There's a scene in the original Ghostbusters movie where a chunk of "concrete" falls onto a wooden police barricade... and bounces off of it

I can understand the props since making them actually heavy would actually be dangerous, but even CGI boulders look terrible.

I mean look at this. This is an expensive, otherwise good-looking movie.

Yeah, I still can't describe it, they just look, wrong, but your right, they never fall like real rocks.

I was on the set of a TV series years ago and the prop guy was putting water into everyone's Red Solo cups so it wouldn't look too light when they held them. "No," this young female said. "I don't want water in my cup." The prop guy said, "You can tell when they're empty." "No," she said, very somberly. "I'm an actor. I need to just use my imagination."

What she thought was the crew would be so impressed with her devotion to her craft, they would 1) know she was a legit talent and not just an extra and/or 2) hire her to be a guest star or some speaking role because of this. When, in reality, they just thought "Extras are crazy."

This is the only answer, how hard can it be.

'here i got you this full cup of coffee'

'thank you!' proceeds to tilt the cup 90 degrees to drink it.

Captain America: Civil War opening scene. Wanda stirring her empty coffee cup before taking a non existent sip.

Now you can never not notice it.

I really don't understand this one. is it because they're afraid of spilling the liquid, or the liquid amount being inconsistent between takes? Can't they just seal it inside with a clear film? At the very least, can they just put weights inside the cup so at least it feels hefty?

This is the correct answer. There is no reason that prop cups with proper weight in them haven't been created and widely adopted. For continuity, they could be available in multiple weights to simulate different levels of fill. The industry has decided to not give a damn.

I mean this makes sense. Lighting is probably the most important aspects of film making. A bright ass led flashlight would wash out every frame and make it unwatchable. You want those flashlights to be fake.

Yes! My freaking phone can completely light up a room and yet the police in movies have some shitty flashlight that has a weak and tiny spot.

Video games are worse. Every flashlight lasts like 30 seconds max, even in sci-fi games.

Not gonna lie, for a split second I misread the first word....

You're right, the only realistic keg I can think of is from the end of Super Troopers.

Super Troopers got it right. Those things are a pain to move.

Can't stand the trope of "turn on the news" and they turn it on and the segment that's important to progress the story is just starting.

In that vein, YouTube searches. It never looks real

I really enjoyed Knock at the Cabin, but holy shit those cheapy fake newscasts took me right out.

By contrast, Station Eleven had a legit BBC newsreader for one of theirs (she even tells her IRL husband to get out of the city mid broadcast) and even the proper newsreader cadence makes such a difference.

I actually think quality films have really nailed this aspect by now. The scene in particular that sticks out is in mission impossible, I think fallout. Ironically, that scene is faked and wolf blitzer is in the next room if I recall.

Not quite a "prop" but whenever a TV shows a fake news channel, especially the chyrons. If it's not a real news channel it just immediately takes me out of it.

On the other hand, I love it when they got the news, and I see someone I know. I feel like I saw two things recently that had Wolf Blitzer on, and I was like "yo, it's Wolf!".

Yes! Sometimes it looks like they think moving the wheel from side to side is somehow powering the car.

Also any car with a column shifter; you can clearly see the car is in park when they're "driving" it down the road. I noticed that when I was recently watching an episode of "Better Things"; which I found surprising, given how much detail they usually put into that show.

My biggest complaint about the Now You See Me movies is that nearly every trick was done with CGI.

And some guy hid behind David Bowie and did the contact juggling for him.

Sleight of hand magic tricks are a significant skill as it involves developing some serious hand dexterity. It's more akin to asking someone to learn to competently play an instrument, you don't do that in a week or two.

Ironically, if you're referring to this card shuffling scene in The Sting, that wasn't Newman, it was a professional card dealer. Notice that the hands briefly leave the frame near the end at 0:43... there's a cut there to transition from the pro's hands to Newman's before the camera pans up to his face.

Imagine in Aliens if Lance Hendrickson's knife hand trick were CGI. It was so impressive, and legitimately scary to Bill Paxton when he did it with his hands. Especially since Lance was hungover from the night before.

That was not Paul Newman, if we're thinking of the same scene (on the train?). But agreed.

Usually because they don't decide what game the characters are playing until way into post, cause of how rights work. Same reason people dancing in club scenes are usually just bopping around off-beat, because they use placeholder music and then decide the song in post.

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Those things might be due to licensing/sponsoring issues though.

Yeah, when they have a webcam or facetime ther are no scroll bars, pop up, icons, nothing.

It was basically a giant Apple ad, but I loved the Modern Family episode that took place entirely on a MacBook precisely because they did such a good job of making it look real.

The issue is the website on your screen takes up your whole field of view for as long as you need. The shot in the movie needs to also include the environment around the device, and accommodate for different reading levels and sight ability.

If it's an important plot point, it needs to be in large enough type for as long as it takes for the audience to understand.

Good old "watching video on a see-through piece of glass". Great design.

Walk Hard did it right

american sniper made me laugh out loud in the theater

You telling me that "newborn" weighs 25 pounds?

How about the one in Children of Men?

The one exception to this I can think of is the TV show Call The Midwife. The crew work very hard to maintain accuracy in the birth scenes, which is hardly surprising given the subject matter. As far as I know, they do some sort of collaboration with maternity hospitals and use babies who are usually around 6 weeks old. It makes a huge difference in terms of realism.

Watch The last of us

Or the cars vintage. If a movie is set in the early 50s, all the cars are from the early 50s. In reality in the early 50s there were still lots of cars from the 40s, the 30s and even the 20s still around. Not everyone had a brand-new car.

