Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2013 October 28

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October 28

Saw II: Don't Forget the Rules

I'm currently working on a piano sheet of this Saw theme:

I've got a problem with the key. I know that the original Hello Zepp is in D minor, but this here is odd. Am I right that the part at 0:46 is between D minor and D sharp minor and that the pitch is tuned differently. If yes, could you give me the exact frequency? Thank you!--2.246.38.61 (talk) 15:06, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't believe this is a question for the entertainment desk. If anyone else would like to answer the question please feel free to do so, but the request appears to have been accompanied with a Youtube link to a copyright violation and the IP is requesting help to write sheet music from this score. I don't think this is appropriate for the Wikipedia Entertainment reference desk.--Mark Miller (talk) 21:16, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Music belongs to the category Entertainment otherwise why is the logo of this section a semiquaver? I can understand that Youtube links are not welcome, but creating sheet music from listening is not illegal. Besides, it's for own purposes. I'm not demanding much. I just want to know if I'm right with the pitch between D minor and D sharp minor, which is intentionally out of tune.--2.246.38.61 (talk) 22:00, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes, this is a music question, and as such, this is the proper place to ask questions that we can answer. However, since you linked a Youtube video, which is a clear violation of our copyright policy (Youtube can only be linked on Wikipedia when the actual copyright owner is the uploader) and the question is in regards to helping you analyze the notes to complete a score which also violates copyright....I don't think this is appropriate here. But I will let other's decide if they wish to answer the question.--Mark Miller (talk) 23:17, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

In your opinion, arrangements violate copyright? You should sue all those people with perfect pitch, MIDI creators and scorewriter programs, the major tools for young composers. Everyone learned composing by looking at other people's works. Musical ideas should be accessible to everyone. Too much music has be written, you cannot expect people to come up with something totally new. There will be always familiar elements unless you want to change the harmonic system, which is difficult because physics determines if a person perceives a combination of sounds as euphonious or not. Think of classical composers, they have influenced and inspired each other without any problems for centuries. And again, I'm just asking for the pitch. It's all about good ears, which involves no analysis. I won't present the score as my own work. This is what arrangers usually do. If I had simply asked what key the piece is in without giving any background information, there would have been no problems and I would have even got an answer. I'm sorry for putting a link, but the rest is ridiculous.--2.246.38.61 (talk) 01:36, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Please, I just want to know what key it is.--2.245.134.165 (talk) 17:59, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Illogic in literature & film

Re the Rosebud query above, am wondering what the term is for a story-line premise predicated on illogic that passes the author, the editor, the publisher & finally the public. Quoting my question: "An example is the novel Trinity which has the narrator narrating well after being blown up himself. Another is the clue to a TV drama is broken glass from spectacles which, in that time would have been plastic of some kind - but isn't the same as an out of place historic accident (like the red car in the background of a movie about Roman times) which the film editors decides to let stay." Anyone? Thanks, Manytexts (talk) 23:43, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

The TV Tropes website often has terms for tropes like these. I'm not sure if there is a term which covers both the examples you mention. TV Tropes calls the narration by a dead character "Posthumous Narration". An article from the wrong time period is usually called an anachronism, whichever order it is in. --Canley (talk) 00:09, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

"wondering what the term is for a story-line premise predicated on illogic that passes the author, the editor, the publisher " I believe the term you are looking for is continuity.--Mark Miller (talk) 00:13, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

More recently, the movie American Beauty had Kevin Spacey continuing to narrate after Chris Cooper had killed him. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:19, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

And I believe Desperate Housewives used the same technique. StuRat (talk) 15:10, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

There have been books written about continuity errors, including a series called Film Flubs, and there was an even heavier set of books called The Nitpicker's Guide to Star Trek. Those are standard continuity mistakes for the most part. One problem with Star Trek was that the original series had many different writers, each of which had their own take on it. Those are typically excused by fans if they're not too absurd, and often they're not even evident except from repeating viewings. But sometimes the plot holes or logical flaws are so obvious that even on a first viewing, an observer might say: "Why are they [or not] doing that?" Siskel & Ebert had their own special term for that kind of thing: "The idiot plot." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:25, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Those Nitpicker Guides changed the way I watched all of the iterations of Star Trek. Nowadays they can use computers to remove things like that but that is just no fun. While it may not be the answer you are looking for you might want to take a look at our article Suspension of disbelief as it covers some of the ways that storytelling - in any medium - may have flaws in its logic. MarnetteD | Talk 05:28, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Maybe more to the point: I'm curious to know in what way the nitpicker guides changed the way you watched Star Trek. Did it interfere with the fun of it? Or did it merely give you more insight into how it's done and maybe enhance the fun of it? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:01, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

