Production errors

[litzie]

Having just watched Band Candy twice in a row (because it's AWESOME), I noticed two little production errors:

a) in the opening scene, Buffy is filling in an SAT practice book, is marking a question halfway down the page, and refers to the fact that they "haven't had a B in forever" but none of the other answer bubbles are filled in for any of the other questions

b) in the scene in front of the warehouse, when Buffy takes the cigarette out of giles' mouth and stomps on it, she actually misses the cigarette...you can see it in the shot, about 6 inches to the left of where her foot stomps down.

Now obviously I'm being incredibly nitpicky, and I don't really find these errors distracting or annoying...I kinda think they're cute. So I was wondering if anyone else has noticed other, similar mistakes?

[holypotatoes]

I think we've had this thread before but I'll say mine again because I still find it slightly annoying yet amusing at the same time. In Gingerbread when Buffy is tied up the ropes that are around her arms move from being over her forearms to under, to over, to under, to over, to under, to over.........

Man I should really find that thread again. There were some good one's that people found.

[Retrograde]

I know this is in the Buffy section, but in the Angel credits, for the ENTIRE five seasons, right at the end you can see his reflection in the puddle! You'd think after the first season they would have noticed and fixed it, but it's in every episode! This annoys me a lot

[Hekate]

In Anne, there are two close ups of Buffy's white tennis shoes about 20 seconds apart... and they're *completely* different. It's painfully obvious once you look for it.

[lara]

In "Older and Far Away" there's a scene where Buffy drags Spike to the door and they pass a mirror in the hall, you see Spike's reflexion in the mirror , that's a huge error! It's brief but if you pay attention you notice.

[holypotatoes]

In "Older and Far Away" there's a scene where Buffy drags Spike to the door and they pass a mirror in the hall, you see Spike's reflexion in the mirror , that's a huge error! It's brief but if you pay attention you notice.

OMG I was going to mention this one but I couldn't for the life of me think of the episode it happened in! That mistake detracts me from the story every time I watch this episode.

Oh another one is in Showtime I believe, when Buffy, the scoobies and the potentials are all waiting for the Uber Vamp to bust into the house and Willow's supposed to do a shielding spell when it does, you can clearly see a wire across the screen that's supposed to pull the door apart when the Uber vamp busts in. http://www.screencap-paradise.com/ca...545&fullsize=1

[NileQT87]

i always get sidetracked by the carpet thread hanging from the top of the camera during the famous 'morning after' scene in innocence with angelus and buffy. there's a carpet-looking thing hanging from the left side of the camera.

there are a lot of things poking in the sides of the screen (especially in the harsh light of day) and one of the carousel scenes makes it apparent that marc and michelle weren't actually at the carousel (the incomplete background doesn't go to the edges of the screen) if you see/track down the european widescreen versions of btvs seasons 4-7.

i actually recommend you try to find the widescreens. in fact, i'm dying for the day seasons 2-7 are released in widescreen (yeah, joss, we can handle all the production equipment-laden sides--same with season 1 ats). the european widescreen show clips from earlier seasons as well as the great "previously on btvs" segment from the gift with the great seasons 1-5 flashy, hyperspeed editing. i'd also kill to have the on-episode credits put on a separate subtitle track so you don't have to have them permanently covering the episode. it ruins those scenes for fanvid projects.

mike massa is several inches shorter and a lot less bulkier than david boreanaz. the climbing the jasmaniac bugs' rock wall is a prime example. cordy's advertisement dream sequence in hero also has a clear shot of mike massa's outline rather than david's--probably to add to the on-purpose tackiness. smg's first stunt double had a big butt. jm's stunt double had a terrible yellow-orange wig. db's stunt double in becoming from the overhead shots (both of the doubles are insanely obvious and always distracting) had a receding hairline, big ears and looked a lot like nick brendon.

if you pause in the dark in just the right spot when angel is leaping over the pier... you can get a full shot of the stunt double's face.

and of course, the famous city of... puddle reflection.

