Computers and typing on Smallville.

[red_sun1938]

Back on my Apple II series in the late 80's, I wrote a program that would take random keystrokes and turn them into a canned sentence. I had seen Wargames way too many times and Matthew Broderick typed what sounded like 500 charaters while all that showed on the screen was a three word sentence.

Chloe's typing in Siren reminded me of that and I laughed out loud immediately.

[borednow]

What did he he replaced the papers with? Hot, naked Clex Fan made manips?

He didn't say. MR just said he thought he was going to get arrested for having them on an airplane. or something like that.

[chloesmygirl]

It's a TV show folks not real life.

[gx25236]

All organizations in Smallville universe are using unpatched software, configured to accept remote commands without password identification and all firewalls in Allow All mode.

[HowardFilms]

Haha, I notice this a lot in TV but it was insane in that scene with Chloe...what the hell was she typing?

[Nospam]

Back on my Apple II series in the late 80's, I wrote a program that would take random keystrokes and turn them into a canned sentence. I had seen Wargames way too many times and Matthew Broderick typed what sounded like 500 charaters while all that showed on the screen was a three word sentence.

Chloe's typing in Siren reminded me of that and I laughed out loud immediately.

Cool.

I remember a looooooooong time ago at Expo 86 in Vancouver I swapped the program disks running on the computers on display between the Italian pavilion and the Mexican pavilion. Needless to say much confusion was caused.

[jazel]

As a computer professional am I the only one that is annoyed with scenes where one of the actors or actresses are using a computer and we see or hear them type and type and type and type and type and type some more? What the fark are they typing? The Gettysburg Address? A Perl script? What?

I know it's petty, but it really annoys me and this episode was one of the worst in this regard.

sorry Jeremy , I really don't mean, to laugh at your pain.

[kentfamily]

Hey people, when shows or movies are made. SOUND is put in after the taping of the show. The typing that you hear is someoen else typing away and put in later. Even voice is done afterwards too.

Remember in SEASPN ONE? Pilot show? If you watch the commentaries, TPTB mentioned when Clark walked Lana back from the cemetery she gave him a kiss on the cheek. TPTB had made that kiss. So it is ussually added on later.
Thats why there is Sound and Effects Director credits at the end of movies made or shows.

[litew8]

Shhhhh..... do you hear that noise?

[borednow]

Haha, I notice this a lot in TV but it was insane in that scene with Chloe...what the hell was she typing?

Apparently her lines.

[Lazy Boy]

The strange thing that I noticed was Lana in the episode when she was typing. She was viewing footage of Lex in the Isis place and she was typing like crazy. Maybe it's the type of technology that she uses in her video cameras to view someone that she has to type an entire paragraph instead of using a mouse.

Maybe she has another little window open on the screen we couldn't see where she was writing her own fanfiction, you know the one where Chloe, Lana and Lois are in a three way love triangle......
Anyhoo, it's just a show but I do take the point where Al and Miles do get a little lazy with protraying the characters IT skills.
Regarding Tom Welling, perhaps he's writing his name to remind himself who he is as he doesn't exactly have his character's "mind like a titanium trap".

[aXem]

I find the typing scenes and oversimplification of computer processes amusing.

[kal-el_Girl]

As a computer professional am I the only one that is annoyed with scenes where one of the actors or actresses are using a computer and we see or hear them type and type and type and type and type and type some more? What the fark are they typing? The Gettysburg Address? A Perl script? What?

I know it's petty, but it really annoys me and this episode was one of the worst in this regard.

hahaha that was so funny!! that's really what I always think when they're at the computer, ok, so I'm a designer and basically you barely use the keyboard so what's the deal w/ all the typing THEY'RE GIVING ME A HEADACHE!!
AND the most imp. question who are they typing to?
the world will never know!

----- Added 6 Minutes later -----

Maybe they just type a bunch of gibberish. Dude, the DP is a freaking mess without Perry.

BTW where on earth is Mr. White?
come on bring him on board already!!

[ClarksGal]

That scene and the one with Lana in front of a computer at the ISIS Foundation are two great examples. Tippity tap, tap tap. What are you doing?

Yeah, I've noticed that too. You're right, it is annoying. Especially when what they are supposedly doing should be using their mouse, or something. The place I noticed it the most was in Bizarro, when Clark and Chloe were pow-wowing about Bizarro, and Chloe just started typing while Clark was talking. She wasn't really even looking for anything yet!

[triplet]

Yeah...Delete.

Love your reviews, Trip.

I didn't review that episode for KryptonSite, but boy... that probably woulda been like a 1.

I LOATHED that episode!

With a Passion.

It's probably one of my least favorite, right up there with Blue and Lucy.



Oh, and thanks!

I was going to make a comment along those lines. No offense to TW, but he comes across in interviews as a pretty serious, boring guy.

Well, that is an offense to Tom, but I don't think he's boring. I think his mocking of Chloe behind her back in Persona was him fooling around and then the director decided it fit the character so he kept it in.

Smart and funny and not serious.

Hey people, when shows or movies are made. SOUND is put in after the taping of the show. The typing that you hear is someoen else typing away and put in later. Even voice is done afterwards too.

Remember in SEASPN ONE? Pilot show? If you watch the commentaries, TPTB mentioned when Clark walked Lana back from the cemetery she gave him a kiss on the cheek. TPTB had made that kiss. So it is ussually added on later.

Thats why there is Sound and Effects Director credits at the end of movies made or shows.

Yes, a lot of the sound is added later, its called Foley Editing, but the voices are not always done later. It doesn't sound natural when it's looped (that's what you call it when dialogue is recorded later).

Think about the sound in the third original Star Wars film (I mean the old third one, not that dreck that was the new third one), the sound was all looped later. They didn't sync record in the studio at all.

It's because sync sound is very hard to do well and if you've got dodgey equipment it can be nearly impossible.

It was common in British films of the 60's and 70's to loop everything afterwards mostly because it saved money, but the British director of that film looped the dialogue because it was part of his "style."



I hated that part of the film. It made the dialogue sound flat and phoney. It robbed it of its emotion.

They do loop in Smallville, but only when the have to. It's very time-consuming, it can take hours per each minute to do (from what I understand), and there is just not enough time for them to do that.

Maybe she has another little window open on the screen we couldn't see where she was writing her own fanfiction, you know the one where Chloe, Lana and Lois are in a three way love triangle......

Anyhoo, it's just a show but I do take the point where Al and Miles do get a little lazy with protraying the characters IT skills.

I think it's mostly a time-saver, they don't have time to explain every little thing and computer hacking isn't a very visual thing and it'd be too boring to explain it all so they just make it up as they go along sometimes.

But even so, I busted them on Siren for that. Dumb. How could Chloe hack into a bank from Dinah's work computer?

I'm not an IT pro like some in this thread, but I do know my way around a computer (I do tech support) and it is really eye-roll worthy at times.

Regarding Tom Welling, perhaps he's writing his name to remind himself who he is as he doesn't exactly have his character's "mind like a titanium trap".

He is not dumb.



He wouldn't be as good an actor and director as he is if he weren't very smart, but don't just take my word for it.

His costars have said from time to time that they're surprised just how smart Tom is.

James Marsters is one of the smartest actors working and he thought so. So did Rutger Hauer and he's also very smart.

And he probably types his name over and over because he's not as good a typist as Allison. His name might be something he can do fast.

There's nothing worse than an actor who plays a character who should be able to type, like a future world class reporter, and can't.

He probably realizes that and no one is going to get a good enough view of what he's typing to notice he's typing "Tom Welling" over and over again.