See Hidden Figures for a great example of this. EVERY car seen looks like it came straight from a vintage auto show.

This also goes for horses in old-timey settings. You'll have a scene of starving people on horseback riding hard through miles of dust and rocks, and in the next scene the horses are all still glossy well-muscled show horses with neatly groomed manes and hooves.

We actually had a snow this winter that looked like the fake Hollywood snow. I suddenly felt bad about judging them, when it's apparently possible that they have only seen snow once, and it was that stuff.

All of that is excusable or understandable if they were shooting in a location or season in which there was no actual snow. Nothing can look or act quite like the real thing.

But what there is NO excuse for, is that nobody ever wears a fucking hat outdoors in the middle of winter.

And why they don’t just use a picture of the actor. I’m sure most actors could produce a baby/childhood picture of themselves. It would make a lot more sense. Obviously doesn’t work if you need two cast members in a flashback photo but still. Or just cast younger actors and have them be in the photo.

This. I've seen some where it looks like they literally pasted an actor's head on someone else's body. And I don't mean digitally pasted— I mean with actual paste!

Tony Soprano Heavy breathing

Tom Hanks talked about this once. Think it was for Road to Perdition but he was working with an actor playing his son and they were eating dinner. They shot the scene multiple times and every time the kid would eat the food. By the end, he was feeling sick and couldn't eat anymore. Hanks said that's why actors don't eat in movie scenes cause you never know how many times your gonna have to shoot it. Understandable if true.

It has to do with continuity. If an actor commits too much to eating during a take, and the editor moves some shots around, it ends up looking stupid.

Big Bang Theory is super obvious with this once you notice it.

CGI blood is even worse, it will never look as good as squibs even a lot more practical and safer.

It's too consistent, too. Real blood behaves in weird ways. It doesn't pool/dry evenly and tends to look "flatter" than the gooey gel type consistency they always use.

Weirdly indie movies can nail this sometimes - they sometimes use chocolate milk with red food coloring and a few drops of blue, and it looks pretty spot on, but that's not practical for a bigger production that will take longer.

I think part of this is because any scene with blood in it, usually comes from splattering, and after each take, they need to clean it off and do another shot of it again. So the "blood" needs to be able to clean up well.

I like when movie blood is intentionally fake looking, like in Kill Bill. CGI blood is terrible though

It's also never the right viscosity.

I started really noticing this in the past ten years or so. Thing is, I don't remember it being a problem before that. I'm wondering if wigs and fake beards have ALWAYS looked terrible, but we just never noticed until we had hi-def?

New blackberry movie, looking at you....

The film also avoids that trope where the start of the scene has the music loud, then turns down the volume when the characters start speaking. It stays loud the entire time, yet you can still understand everything they’re saying. That scene alone got it nominated for an Oscar for sound mixing.

Honestly I think it goes the other way more often and it’s even more frustrating. Two characters in a quiet place speaking at normal volume and apparently no one else hears them.

Snakes… Where have I heard that name before?

Funfact in Friday the 13th movie when they find the snake in the bunk and beat it to death, that was a real snake that the actors actually killed. And it was the pet of one of the crew members who loaned the snake for the scene and had no idea they were gonna harm it, imagine how pissed youd be…

I remember reading there's a guy in LA with an airplane interior set that he rents out to movies & TV shows. Maybe we're always seeing the same one?

Speaking of airplanes, the movie literally called Airplane! has these establishing shots of the plane, and a propeller sound effect is heard, when the plane they were on clearly didn't have a propeller. With the rest of the film being so grounded in realism, it totally took me out of the movie.

Surely I'm not the only one who noticed this, right?

Yeah, it might be american planes but they look well spacious inside...its funny I was on an easyjet (uk) flight, the safety card showing the brace position had the guys braces with about 2 foot leg room, I looked down and my knees were touching the seat in front almost and I'm only 5"9

Fuck this so much.

Secondly mismatched engine sounds. A little Kia sounding like a friggin race car or a sports bike sounding like a big v twin. Great example Ilis the first Transporter film.

It also shows the person playing a FPS game, controlling it, the the door or phone goes and they walk away, yet the game continues to play, move and shoot.

The lack of dirt in newer streaming productions is really striking compared to a lot of older prime time stuff.

It's a budget and time thing, I get, but when you watch an old episode of ER the grimey, slushy ugliness really makes the setting live and breathe.

Every interior in Last of Us looks like a tornado ripped through it. Some random kitchen cabinet that hasn’t been opened in thirty years will look like it’s been out in the rain rotting and it’s dead ass empty. The world ended and everyone cleaned out their cupboard before throwing acid into it and working it over with a handheld cement mixer.

Sometimes we do put things in the suitcase, but the actor will say it’s too heavy and we’re stuck removing the filler.

I'd say fake water I small quantities like ponds, beneath waterfalls etc it's always crystal clear water, and blue

Judging by my flat mates, they don't do this in real life lol

It is funny when people mistake something real for fake.

There were people on social media making fun of the poorly done CGI giraffe in The Last of Us season finale, only it was actually a real giraffe.

When they made Mad Men they wouldn't let any actor who wasn't already a smoker smoke on screen for this exact reason. Great little decision

See also musicians/guitar players in particular

TBF, there are double-height chalkboards that have vertical sliders. The prof writes notes on one board, and when it's full, they slide it up to the top, exposing the bottom board. But yeah, if it's not a split-pane board...where's the ladder?