I'd love to hear everybody's pet peeves in movie and TV production.

Drinking from empty cups. The way you hold, drink and move with a cup with hot liquid in it is very different from an empty cup. Whenever I see it it is all I can think about.
- It gets me how they always tip the cup far more than they would if they were actually drinking. It depends how much liquid is in there, but you don't really tip it more than 45 degrees unless it's almost empty.
- Haha, I don't see empty cups a lot, but I see s***** b******* sips all the time.
  They're like oh f*** the clients are here and take a huge gulp of coffee, but they're pursing their lips and obviously pushing their tongue forward so that the lip of the cup is closed
  Thank you, I'm loving these
- Mine has as of my last update. I tried to take a picture, but whatever privacy thing I'm using blanks out screenshotting my jerboa screenshot.
  But yeah, what I'm used to is the thing on the right side and then I click it and am answering somebody in one click.
  That correct?
  Now that option is gone, and I have to click an empty message box on the right side or the post text, and then the post opens up and then I have to click the reply button on the left and then I can reply.
  That sounds convoluted, it's only one more staff, but wasn't I able to reply directly with one click before?
  With your comment button on the right side, you just click that and then reply after that one click right?

CPR. The way they do it with bent arms affects how people think they should do it in real life. Your arms should be straight to get the most power for the least effort. And you'll need to conserve your energy because you could be doing it for an hour. No show has ever portrayed the length of time it takes.
- I always remember the abyss because the
  
  was absurdly long for cinematic time.
  I know there was another one that did it, but obviously nothing for an hour.
  So sometimes CPR takes an hour and that means that you are circulating oxygenated blood through the body to keep it and the brain alive for 1 hour straight until emergency medicine can be applied?
  So CPR is deflating and inflating the lungs so that blood is oxygenated and simultaneously pumping the heart to provide blood circulation?
  Is that what you mean? If not, can you explain it in more detail? That's f****** fascinating.
  
  The consequences of surviving CPR are usually pretty serious too. You don't generally gasp dramatically and then wake up just fine like they do in the movies.
  
  No, CPR is only meant to compress the heart in order to circulate blood. You can get a little in and out movement from the lungs (ventilation), but to do that correctly, you really need the bag mask thingy (which you do see One Night using on Lindsay in The Abyss.)
  The length of time they spend doing CPR in The Abyss is actually pretty realistic. There are a number of things that you try in addition to compressions and you have to give those things a chance to work before you "call it" (stop compressions).
  CPR is several rounds of compressions and shocks with various medications like epinephrine being given depending on what you're seeing on the heart shock monitor. Length of CPR is usually inversely proportional to the age of the patient. (The younger the patient, the longer a medical team will fight to get them back. This is because losing a kid is obviously devastating for everyone, but also because kids have this amazing tendency to be able to survive things that would 100% take an adult out.)
  My bitchy complaint about the CPR scene in The Abyss is that they spend so much of that time not doing compressions. They keep stopping to do other things or to sit around and cry dramatically. Every single second that they're not doing compressions is a second that no blood is circulating. It's crazy. In real CPR, compressions only stop when a shock is actually being administered. There is zero downtime on compressions other than that.
  (And no, people don't just gasp and wake up. Typically we just get a pulse and the person remains unconscious, often for days afterward. They usually need a ton of ICU level medical care, if they have any hope of recovering.)
  
  i seem to recall (from the book) the aliens helped also. they were able to manipulate matter at the molecular level and provide oxygen
- Honestly, people doing doing CPR correctly on camera could save lives. Although I suppose it could also harm the actor receiving the CPR if you didn't use a mannequin.
  
