Often it’s cheaper to shoot a movie in a location other than the one called for by the script. The ‘Spaghetti Western’ is a good example of this. Many urban stories are also shot in the wrong cities for financial reasons.
Category: Crime Dramas
Learning the Ropes
A rookie cop is assigned to a jaded veteran. When they become engaged in a serious situation, they each find that they have learned from one another.
Binocular vision
To convey what a character is seeing through binoculars, viewers are shown a figure-eight shaped frame, even though when you look through binoculars you don’t really experience this.
Outside the Law
American crime dramas frequently feature a detective with unconventional methods who is barely tolerated by his superiors. Typically the outsider detective redeems himself, and frequently reveals corruption in the department.
Fast Talking
Listening to one side of a phone conversation can be pretty boring, so cinematic phone conversations tend to lack a lot of silent listening. Both sides of the conversation are made clear by repetition, and when the person on the other end does speak, it’s usually for ridiculously short durations.
Tracing the Caller
Script writers would have us believe that it still takes thirty seconds to trace the origin of a call. This may have been true in 1970, but in an era of digital phones the caller “meta data” is always recorded instantly – it’s just a matter of getting access to the phone company’s data.