Onedin line - terrible filming of ships

craigsmith said:
Master & Commander is the only "sailing" film I've seen which is fairly accurate and even that has a few serious errors in it. If a big budget movie like that can't get it 100% right, where most of the relevent bits are SFX and the director by all accounts did care about things, then forget about TV and the rest.
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The Count of Monty Christo - with Gerald Depardu was good, but ruined when you could see the engine cooling water. SWMBO always curses me for noticing things like this.....
 
I rather liked the Onedin line at the time- but the nautical solecisms were matched by the many anachronisms in language, attitudes, social history etc, but it's bloo*y fiction innit? I also caught an episode recently and was amazed how it had dated- almost unwatchable. Blake’s Seven anyone?
 
Yes, it p155es me off. but OTOH, I think it's a bit rich to blame it on arrogance or "don't care". "Meeja" people have budgets and deadlines to stick to just like everyone else. They can't always afford to have an entire cast, crew, and hired-in equipment hanging around while they wait (possibly indefinitely) for the right combination of wind, tide, light, seastate etc.

That would have been even more true forty years ago than it is now, when equipment is lighter and easier to move and sound and pictures can be edited more convincingly than they could then.

Also consider the possibility:
on location, in May
Expert: you can't use that shot - the boat is supposed to be close hauled, not on a broad reach.
Director: Uhhh? You mean the sails are wrong? OK, you sort that out, and we'll reshoot it.
in the edit suite in October, with several thousand hours of video in the can .
Editor: we've got these two takes of this shot. I can't see anything wrong with the first one, but you re-took it for some reason. I can easily lose the aeroplane from the second one if you really want it, but the extra picking his nose is a bit more difficult, and they've done something to the sails, so Dame Helen's face is in shadow
Director: Hmmm, the first one looks fine, to me. I don't know why we re-shot it.
 
Was watching some HORNBLOWER last night, surprised how well some of the sailing scenes were shown, mostly actually sailing!

I remember my husband loudly protesting in a crowded cinema in Portugal, whilst watching Master and commander, 'that boat is under power!". The whole audience turned as one....

www.gerryantics.blogspot.com
 
chinita said:
Watching 'Jaws' last night.

"Five degrees to Starboard" was the order.

Guy at the wheel promptly spun the wheel about eight revolutions to Port.
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Not all wheels turn in the sense that we now take as universal. An older tradition had the wheel rotation in the opposite sense. My grandfather said some of the older MTBs he served on in WW1 were that way round, and I have known a river launch like that. I have been told it derived originally from the early days of the transition from tiller to wheel steering, so the paradox of tiller to port = ship turns to starboard was perpetuated.

It was apparently like this on the Titanic:
http://users.senet.com.au/~gittins/wheel.html
 
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cliffordpope said:
Not all wheels turn in the sense that we now take as universal. An older tradition had the wheel rotation in the opposite sense. My grandfather said some of the older MTBs he served on in WW1 were that way round, and I have known a river launch like that. I have been told it derived originally from the early days of the transition from tiller to wheel steering, so the paradox of tiller to port = ship turns to starboard was perpetuated.
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There was (I'm told) a scene in Titanic where the wheel was turned the opposite way to what we expect today. Credit where it's due.
 
cliffordpope said:
Not all wheels turn in the sense that we now take as universal.
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I was going to mention that, but the film in question was Jaws. I understand that ships' wheels were standardised to the modern sense during WWII, so by the 70s I think we can safely conclude it's a cockup :-)

Pete
 
bromleybysea said:
I rather liked the Onedin line at the time- but the nautical solecisms were matched by the many anachronisms in language, attitudes, social history etc, but it's bloo*y fiction innit? I also caught an episode recently and was amazed how it had dated- almost unwatchable. Blake’s Seven anyone?
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Cervylan you mean!
 
chinita said:
Funny old Forums these, always one ******** who thinks you are an idiot.
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How true, and as often as not it's someone who hasn't bothered to read what you actually wrote. We also have our quota of those who consider themselves the sole expert on a particular subject and will castigate anyone who dares to offer an opinion on 'their' subject. Best ignored.
 
snowleopard said:
Even in those prehistoric days the directors had a choice of whether to film a boat with its sails full or with sails flapping under motor. It annoyed me just as much at the time.