  I remember in Spongebob he did CPR off camera one time. The doctor said he did it for hours. I thought that was exaggeration, but later I learned it is very real.
- Along the same lines, it makes people think cpr is some magical cure that brings people back from death. It is not, it is literally squishing blood through the body manually after the heart has stopped to try and buy time for health professionals to get there to institute advanced life support and intensive care (ie with life support machines) in case there is some reversible problem. The vast majority of the time a person getting cpr stays dead, especially if it occurs outside the hospital. And for the people that do make it there is usually brain damage.
  This makes talking about the reality of dnr orders and things tough because people think they're saying no to some miraculous cure instead of a violent temporizer in case someone is dying of something reversible, and has no applicability to their irreversible disease.
- Or when they shock asystole, or when someone wakes up from like 5 shitty compressions and some mouth to mouth. Or 99% of any show ever. Even the few that do it OK are still so very bad.
- And it breaks ribs.
- Omg. For me is when in a hospital scene, the doctor dramatically pushes the nurse away to do compressions on their on strength...
- Jack in Lost just beating a dude on the chest, walking away, then come back and do it again until he revived didn’t do it for you then?

I think this one is pretty common, but whenever there’s a disagreement, argument or debate that could be resolved in less than 10 seconds by one of the characters explaining themself in a single sentence, but instead they say nothing and or get interrupted right when they’re getting to the important bit. I know I know, it keeps the tension going, but the tension is so artificial and convoluted that I can’t help but scream at the TV “just fucking say it!!!”
- or get interrupted right when they’re getting to the important bit
  The worst part of the interruptions is that they tend to be something that doesn't keep the person from just finishing the last few words of their sentence, and if it does they could just finish the conversation like 3 minutes later. But no, the moment is apparently ruined and they can't just accept a short delay to clear up something.
  Even worse is when they say they can explain or that it isn't what is looks like over and over and explaining it would take fewer words.
  Movie wife: "You are cheating on me!"
  Movie: "It isn't what you think, I can explain! Come back honey, I love you! I can explain!"
  Real life: "This is my sister who is hiding from her abusive husband."
- Roger Ebert discribed this as an "idiot plot". I don't know if he coined the term, but i heard it from him first. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiot_plot
- I especially dislike the "There's no time to explain!" when there clearly is time to explain.
  Like, you can spit out "Vampires are real and the head vampire wants to eat my sister" pretty quickly to get key information across. Don't need to provide the whole context.
  Not a movie, but one time in a tabletop RPG one of the players was trying to say "There's no time to explain!" and the other just wasn't having it. After two back-and-forths he was just like "If you had explained instead of saying there's no time, there would've been time!" Was really funny to watch that play out live.
- Oh, this one is great.
  This might be my greatest pet peeve of cinema and television production.
  I absolutely hate this.
  " No, it wasn't my mother"
  "We don't have to talk about it."
  No f****** body would say that.
  " Oh, who said it?"
  That's the next line of a script in an honest dialogue that isn't fluffing up a lack of complexity, you pieces of s***.
  Thank you so much.

Syringes getting stabbed into the necks of unwilling people is my niche pet peeve.
I'm a critical care nurse lol. There's no anatomy in a neck to receive an injection. There's not enough muscle mass, and you're not hitting a jugular vein without a person's full cooperation and a helluva lot of skill with IV injections. There's a nontrivial chance that you're just going to inject the medication into a person's trachea or esophagus, or worst case scenario directly into their spine.
Arms, people. Arms are where we inject people who don't want to be injected. Right through the clothes, if need be.
Peripherally related: Why are all needles used in movies like 2-3 inches long? No one uses needles that large for anything in the real world.
- I suppose if one were injecting into the arm of an unwilling person wearing multiple layers of thick clothing a long needle could be helpful, but otherwise it's just to look menacing.
  
  and so the audience can see it clearly
- My medical professional friends scream at movies and TV every time that happens.
  Also, livegiving CPR.

I'll admit this is petty, but you asked lol
It really kills my suspension of disbelief when tech just folds up / unfolds from practically nowhere. Typically in sci-fi, and it's most often seen with helmets. I get from a production standpoint, it can all be done in CGI and the actor doesn't have to wear or carry around the prop for the whole scene, but it just gets annoying.
It just makes the tech seem egregiously implausible even if it is handwaved away.
- Peeves are welcome.
  Tech folding is a huge problem.
  I would love to add tech sounds.
  Every time a line of text or code displays on a monitor and you hear like a bee boo click click whirl hum while the text is slowly displaying because of delayed projection hahaha, I go f****** bonkers.
  Ever since I noticed it in war games with Matthew Broderick. Like why the f*** is his computer beeping? Computers don't do that when you type into them or when they display text instantly, not after 5 minutes of discreet character generation.
  