[DigitalLeonardo]

If the reflection of vampires uberly bugs you, go watch "Him" in the last little bit when Xander and Spike grab the jacket, the two are standing in front of a store window and Spike's reflection is visable the ENTIRE time

[-Andrew-]

I've noticed sevaral too

In Hush, when the gentlemen are floating outside of the campus, their feet are hidden behind some bushes, but when we see their feet, we also see that they are being pulled along on a white trolley......

In This years girl, when Buffy and Faith crash down the stairs during their fight, you can see the camera following them on the left hand side, you might have to adjust your aspect ratio to see that one.....

In Restless, when Xander is walking through the ice cream truck, about to wind up in his basement, as hes walking past the window the video of the moving street just clicks off, leaving a blue screen, again, it may be a job for the 'zoom out' tool on the dvds.

There are several more I've noticed before, like in "Whats my line" when one of the assasins are getting off the bus, first we see a medium shot of the bus, when the door is opening, but when it zooms in, the steps have a completely different pattern/ design on them.
In listening to fear, Willow and Tara are talking in the bedroom, putting clithes away and the boom mic just kinda sweeps above Willows head..............

I have no life :P

[Amuk]

Hard to top "I Robot -- You, Jane" which shows two different dates for Buffy's birthday on a computer screen in two consecutive scenes: October 24, 1980, and May 6, 1979.

[And, of course, neither is the date that eventually came to be accepted as the actual one (January 19(ish)).]

[NileQT87]

not january 19... lol. though that's the common date given. problem? scoobies in school on sundays.

surprise/innocence has 3 days at school (jan. 1998)--needs to be the 20th, helpless is almost a full week (jan. 1999)--and 19th would also place the scoobies at school on a sunday, a new man can be on any day (jan. 2000) and dawn is at school in blood ties and older and far away (jan. 2001/2)--buffy's 20th birthday party has to take place the day before her birthday on friday and buffy's 21st birthday party has to start on the 18th (and continue into the 19th), as her real birthday would fall on a sunday.

the cusp is january 19th or 20th... the 20th is the only one of the two that works for surprise and helpless.

and need i go into all the pain the production has put me through to try to make some of their dates work? lol. yes, joss. you really do suck at math.

for example, the little nugget i'm currently being amused by--19 days between chosen and spike's return in conviction, 1 month between conviction/just rewards and unleashed, nina has been a werewolf only 4 times when she comes in during smile time (the teaser of which was a week after valentine's--but there are a few weeks of smile time's airings between the teaser and the rest of the episode), etc... the answer? the hellmouth collapsed in august. being that btvs/ats are consecutive days from apocalypse, nowish to chosen... storyteller was during summer school!

there's also some entertaining date maneuvering around the zeppo (school days/moon issues), bb&b and phases happening entwined (and it actually works--the only days of bb&b that get kicked before phases are ones about xander buying the locket and then the end of the episode--starting with valentine's--fits after phases is finished), invisibility 100 days before the ascension (again, trying not to have the last day of school on some bizarre day), more entwining between wild at heart and fear, itself--issues with the moon, halloween and thanksgiving... the fact that there is no possible way that war zone happened between sanctuary and blind date--btvs is all consecutive days from sanctuary to primeval. i think it would be something like angel being in sunnydale at the same time he was in the meat locker. and then i just gave up on trying to coincide willow and cordy both working on computer decryption--willow had to have been still decrypting more files after primeval. too many days of show in ats--even with war zone kicked out and put before five by five (actually causes zero story disruption). still scratching my head over the fact that giles says faith left sunnydale a week before five by five--there is no possible way unless faith's leaving montage is several weeks after the church incident.

[icecreamkiller]

if you pause in the dark in just the right spot when angel is leaping over the pier... you can get a full shot of the stunt double's face.

I think you can see him pretty clearly in Innocence too, when Angel and Dru leap away from the Judge right before the rocket hits him. I'm not too sure on that one though, I'll have to check.

