Today I learned...

[waters44]

I’m probably the only person in the world who didn’t know this, but today I learnt that the majority of speech in films is dubbed in during production - the speech you hear isn’t the speech that was recorded at the time. It seems obvious now, I’m watching a film at the moment and it’s clearly dubbed, but I wouldn’t have realised before 

Edited December 4, 2018 by waters44

[Keith Houchen]

3 minutes ago, waters44 said:

I’m probably the only person in the world who didn’t know this, but today I learnt that the majority of speech in films is dubbed in during production - the speech you hear isn’t the speech that was recorded at the time. It seems obvious now, I’m watching a film at the moment and it’s clearly dubbed, but I wouldn’t have realised before 

Paging @Loki to the thread.

[Loki]

As with all audio, if it's done well nobody notices

Not all speech in films is dubbed.  On a normal static film set, you can generally record the sync dialogue pretty well, and a dialogue editor will clean it up afterwards and that'll be what you hear in the final release.

Where you hear a lot of ADR is in location shoots, particularly outdoor locations.  If there's just too much wind or background noise, then the lines will get dubbed (also known as looping).  Bear in mind though that it's not cheap to re-record so on smaller films, and most tv, they'll just make do.

Action movies with lots of running, guns etc will definitely require extensive dubbing.  And all video games of course  

What's less well-known is that all the OTHER sound besides the dialogue is added afterwards.  So often the speech is the only bit that IS real!  Every footstep, door, sip of coffee all the way up to the more obvious explosions, spaceships, cars and so on.

I'm sure all of you went to watch this year's blockbuster film, Accident Man.  I did all the sfx, atmospheres, vehicles and a bunch of the fight scenes for that movie, and in only 2 weeks which was a bit crazy.  Very different to my bread and butter videogame work, but a ton of fun.

Edited December 4, 2018 by Loki

[wordsfromlee]

I remember reading about how most of the sound in Attenborough documentaries are done in post as a lot of the time the cameras are hidden or really far away.

[gmoney]

25 minutes ago, wordsfromlee said:

I remember reading about how most of the sound in Attenborough documentaries are done in post as a lot of the time the cameras are hidden or really far away.

Des Lynam revealed this to the nation in is groundbreaking investigative journalism show 'How Do They Do That?'. 

This was the first nail in the coffin of the BBC. 

[Sphinx]

3 hours ago, Loki said:

What's less well-known is that all the OTHER sound besides the dialogue is added afterwards.  So often the speech is the only bit that IS real!  Every footstep, door, sip of coffee all the way up to the more obvious explosions, spaceships, cars and so on.

Foley Is Good

3 hours ago, wordsfromlee said:

I remember reading about how most of the sound in Attenborough documentaries are done in post as a lot of the time the cameras are hidden or really far away.

...And the Real World Is Faker Than Wrestling

[Gus Mears]

TIL of Sark, the tiny crown dependency off the coast of Normandy where cars are banned and they introduced democracy ten years ago.

Nice little article from the Economist. Do you have any dealings with it @BomberPat?

Quote

Things tend to move slowly around here,” explains one resident of Sark, a tiny British crown dependency off the coast of Normandy. The traffic trundling to the island’s polling station on December 12th, the day of its general election, confirms his observation. Cars are banned on Sark, so most voters arrive by bicycle or on foot. A few chug in on tractors. But the poll is nevertheless a sign of change: until 2008 Sark was governed by a feudal constitution that had remained largely untouched since the island was colonised in 1565.

The arrival of democracy has quickened pulses. Previously, the island was led by the seigneur, who leased it from the crown for the princely sum of £1.79 ($2.26) a year. His rank entitled him to an 8% slice of all property transactions, as well as other perks including the sole right to keep an unspayed bitch. Forty hereditary landowners dominated the Chief Pleas, the island’s parliament. Now, however, elected commoners sit on its benches and the seigneur receives an annual stipend of £28,000.

 

Yet many Sarkees feel nostalgic for feudalism. The landowners would thrash out laws among themselves and, if residents had concerns, they could pop round for a cup of tea, says one islander. In contrast, democracy involves a lot of paperwork. Gesturing to a table stacked with papers for the next meeting of the Chief Pleas, Paul Amorgie, a hotel manager, lists the issues Sark’s 18 unpaid parliamentarians must deal with, “from footpaths and dog shit to international legislation.”

Sark has struggled to attract candidates; the previous two elections went uncontested. Kay Char, a retired businesswoman, argues that the new system is less democratic than the old feudal one, since the parliament’s smaller size means it is more open to manipulation and its proceedings involve less debate. This week’s vote, however, saw plenty of candidates, and many young ones elected for the first time.

Campaigners for democracy included Sir Frederick and Sir David Barclay, billionaire twins who live in a castle on Brecqhou, a nearby islet under Sark’s jurisdiction. The brothers have hoovered up large chunks of Sark, buying three of the island’s six hotels and opening a string of businesses. After the inaugural elections failed to return most of their preferred candidates, a representative of the Barclays briefly suspended their businesses in Sark.

Opinion about the tycoons next door is split. Many believe they are trying to transform the island into their own personal fiefdom, citing attacks by the local paper, which is edited by one of their employees, against islanders who cross them. Others argue that the pair have brought investment and jobs to the island. “They have given Sark the little kick up the arse it needed,” says Mini McCusker, who works in one of the island’s pubs.