The way I like to put it is that any fictional work is an artificial reality. As such, there's always the possibility (and even the likelihood) of inconsistencies. Actual reality doesn't have that problem. There is only one reality. Witnesses may see the same event differently, but the reality is consistent within itself. Like with the "Immaculate Reception". You can watch it a hundred times, and it always happens the same way. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:48, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

I would add that those nitpicker's guides aren't necessarily intended to ridicule their subject. I think that what they actually demonstrate is affection for their subject. Many of those nitpicks come from repeated viewings. Why would anyone watch a film or TV show repeatedly if they didn't love it? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:55, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

I completely agree that the demonstrate and affection for the shows and the guides, for me, made them much more fun to watch. It is great to keep an eye peeled for things going on in the background and I have done that with all my TV watching ever since. It can be an error like the one I noticed in an episode of The Pallisers when, at a scene at the dinner table, Derek Jacobi's Lord Fawn says his own characters name rather than the character he is talking to. Or it can be a fun item that isn't an error like the fact that in a recent episode of Foyle's War, set in the late 40s or early 50s, there was a blue Police Box in the background. It is always fun to see a Police Box being a Police Box. Speaking of which in the footage that remains from the very first episode of The Avengers there is also Police Box to be seen at one point. The episode was broadcast on 7 Jan 1961 so not only was it a Police Box being a Police Box it was a Police Box that couldn't be anything else!! It would be 35 months until our perceptions of that form would change forever. Apologies for getting so far off topic but I want to reiterate that I only have positive things to say about the Nitpickers Guides. MarnetteD | Talk 14:27, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

If you want to see something that incorporates affection for both Star Trek and Monty Python, look on youtube for "star trek meets monty python". If you've not seen it before, you'll be filled with amazement and admiration. And a laugh or two. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:05, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks heaps - my favourite is "idiot plot" maybe even think of it as idiot construct. & thanks for lots of good articles to read as well. Happy now, Manytexts (talk) 09:51, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

There's a plot hole article.  Card Zero  (talk) 15:13, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

There are several categories of such mistakes:

1) Anomalies they intentionally put in, just for fun.

2) Those they leave in accidentally.

3) Things they know about, and would like to fix, but it's just too difficult. For example, a period piece set outdoors might end up with an airplane flying overhead in some shots. Before digital editing, this was difficult to fix. You could refilm the scene, at great expense, but they might decide it's not worth it.

Some of the attempts to explain the anomalies can themselves be funny. For example, in the original Star Trek, Klingons lacked the forehead ridges from later Star Treks. In a time-travelling episode, they saw some old-style Klingons, and Worf was asked why they looked so different, to which he replied that there was some sort of genetic mutation that he didn't want to talk about. StuRat (talk) 15:21, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

You got me going again - the show I saw with the glass lenses instead of perspex lenses was a dark 90s or 2000s Australian drama (I forget the name) set in a university where a clue was a piece of glass from broken spectacles in the slag of a parking area. Bugged me ever since, so maybe that's a "plot hole" - maybe they were too tired to make it the wing of a pair of specs or whatever.

Glass lenses are still available for eyeglasses. Some people like them for their scratch resistance. Rmhermen (talk) 20:34, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

That would be "Trials and Tribble-ations", one of the best Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episodes. Clarityfiend (talk) 07:33, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

For sure. And a key element of "The Trouble with Tribbles" was the fact that the Klingon agent (Charlie Brill) looked human, and it took Bones' medical scanner to discover that he had Klingon physiology. In fact, Charlie Brill (taking a break from his role in Silk Stalkings) still looked human, albeit older, in Trials and Tribble-ations. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:05, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

The issue of the Klingon's changing appearance was retconned in the final season of Star Trek: Enterprise. In the story arc where the Klingons were attempting to improve their species through the continuation of Arik Soong's work, it allowed for an explanation of why the Klingons on The Original Series lacked brow ridges and were much more human looking than Klingons in any of the other series; they were mutants created by faulty genetic engineering. Astronaut (talk) 11:44, 30 October 2013 (UTC)