Monday, September 07, 2020

Cutting Corners


This scene in Mike's Den in "The  Power Of The Press" was clearly done in a hurry.  Rather than reset the camera and lights for the reverse angle for Chris Knight's close-up, the actors themselves just changed position. The same curtain and window are behind both of them. So many factors could have contributed to this decision. Also, when working with children they can only work a certain number of  hours a day, so this would save a lot of time, and money. 



When watching film and TV, there is a suspension of disbelief takes over, and this can go unnoticed, but if you look, it's pretty silly.  In the Chris Knight shot, there is no window on that side of the room, and I'm not sure why they didn't take Mike's desk out of the frame.


Brady fans know exactly what this room looks like, but here is a shot, from the same episode, of that side of the room.

3 comments:

  1. Hm. I always assumed the window seen about 15' right of the front door in the outdoor establishing shots of the house was a window in Mike's den, which would be the wall his drafting table is against.

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  2. Really, there should have been a window on the fourth wall since a window was always shown in the front of the house approximately where Mike's den was. Normally when they showed the fourth wall there would be a picture hanging on it instead of a window. It looks like Robert Reed would have thrown a fit about that too.

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  3. That is such a lazy move. Perhaps they were running out of time now the scene suggests there are two windows in the den. Something I never got is that there always was a fourth wall on the den set visible through the slats yet often they used the window wall as a cheat to make it quicker to film but surely they could have slid the fourth wall in front of the window wall.

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