When I first moved to Roswell my next door neighbor acted in plays put on by the Roswell Little Theater.  They were auditioning for a new play and he talked me into auditioning for a part.  I did and I got the part.  They play was You Can't Take it With You and I played the part of the son-in-law who made fireworks in the basement if you are familiar with the movie.

 I auditioned and got a part in the next play called Take a Number Darling.  I was the reporter trying to get the goods on a soap opera star.

I had to make a couple of phone calls during the play and learned how difficult it is to carry on a two way conversation with yourself.  But the most difficult thing was saying Goodbye as I was hanging up the phone.  The director kept telling me about it and I had to consciously think about that when I ended the phone call.  I was somewhat difficult.

I just watched an old Bette Davis movie an even she is hanging up the phone while saying Goodbye.  It's a difficult thing to learn.  I notice it quite a lot.

Since I was an actor in a couple of plays I notice such flaws while watching movies and TV shows now. 

I gave up acting be cause it was really too much work.  8 weeks of rehearsal for 5 performances.  Friday night and two shows on Saturday and Sunday.  And the last director was a pain to work with, especially blocking where they tell you where to stand.  He would move us two inches to the left or right which the audience would never notice.

But watch the telephone scenes and see the phone almost hung up while the actr or actress is still saying Goodbye.

Noel

Edited January 15, 20215 yr by birdguy

Phone calls have rarely ever been remotely realistic in movies; nobody ever speaks over the other person, or mis-hears something and asks for the other person to say it again, nobody ever has to properly explain whom they are and exactly what they are calling about despite often speaking to a complete stranger about a really serious and surprising situation, calls always get answered within a couple of rings, there's rarely ever a caller queue, hardly anybody ever says bye, pretty much everything is understood straight away, the list is endless.

Most of the the time the inclusion of a phone in a scene is nothing more than a lazy exposition shortcut tool. Still, at least a decent screenwriter can't use that hackneyed lazy trope of someone cutting the phone wires when their victim is alone in a house these days; not now that you can get a mobile signal pretty much anywhere.

Although having said that, they did still use that nonsense in the movie Panic Room, where the people allegedly couldn't get a mobile signal, as though anyone would design a panic room where it was impossible to get a phone signal so you could not phone the police, since being able to do exactly that is the entire point of a panic room. But then again, in that movie they also had the even more over-used movie trope of the kid with a convenient illness with symptoms perfectly suited to fit the unfolding plot.

I usually play the 'how long till we find out the kid has an inhaler and starts doing what scriptwriters think the symptoms of Asthma are like?' game, whenever I see a family with a young kid in some sort of thriller movie. As a cliche, it's right up there with the almost mandatory car chase up an alley through a bunch of piled up empty cardboard boxes in pretty much any seventies movie, or the wino who looks askance at his paper-bag-wrapped liquor bottle after he sees some strange event. 🤣

Thrillers are written and produce to frighten people Alan.  Reality is peripheral.

There was nothing in my script that had anything more than answer or make a telephone call.  I was on my own to make up dialog pertinent to the script and then pretend to listen to the other person at proper intervals.  As I was making the call I would answer myself in my mind and then make my on stage reply.

It's something that takes practice and concentration to get it right.

Every on stage or on screen move is choreographed by the director.  And when watching a movie I often wonder how many takes it took before the director was satisfied.  Of course on stage there are no retakes.  And when things go wrong you have to fake it and adlib it.

In one scene in You Can't Take it with You my on stage daughter comes in late from a date and I want to show her the new colored flames we came up with.  I had an assistant named Mr. DePenna.  In one performance the powder wouldn't  ignite.  So I said, "Mr. DePenna must have made that batch."  And my daughter hugged me and said, "I'll bet it would have been beautiful father."   Then the curtain came down and as we were walking off the stage she said, "Great save."

Noel

Edited January 15, 20215 yr by birdguy