  Oh, don't get me started on tech sounds. lol.
  Every once in a while, even in modern productions, you still see a printer on screen, either ink jet or laser, and the sound department gives them the old, dot-matrix "bzzzzzzzzt bzzzzzztt" sound. I may laugh when I hear it, but I do die inside a little.
- Edge of Tomorrow and how the suit fits in the pickup truck always bugs me!
  
  Don’t they show her ripping off the backs of the seats when she gets in?

Mine is kind of petty too, but it just seems to pop up so much. I hate when superheroes have to deal with a villain that uses the same source of power. Hulk fighting another Hulk, Ant-man fighting another shrinking guy, Iron Man fighting another dude in an Iron Man suit, Superman fighting other kryptonians, Captain America fighting another super soldier, Black Panther fighting another Black Panther dude.. Once you notice that you realize it sort of the default for this genre
- Yea that sucks. It is a comic trope, but there does seem to be a more universal context within the literature where it's plausible that another person came across this technology or power (not probable, but plausible in certain situations), whereas in the marvel movies or whatever Ant-Man drops his aunt belt and then anti Ant-Man shows up.
  " Hawkeye shot me with an arrow? I better save this arrow above my fireplace and train super intensely for 6 months until I'm on par with a literally impossible level of aiming perfection.
  Thank goodness I only got shot through the shoulder and bicep so that I was able to heal in 3 days and then learn everything I ever needed to know about bows and arrows that took f****** Hawkeye 18 years to learn in a Buddhist monastery in an island offshore a country nobody has ever learned about."
  Sorry that went on so long, those stories are so absurd.
  Yeah that totally sucks.
  Thank you.
  
  Iron Man: they are executives at the same company that developed the tech
  Black Panther: the bad guy literally just couped the government of Wakanda
  Ant Man: the villain is a former business parter of Pym
  Dr Strange: they trained at the same monastery and the bad guy trained for longer
  I think these fights are boring most of the time, but they're not implausible. They have plenty of plot justification.
  Also the character who copied Hawkeye was a girl who was inspired by his heroism and spent years learning archery and martial arts and still sucked at being Hawkeye when she met him
- That's what made me stop watching the Flash TV show. After like the fourth or fifth person became a speedster it just got boring.
  
  The problem with the flash is that if you power him up to full, there's basically nothing that's a threat beyond other speedsters. Between phasing through matter, lightning, and infinite mass punches, and time travel are pretty broken.

Freezing in space. There is no atmosphere in space, and nothing to convect heat. You would freeze VERY slowly (maybe over a week?) as the heat is radiated out. This is assuming you aren't too close to the sun.
Flammable oxygen. Oxygen and Carbon are both required to burn. One doesn't ignite the other. Basic combustion is a reaction between Carbon and Oxygen.
Wilhelm scream. I liked it in one movie. The rest it just takes me out.
Missing headrests so you can see the back of the actor's head.
- TIL 18-36 hours to freeze in space.
- Yup I'm a huge sci-fi nerd and this is my number one pet peeve in media.
  YOU DON'T FREEZE INSTANTLY IN SPACE
- The Wilhelm scream kills me.
  I instantly recognize it every time and it turns anything into a high school drama play
- There's one example of freezing in space done right. In the finale of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Battle Tendency, Kars gets shot into space and tries to course correct with air jets, but then he starts freezing over, air jets first.
  In Phantom Blood, we were shown Dio's special technique for freezing people by evaporating the moisture on his skin. This is to introduce viewers to the fact that boiling a liquid makes it colder. Kars froze because the moisture in his air jets boiled in the vacuum and became freezing cold. Kars didn't know this detail of physics because he's an ancient Aztec.

I hate when someone takes a deep drag off of a cigarette and then the angle cuts and they never exhale it. It happened a ton in Sons of Anarchy.
It really bothers me when something is supposed to be metal but is really obviously some sort of plastic. You usually see it with stuff like shields or chains or anything that would be heavy.
They can never seem to get the setup right when two people are tag-teaming the dishes. One person is usually just dunking the dishes in the sink while the other person spends 3 minutes drying the already perfectly dry mug. It's outrageous how often that happens.

