Butchers Hook Blog

With multi-million dollar budgets one would imagine that every care would be taken to ensure that the celluloid marvels of the Silver Screen would be free from gaffes and howlers. But, with large crews, reshoots and human error an unavoidable part of the process these blunders will always creep in.

20.  In Time

Movie hot property Justin Timberlake and beguiling Amanda Seyfried get wrapped up in a highbrow thriller but continuity took time off when her Smith & Wesson 945 lost its magazine between shots.

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19. Meet the Spartans

In the egregious spoof of 300, Britney Spears is pushed into the Pit of Death but you hear her talk and scream without moving her lips. The same experience as seeing her at her live shows then...

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18. Iron Man

Marvel favourite, Iron Man, catches an SUV thrown at him by evil Iron Monger and holds it vertically. The passengers’ hair is suspiciously untouched by the effects of gravity.

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17. Battle: Los Angeles

There are three hours to go before the bombs drop. A marine sets his countdown timer on his Casio G-shock GW-9000 Mudman. All well and good except that the watch only has a one hour timer.

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16. The Book of Eli

The eponymous tome is revealed to be The Bible in Braille. Unfortunately for Eli, the fragment he’s carrying around is far smaller than the 15 or so volumes it would take.

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15. The King’s Speech

Well-known for many gaffes this flick has one that stands out for design buffs. An early ‘On Air’ sign is written in the Helvetica font, one that would not be invented for 30 years.

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14. Chronicle

When the three telekinetic teens are playing with Lego, Matt is told to play music from his iPod but you can see that the sound is off and the iPod is actually paused while the music is ‘playing’.

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13. X-Men: First Class

Anachronistic fish are the undoing of a tense scene. The aquarium in the CIA lounge plays host to blood parrot cichlids: hybrid ornamental fish bred in Taiwan in the 1980s and did not exist in back in 1962.

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12. Avengers Assemble

Captain America’s alter ego, Steve Rogers, falls foul of some dodgy SFX when he strikes a punch bag so hard it bursts and flies across the gym. The chain it was hanging from remains completely still.

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11. The Artist

Promising a revival of the silent movie, this touching tale features scenes of filming that include clapperboards. As any film buff knows, the clap is used to synchronise the sound with the film – not something that would be used before the ‘talkies’.

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10. Battleship

Going unnoticed by the production crew and location scouts, there is a scene where a character is arrested in ‘Hawaii’ but there is a billboard in shot. Billboards aren’t legal on the islands as they spoil the beauty so the location must have been filmed elsewhere.

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9. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

Product Placement seems to be a necessary evil in filmmaking today. Sometimes it can be unobtrusive enough not to take your attention away but if you’re a Mac fan in the audience then the sight of the Mac OS X10.4 operating system running on the MacBooks will disturb you as it was never available on the models shown.

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8. Man on a Ledge

Sometimes, detectives are Holmesian in their deductions and other times like in this film they must be clairvoyant. During the moment when ‘Joe Walker’ nearly meets an untimely death, Detective Mercer calls him ‘Nick’ despite having yet to hear his real name.

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7. War Horse

Occasionally, directors will deliberately use factual errors as part of dramatic licence. This was the case when a cavalry charge against infantry saw the riders holding their swords aloft and not down where the enemy would be.

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6. The Woman in Black

An unusual mistake crept into this unsettling shocker. On one day the tide will be out at 5pm but mere days later it will happen at 11pm: an amazing feat of astrophysical impossibility.

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5. One for the Money

Film adaptations of book series are nothing new but it is surprising that a series now trading on its past glories gets its first movie. Remember the famous Dirty Harry scene where our eponymous hero counts the number of bullets fired? Well, the logic fails badly here when Stephanie fires her five-shooter 12 times without reloading. In a later scene she manages to squeeze off seven rounds.

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4. Titanic

Calling all metalwork devotees! When Jack is handcuffed to a pipe, the elbow joint is anachronistically a welded join and not the bolted flange as would be expected.

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3. Star Trek (2009)

Among non-Trekkers, the logarithmic warp speed scale can be confusing but anyone with observational skills would view Chekov’s remark of needing to get to warp 4 with disdain as the display shows their current velocity as warp 4.31.

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2. The Hunger Games

Dodgy weaponry abounds when Katniss aims an arrow at Cato while having Peeta in a headlock. Her fletchings are on backwards, making her attempt at a straight shot impossible.

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1.  Prometheus

Historians will balk at Charlie’s assertion of the ‘unconnected cultures’ of Sumer, Babylonia and Mesopotamia that are in fact pretty much the same geographical location just from different eras.