When Buffy stakes Xander in The Wish, her stake sort of just pokes him in the chest without so much as appearing to break skin. Speaking of staking, I'm not sure whether the stakes not coming out covered in blood every time a vampire gets staked counts as a production error. I mean, sure, they turn to dust, but you have to go through a lot before you get to the heart...

In season 7, Ashanti guest starred in an episode.

[Retrograde]

Speaking of staking...

The amount of times vamps get staked in the stomach, neck, shoulder, right side of the chest. I just blank them out now!

In season 7, Ashanti guest starred in an episode.

Definitely a production error (not sure if that's what you meant though!)

[CaptainOats]

In the Harvest when Buffy is going to the Mausoleum and into the sewers to try and find Jesse, as she is walking away from the school Principal Flutie comes and shuts and locks the school gate on her because students aren't supposed to leave during the day. Buffy says fine and as soon as Principal Flutie is gone she jumps over the fence like an everyday thing. But once Buffy is in the sewers, she finds Xander who had been following her because Jesse was his best friend and he wanted to help. But that is impossible because the school gate was locked and he can't jump over a huge gate like buffy and therefore wouldn't have been able to meet up with her. Perhaps there was another way out, but wouldn't have Principal Flutie known Buffy could get out easily enough that way? Making locking the gate absolutely pointless. It's not a big deal, but it has always bugged me!

[Matt]

In "Anne" when Buffy and Lilly are in Hell there's a shot of Buffy and her top beneath the zip up jacket is purple, but it changes to being green for a couple of seconds.

All of the times you get clear facial shots of Sarah's stunt double, "Bad Girls" being the one that springs to mind.

In "Conversations With Dead People" Dawn unplugs the TV and the position she's holding the plug in changes with shots.

Time in Sunnydale, at the beginning of "Conversations With Dead People" the date states it is November 12th and the episode is set over the course of the night, the next episode, "Sleeper", takes place directly after and lasts a couple of days as do "Never Leave Me", "Bring On The Night" and "Showtime". This means the date should be about November 25th, so why are Buffy and Giles talking about Christmas in the middle of November?

[Charles]

Time in Sunnydale, at the beginning of "Conversations With Dead People" the date states it is November 12th and the episode is set over the course of the night, the next episode, "Sleeper", takes place directly after and lasts a couple of days as do "Never Leave Me", "Bring On The Night" and "Showtime". This means the date should be about November 25th, so why are Buffy and Giles talking about Christmas in the middle of November?

Increasingly retail stores are setting up their Christmas displays and such the day after Halloween. It's not really that big of a stretch to go around and see people talking about Christmas well beforehand.

[Matt]

Increasingly retail stores are setting up their Christmas displays and such the day after Halloween. It's not really that big of a stretch to go around and see people talking about Christmas well beforehand.

Maybe not, but Buffy and Giles talk about "decorating the rubble", but as we saw in Amends Buffy doesn't decorate, the tree at least, until Christmas Eve, so in that regard it's a bit of a stretch in timing.

[vampmogs]

Maybe not, but Buffy and Giles talk about "decorating the rubble", but as we saw in Amends Buffy doesn't decorate, the tree at least, until Christmas Eve, so in that regard it's a bit of a stretch in timing.

Perhaps she was talking about things such as outside lights? Usually they're put up quite a bit before xmas, at least where I live. Then again we put up our tree weeks before xmas eve, so who knows!

[Amuk]

Speaking of staking...

Not so much a production error as a production conceit that causes an inconsistency: Buffy (and Angel, to a lesser extent) follows what I call the Inverse Dialogue Dusting Rule -- the more dialogue the vampire has had, the longer it takes for it to dust after being staked.

There are some exceptions, but as a general rule vampires that have actually mattered to some degree take at least a few seconds to dust, while random cannon fodder usually dust almost instantaneously (see, eg., Luke, who has time to fall from the stage to the floor before dusting and compare to the standard, just risen cemetary vamp who's only function is to provide Buffy an opportunity to make a pun or some such). There's just more 'drama' to the more 'important' vampires' deaths.

[fitri]

Read this for more about vampires and reflections.

https://www.buffyforums.net/showthread.php?p=239378