Spoiling the fucking movie with the trailers...
- I haven't watched a movie trailer in like 10 years and it made every movie experience so much better

Concussions. People get knocked out by a blow to the head or neck? They stay knocked out for an hour or so? They wake up okay?
I slipped on ice and cracked the side of my skull into the corner of a dumpster. I was out for...? It was the dead of winter. In Canada. -30. I couldn't have been out more than a minute or two.
I was all kinds of messed up for months. I couldn't control my arms right. My emotions went haywire. I had blinding headaches for weeks.
I still have nasty chronic headaches and memory loss. It happened more than ten years ago!
Knocked out for long enough to wake up tied up in a warehouse? Nah, you died. Buffy? Dead. James Bond? Dead. Sorry.
- Yes, it's pretty established that a) it's not as easy to knock someone out as movies portray it, and b) someone who gets knocked unconscious is unlikely to wake up and be fine.
- Wow, there's a hell of a story, pretty scary. Thanks for sharing!
  Great point about concussions
- maybe the antagonist snuck them some sleeping pills off-camera...

I hate ~~exhibition~~ exposition. It's so much more interesting when you show me a thing I don't understand and don't explain it than it is when you have a conversation that would never take place in that world because it's like explaining a sandwich to a 45 year old human being as if they didn't already know what a sandwich was, despite the fact we were shown the character eating a sandwich 4 scenes ago.
If a dude pulls out a gun made of flesh and bone and it's meant to be normal to the character whipping it out, stfu about it. Just let it be weird for the audience.
- You mean 'show, don't tell'? Or how characters need to explain their world to the audience (since it is strange to the audience) but it's normal for the character?
  
  Yeah. I used the wrong word; meant exposition as @Chetzmoka points out.
- Exposition. You hate exposition :)
  
  And exhibition games in sports. They mean nothing in the season!

Shaving. Every single time someone is shaving in any movie or show, they always make a few random strokes on one side of the face, maybe a little on the chin, and then they always stop halfway through. Gets my OCD up. Then to make thing worse, they always wipe up the rest of the shaving cream with a towel and casually toss the towel to the side. Covered in shaving cream. With a half-shaved face. Monsters.
- I'm glad you added the second half, I immediately started replying after reading the first sentence that the worst part about shaving in movies is when they wipe off the rest of the shaving cream without finishing shaving, hahah.
  Absolutely Psychotic.
- Similarly, toothbrushing.
- This silliness exists because filming actors is hard. Like how almost nobody eats, in movies. It is a serious and committed choice for an actor to genuinely consume food... because they're gonna have to do it a dozen times, whilst delivering dialog, and hope nobody (including them) screws up or half-asses it.
  And when they do show an actor eating, it's usually to convey a particular tone. Like Denethor. So: why is the actor shaving, in the first place? Generally the answer is not an answer that requires putting the entire process onscreen. So there's this shorthand that's not so much unnoticed as accepted. It's as much a part of the fiction as the fourth wall. Audiences don't question how everyone speaks clearly all the time, or how actions occur perfectly framed to a nonexistent camera. We just get the idea that someone is shaving, and ideally derive some characterization from the details of the scene, without having to watch an actor pantomime away every last drop of foam with a shiny squeegee.
  You'll notice a lot more like this in foreign films because you're not inculcated to their tropes. There's some jump scares in Japanese horror that become kind of silly when the ghost is literally just wearing a handkerchief over their face. It serves the same purpose as Jacob Marley showing up in a tattered suit.