Some feudal quirks remain. An islander can take out an injunction by throwing his hat to the ground, taking a knee and reciting the Lord’s Prayer in Norman French, for instance. Christopher Beaumont, Sark’s newish seigneur, argues that the island’s democracy must be given time. “England’s road to democracy was a pretty bumpy ride which involved lots of people dying,” he points out. As ever, things are proceeding more gently in Sark.

 

[Kaz Hayashi]

That’s incredible. Imagine the idea of popping in for a cup of tea, just to air your concerns about Brexit, before agree to a new deal over a pint with Mini Musker.

Edited December 19, 2018 by Kaz Hayashi

[PunkStep]

20 minutes ago, Gus Mears said:

TIL of Sark, the tiny crown dependency off the coast of Normandy where cars are banned and they introduced democracy ten years ago.

Sounds like Hull.

[WyattSheepMask]

And then we abolished democracy 9 years ago because we can’t be trusted with it

[BomberPat]

I've been to Sark about five times, though not for a few years. I absolutely love the place, but getting there and back is a nightmare if you don't have access to your own boat - the ferries are infrequent, and it's a rough passage (kennethwilliams.jpg), so for someone like me who doesn't fare well by sea, it's a bit of an ordeal. 

It's a really fascinating place, but sometimes has the air of Wicker-Man-By-The-Sea to it. First time I went was for a stag do, right before they held their first elections, and the public were generally opposed to the whole idea, seeing it as the Barclays throwing their weight around - they'd bankrolled most of the candidates, and the locals saw it (probably correctly) as them angling for more control, and ownership of more of the island. When none of the Barclays' chosen candidates won, they - as briefly mentioned in that article - pulled all of their business from the island, which amounted to putting something like two thirds of the work-force out of work, and so they were soon forced to turn it around. They've ended up with two local newspapers - for a 2.10 square mile island - with one in favour of the Barclays and one opposed, and there were stories of one of their representatives never going out in public without a bodyguard.

It was only this year that they had their second ever election, because for the two interim elections every candidate stood unopposed. 

 

While there are no cars, there are quite a few tractors - it's the only motorised vehicle permitted on the island, so most families seem to end up with one, and I think you can drive them from the age of 14 or 15. There are horse-drawn carts too, though I suspect it's only tourists using them, and most people get around on bicycles. It's a designated "Dark Sky Island", because there's so little artificial light that you can see the stars incredibly clearly with the naked eye, so well worth camping there.

 

There was an amazing story about ten years ago of a French nuclear physicist plotting to overthrow Sark - he airdropped a ton of flyers saying he would storm the Manor House at noon on a certain day, and published his demands and everything. The day of his plan, he got arrested without any struggle by a voluntary police officer who sat next to him on a bench, where he was cleaning his gun and waiting for noon.

The artist/author Mervyn Peake lived there for many years, and had dreams of it becoming an artist's colony. He wrote "Mr Pye", of which there's a BBC adaptation, about a visitor to the island, which opens with probably the most telling account of the place - the ticket-seller at Guernsey harbour not being able to understand that he wants a single ticket to Sark, not a return. Peake's masterpiece was Gormenghast, and there's a scene in the second book of that series in which the castle is flooded, and characters report everywhere they've searched for a missing person - and every location named, while sounding suitably fantastical, is actually a real place in Sark. 

 

Lastly, that bit about the Lord's Prayer in Norman French - that's called the clameur de haro, and is actually also legally applicable in Jersey, and I imagine across all of the Channel Islands. You have to get on your knees and say, in Norman French (or the local dialect, which is close to it), "Hear me! Hear me! Hear me! Come to my aid, my Prince, for someone does me wrong!", followed by the Lord's Prayer, in front of at least two witnesses, and the accused then has to stop the activity decried until the matter is decided in court. The Channel Islands are mental.

[BomberPat]

Oh shit, I'd forgotten the best part.

When I was there for the stag do, the joke was that we were going to do a pub crawl, with there only being two pubs. Little did we know, there was, not counting hotel bars, another secret pub. You see, this pub was only open at the weekend, and only certain hours.

The reason? The pub was in a school. During the week, it served as the school canteen, and if there was a sporting event happening, served as the team tuck shop, and also was used as a function room for the town hall. But on a Saturday with nowt going on? It's a pub. Just that one room. So you walk through a primary school and up a flight of stairs to get to the only pub I've ever been to that sells Transform-A-Snacks behind the bar.

 

Here's a smattering of photos from a trip there years back;

Stood next to the "bus".

The harbour

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...and apparently, it was in a Sark beer garden that I read Randy Savage's obituary.

[PunkStep]

If that NatWest isn't the prettiest looking bank, then I don't know what is. Fantastic pics and a great read Pat.

[BomberPat]

1 minute ago, PunkStep said:

If that NatWest isn't the prettiest looking bank, then I don't know what is. 

That was one of the things that really struck me the first time I went there. You walk past all these gorgeous little old cottages, and then notice that they've got a big logo plastered down one side, and it turns out it's the bank, or a bookies', or whatever. Just utterly surreal.

[Carbomb]

As I understand it, the different Norman French dialects are actually considered different languages on their respective islands, no? I remember reading that the number of speakers of Jeriais was going up because they were actively promoting teaching of it in Jersey schools, whilst Aureignais was pretty much extinct on Alderney, and (I think) all of the around-fifty inhabitants of Sark still speak Sercquiais. Can't remember what the language on Guernsey is called, though.