How did they do that?

As mentioned elsewhere I consider myself a student of TV & Film – having worked in it, taught in it and as a consumer for decades. So I can’t watch anything without picking it apart. I’m always looking for transitions in the script. I am a continuity freak. I hate it when news programs cut away to the over-the-shoulder or reaction shot and it so obviously doesn’t match the shot before – usually in terms of lip movement. (watch 60 Minutes and see how many times they do this in one interview.) I realize as a sometimes shooter that with one camera, turnarounds have to be done at a different time. But at least try to match things up. Still I understand the limits of local one-man-band television stories. But I can’t understand how it ever happens on TV or in movies but I think I’m going to start making a list of every time I notice a continuity problem.

My most recent case in point is more than just continuity.

The older parts of my family watch Shark – the latest Thursday night drama that follows CSI. Now this is a procedural or courtroom drama that should be fairly predictable in style, order – those sorts of things. Well somebody decided to ratchet up the action with a hostage situation and a shoot-out. My first thought about all this is that the whole crew must not have ever shot a gunfight scene before.

OK now to get picky.

I pick up where a cop-gone-bad exits a warehouse holding a little girl (his hostage). A multi-member LA swat team awaits; they have the place surrounded. So far so good. I know the guy will look like swiss cheese when it is over.

I tried to describe this shot-by-shot but on paper you can’t spot the problem. The main two problems are: 1) numerous shots are fired but somehow only three hit the bad guy and at least one hits an innocent person trying to help. If this is indicative of the quality of an LA Swat team, it is a good thing Keifer Sutherland and CTU are based in LA. 2) the scene lasts about 1 minute 50 seconds. No dialogue. No continuity. It drove me crazy. So crazy I watched it several times at normal speed then watched it once frame-by-frame to see if maybe I had missed something. I missed something alright – it is a mish-mash of action but very little to tie it all together. I guess somebody thought it they sped things up, fired lots of bullets, nobody would notice that the scene didn’t make any sense. But before you know it, the bad cop is dead and the innocent attorney who was just trying to help is down and seriously wounded. (SPOILER ALERT: He dies in the following scene.)

Anyway, this kind of stuff drives me crazy. Maybe after this week’s re-run they’ll return to just badgering the bad guys and each other and get back to the business of being lawyers. I feel sorry for the guy that died. Hopefully for him he had another better series and this allowed him off the show. Or maybe he was being difficult and the producers decided he had to go.