I hate when production companies dupe people into doing work on a movie "on spec". For those who don't know, on spec means that the work is done at a reduced upfront cost with the expectation of a share of profits after release. What the poor schmucks who fall for this don't know is that no movie has made a profit for production companies in over 50 years. At least not as far as paper is concerned. After a movie is made, production companies have to get it out there. The companies who do this are known as distributors, and they charge the production company to do the distribution. Now for the movie magic, the same company that owns the production company also owns the distributor, so they are essentially charging themselves more money than the movie can ever make to do the job. The legal loophole that they fuck people with is that, even though they are owned by the same company, they are separate legal entities, so contracts with one do not bind the other. The on spec contract is with the production company, but the distributor is the one who collects the money from the theaters, which it then funnels into the parent company. The production company shows a loss on the books, so the on spec clauses never trigger. Look into Life of Pi and Rhythm and Hues if you can find the right articles about what happened.
Oh, and remember how I said that theaters pay the distributors? Those contracts are almost as straightforward as the on spec ones. The standard layout is that the theater pays some percentage of the box office to the distributor for opening week, then each week after it reduces by some fixed percent until reaching 0. The initial percentages vary, as do the reduction, but standard is 80/10 from what I understand. The most abusive I have ever specifically learned the details for was a Disney production, I belive it was the first of the new Star Wars movies, but it was a 99% opening week, decreasing by 1% per week for 4 weeks, then 5% thereafter. Oh, and they also tried to strongarm the theaters into having to fork over 50% of concessions as well, which was the first time I had ever heard of that. Luckily the concessions thing was fought and won by the theaters, but it is atrocious that they even tried. Anyway, that is why concessions are so expensive, because theaters make virtually 0 money off box office sales since the bulk of a movie's gross revenue comes from opening week box office. Do your local theater a favor if you genuinely enjoy them existing, buy a fountain drink or a popcorn. Those are the highest profit margin items on the menu and they do actually need the money.
- Holy crap I had no idea how much theaters were getting f***** over, thanks for posting this. Fascinating!.
  
  https://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-1602-audience-sex-5-things-you-deal-with-managing-theater.html
  Number 3, and the first article linked in it are good for deeper dives and the linked article may have more updated or detailed info than I am recalling from my reports I had to write for my MA in VFX. There is a LOT of fuckery that really should be quite illegal.
- Damn, this sounds like mafia work. We need some laws in place
  
  Yeah, I have studied all aspects of production, from writing all the way through to the audience watching it. There are strong laws on the production side because SAG and WGA exist and have pushed hard for legal protections against the studios and production companies prioritizing money over safety. Unfortunately on the distribution side the theaters actually have some very good anti-corporate laws working against them. What needs to happen is essentially a unionization of theaters so they can collectively bargain against the distributors and be able to say "good luck with getting your movie our there, because it won't be on a single silver screen with those terms." Unfortunately that behavior falls under the collusion and price fixing laws, which are spectacular and need to be there, but probably should be amended for situations like this.

Going to the cinema to see a movie, and they show a trailer FOR THAT EXACT MOVIE.
(Although that doesn't really fit the prompt. Still annoys me a lot though)
- Wait' is that a thing?
  
  I can't remember which movie, but this happened to me with a comedy and it spoiled all the good jokes. I wish I could remember which one but I was pretty pissed upon leaving
  
  They did it for both Dune movies where I went.

They aren't poking at the glass without actually sweeping because they are lazy. They are doing multiple takes and saving the crew from having to make a new mess to pretend to sweep up between takes.
Same as not actually eating their food, they don't want to overeat while doing a bunch of takes. It still bugs me to watch everyone run off without anyone touching the stack of pancakes!
- Oh I know exactly why they're sweeping s***** or why they take tiny bites or chew their food so many times, that's the point of this post.
  Running away before finishing their food, or constantly putting down the sandwich they're holding to continue dialogue is a great corollary.
  Nah dude, people care about food. Literally everyone cares about food. Nobody is leaving their sandwich that cost the significant amount of $16 in their movie world and took part of a scene to order so that they can pursue their friend's hare-brained scheme.
  Every single person is asking for it to go box and then defining the details of the scheme or maybe picking up the sandwich and taking it out with them.
  Nobody was struck with such a good idea, regardless of how much money they might make if they survive the impending circumstances that they leave their perfect sandwich on the table and we need to linger on it for four seconds.
  What a s***** unrealistic trope

I've got to reply to myslef just in case it doesn't get mentioned, but when somebody getting shot at hides behind a wooden door or a piece of furniture and the bullet doesn't go through the sofa or wooden door.
Oh cool! You flipped over the coffee table?
You should be totally fine while machine guns rain down ammunition on you.
- Lmao yeah, just duck behind that 1/4 inch plywood to stop the bullets previously shown to dent metal