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All images in this article are used under a fair use policy. All rights reserved.

We were very pleased to be invited to work once again with global leading memory stick supplier SanDisk for the conceptualisation and production of some great new videos. These videos feature on SanDisk's branded Amazon pages as well as on the European SanDisk website.

They are instuctional web videos showing how to get the best from SanDisk SSD drives and how to use features on various compatible cameras.

The videos feature the talented presenter and blogger Dave Stephenson, who'se website you can see here

The videos themselves can be seen here.

We were approached by the very talented Gavin O'Mally-Richardson to co-produce a drama short to be directed by award winning New York film maker Pierre Stefanos.

A step away from our usual web and corporate video output the short, "Brighton" - is a uplifting tale of love lost and found again. Here are some pictures of the shoot on Brighton Seafront. I can say 5 hours in bright sunshine is a recipe for redness - particularly if, like me - you have fair skin!

Pierre, Gav and co have been bravely battling the elements this week - including the blazing sunshine on Tues/Weds, Coast Guard helicopters overhead most of Tues and having to abandon a night beach scene last night due to "fierce" wind and rain! I wonder if Pierre knew what he was letting himself in for shooting a film with lots of exteriors in the UK! (even in June!)

We'll be covering progress on "Brighton" as Pierre heads into the edit suite and with subsequent promotion at film festivals! who knows - we could be award winning short film producers soon!

Luke

Our fantastically named sound recordist - Merlin!

That's a shawl on her head - not a DoP with a hunch back!

Beach and a bit of flesh - a rare achievement this summer!

You can see the coast guard helicopter in the background here.

Recently promoted clapper loader Oli

Our camera for the shoot - a Canon C300

Recently Evan was asked to write the first of a series of video production articles for industry leading camera review website dpreview.com. You can see the result by clicking the dpreview.com picture above. The article covers some classic lighting tips for DSLR cameramen who want to light their corporate videos properly.

dpreview is one of the top 1,000 most visited websites on the Internet, according to Alexa. The website itself claims that "These days the site is one of, if not the, premium digital photography site with an audience of seven million unique visitors a month reading over one hundred million pages"

For the second year running we were invited to produce a corporate video for a new Remeha product. You can see the video here.

A bit of fun today - with this awesome 80's fest of a corporate video from ADP. Why arnt we allowed to make corporate videos that rip off cultural events like "We Are The World" any more....?

In fairness to ADP - their video presence is MUCH better nowadays

Not the usual chat about corporate video today...

The folks at Uni-versal Extras have got in touch about the casting of extras in a new Marvel film (my bet is that it's Thor 2) If you fit the criteria get in touch with them

We are starting to cast for a new blockbuster feature film about one of the Marvel super heroes.

Filming will be starting this summer.

Role 1: Muscular males and females

We are looking for males and females with athletic and muscular body frames from any ethnic background.

Requirements:

-you must have a Muscular or athletic body frame.

-You must have easy access to London

To Apply: Please upload a full length photo on to your profile of yourself either in Underwear or swim wear showing your physic.

Role 2: Blond haired Muscular males and females

We are looking for BLOND haired males and females with athletic and muscular body frames.

Requirements:

-You must be blond or fair haired.

-you must have a Muscular or athletic body frame.

-You must have easy access to London

To Apply: Please upload a full length photo on to your profile of yourself either in Underwear or swim wear showing your physic.

If you are not registered with us you are welcome to apply for this role only. To do this please send us the following information to info@universalextras.co.uk:

Full Name:

Age:

Contact number:

Height:

Basic measurements (Chest, Waist, Inside Leg, Shoe, Collar, or dress, bra, waist, shoe etc):

Location:

Whether you drive:

A current head shot photo of yourself & body shot in either under wear or swim wear: (digital head-shot please in front of a plain background i.e. a plain wall taken with a digital camera)

If you are not fully registered with Uni-versalEXTRAS please only send emails for the roles that state you can apply for them as a non member.

T: 0845 009 0344

Uni-versalEXTRAS

.....Dare To Be Different!

www.universalextras.co.uk

We have decided to embark on a small series of video production internships here at Butchers Hook Video. More details can be found here.

Here is a nice little web video we made for Caroline of Wired Sussex. Caroline is raising money for a charity bike ride across Peru for Breast Cancer Care and hosted a night in conjunction with Stick It On in Sticky Mike's Frog Bar in Brighton.

Here's a long in gestation web video for a new client The Door Maker, who manufacter premium replacement kitchen cabinet door fronts for clients across the UK. It was ably produced by Steven Probets using AfterEffects and time lapse photography.