It was the arrogance of the director's attitude that either it didn't matter or the punters wouldn't notice.
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The budgets for these productions were tiny... you got two or three days location filming per 50' minute episode and there was no question of waiting for weather... You had to shoot what you had... flat calm try to make it look like a gale - gale try to make it look calm.... When one of the big ships was involved for a day or two and we were required to fit in with their schedual (could not afford to charter one) and every director would try to shoot some libery footage for the others as well as his own essential footage...

once I was directing an episode of the brave James fights off pirates etc... had a 2nd sail boat and a fight arranger with 3 leading actors and 4 actors to asssist in defending on the other side were to be 9 black guys from a local USAF station to be the boarding attacking pirates... except on the morning of this days shooting an alert happened and l leave was cancelled............

no question of not shooting anything - not the budget for that... so I had the 4 defenders and the fight arranger 'black up' and five brave sooty pirates boarded the brave James vessel..... which was fine except after doing the attack scenes and boarding sequence 3 had to 'white up' in order to become defenders.... At one point in the chaos my PA said as someone fell overboard - 'I am sure he just died being black pushing himself overboard' --

Both Onedin and Howards Way were actually series about people a few 'salty' shots thrown in to give a nautical background... The directors worked hard to do the best they could...

The producers often did not like the sea or ships or boats but were good at making popular drama.... and both those shows were very popular in their time

Michael waiting for the winds to ease so I can get round finnesterre and north east to la Rochelle...
 
chinita said:
Thank you prv. You have saved me the trouble of replying.

Funny old Forums these, always one ******** who thinks you are an idiot.
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I didn't say anyone was an idiot, I simply pointed out that ships' wheels have in the past worked in the opposite sense to the present one.
There must still be a few around - as I said, I remember one, current in about 1970.
 
snowleopard said:
How true, and as often as not it's someone who hasn't bothered to read what you actually wrote. We also have our quota of those who consider themselves the sole expert on a particular subject and will castigate anyone who dares to offer an opinion on 'their' subject. Best ignored.
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What on earth are you getting at? I ventured to suggest an alternative viewpoint, and gave a link to an article explaining the point better than I could. Why so sensitive?
 
davidtyler said:
I'll see your "Onedin Line" and raise you a "Howards Way"!
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And I'll raise you a Pirates of the Carribean.

I've never seen Onedin Line and I don't know if it's true, but according to the guides on the pleasure cruises out of Dartmouth in one episode you can see the steam from the Kingswear train coming through the woods on the other side of the river.
 
Dont start me on "runaway train" type railway movies. People who clamber between moving passenger coaches and undo couplings without thought for continous air / vacum brakes.
 
Remember that epic film about Gandhi in the 80's?
Did anybody notice the rather modern RO/RO car carrier in the background in one scene showing the docks, I think when he was leaving to go to England?
 
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Onedin Line, episode 1. The big white ship overtaking the Charlotte Rhodes has a bit of an identity crisis: starts off as the Statsraat Lehmkuhl (3 masted barque, single spanker), becomes the Christian Radich (3 mast full-rigger) as she comes abeam, then sails off into the distance as the Eagle (3 masted barque, split spanker).

That's just lack of appropriate footage, though. It's when things are deliberately done wrong that gets my goat. In particular, filmmakers seem to be frightened of the quietness of steamboats/ships: they are frequently dubbed over using locomotive sounds (steam ships do NOT go "chuff-chuff-chuff....").
The worst example, though, comes at the beginning of the film "Death in Venice" (set in about 1900), when a launch comes alongside to take passengers off the ship. It's a steam launch. A real steam launch, not a mock-up. However, in sound editing, some plonker has over-dubbed it with a diesel!!
 
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