resources they need to do their job well.

I've seen respected actors say that about bad accents in movies, too. The ridicule and mockery falls on the actor when their accent is terrible, but most of the time they simply weren't given nearly enough time with an accent coach, or weren't given an accent coach at all.

I would blame post production for the music not matching the violin strokes in some cases. I'm sure that the actor has the music playing via an earbud or even aloud while filming to try and line things up but most music is added in post production, so its entirely possible that the strokes line up when its being filmed, but doesn't later when the final music is added.

I feel this so hard with piano. It's very obvious to tell when it is an actor fake playing versus an actual pianist. Or if it's truly bad, completely unsynched keys played and notes.

Tbf it's better for piano playing on film/TV than it is for violin. I don't play violin, but even then, it's so painfully obvious when an actor doesn't know how to play and is clearly uncomfortable with the instrument.

Best take I've ever seen on TV with violin playing was in Ted Lasso with Nate and it was only great because the actor who played Nate plays irl.

With piano you can also just do the Casablanca thing and frame the shot so we never see the character's hands.

Have watched a lot of TwoSet Violin vids of them roasting/assessing violin play in movies, shows, tv spots, etc. - somehow that makes me feel better about it, at least I'm not suffering alone.

As a fellow musician, this is one of my absolute pet peeves! If you're going to pretend to play an instrument, at a minimum you should be able to hold it properly and move your fingers in rhythm with the music.

As a fellow violinist, I totally agree. I'm not expecting an actor to become Jascha Heifetz for a part, but I'm like, "You're spending millions to make this movie and/or TV show. Can't you put forth a little cash to teach the actor how to hold the instrument properly?" I have the same view when it comes to other instruments.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only