People talking in their normal voices in noisy/loud environments.
A club, pub, pool hall, factory, even an airplane in flight - those are noisy environments. You're not going to make yourself heard without raising your voice even just a bit.
- You would like christopher nolan's Tenet. The ambient noise is on point. In fact, it has the loudest HVAC that I have ever heard in a film.
- Oh yeah, that s*** is bonkers

If they aren't sweeping correctly is isn't because they are stuck up actors; it's because sweeping is loud and they want to get the dialog recorded.
- I think so too. They're taking long slow sweeps barely touching the floor, it's so ridiculous
- And they'd have to reset if they cleaned it up before the next take.
  Kinda weird that's not fixed by prop brooms where the bristles don't really reach. Like if some rigid rings were hidden among them and stuck out further.
  
  I saw an episode of 'The Americans' that was set in a bowling alley. If you look closely you can see some people in the background pretending to throw invisible balls. I guess that some props are just too expensvie or niche to bother to make.

In fight scenes where they force the women to only fight women and the men to only fight men. Super bad ass girl could obviously take on guard one and two.
- Lol. It's even worse when we contstantly see the male grunts get taken out two at a time but when the woman hero gets involved she gets overpowered and needs help

No one closes doors!
Empty luggage.
People go on vacation / move away with 1 tiny suitcase which magically has a warehouse of clothing in it.
The "dumb" character. Why is there at least 1 dumb person (who everyone rips on and bullies) in a series or movie. So stupid.
Hand guns with unlimited ammunition in them.
People hiding behind tables, normal walls from gunfire. 1 shot and you are dead.
Movies that are 90% explosions and 4% plot.

Catering to the general population to make money instead of art.

That blurry fisheye lens that's come into fashion. Sabrina used it a ton and that's where I first really noticed it, but I've seen it a few other places now and it annoys me. I just think it looks dumb.
- Which Sabrina, the teenage witch?
  I agree that blurry fish eye lenses is a cinematic trick that needs to be done away with, I think it's down to production budget usually.
  
  Ya, new Sabrina on Netflix.
- Exception: Peep Show does fish eye lens shots well.

"Reality" shows.
My wife tried to get me to watch American Idol back in the day. I don't remember all the details, but there were like 10 people we were supposed to follow through the process.
Day one, they took the entire group who were auditioning and divided them up into groups.
"Wow, look at that..."
"What?"
"Each of the 10 people they want us following got their own group... No single group got 2 or 3 of them..."
"Why do you ruin everything?"
I have to admit, one of my guilty pleasures are ghost hunting shows. I love that shit.
Expedition X did a trip to Okinawa, which I learned was actually conquered and absorbed by Japan back in 1609, prior to that they had their own, distinct, language, culture, and religion...
But SOMEHOW all the ghost boxes were spitting out English! Man, what are the chances?

The worst is explaining that X can't be done because Y, then doing X anyway. Solo does this by sending Qi'ra on the mission despite just saying the whole point was not to use recognizable gangsters

When people who clearly have never cooked a meal for themselves prepare one on film. The whole process.
We recently watched a movie where a woman was preparing dinner but she’s chopping whatever the hell she was chopping like it was the first time in her life that she had ever held a knife. Sometimes they even use the completely wrong knife for whatever the task is that they’re trying to do. Other times, they’re constantly stirring something like boiling noodles or sauces that don’t need to be stirred. All kinds of dumb things that are obviously done just to give the actor something to do with the props around them but that make the character look incompetent instead.
Even worse is when whatever they’re doing doesn’t even make sense within the context presented in the film, e.g. dicing a lime for drinks instead of cutting slices or wedges, using a pepper grinder on fruit, making another character taste something that would be scalding hot, etc.
Close runner-up is when characters go to a bar and order “a beer” or some other generic version of something. Just make up a god damn brand name, fer chrissakes.
- Ha, cooking is a good one.
  Whenever somebody cooks and nothing smokes or no extra sauce gets anywhere it shouldn't or no ingredients are on the counter or floor?
  Julienned vegetables are a big one for me too.
  I love the bear TV show, but very often they zoom in on one of the actors slicing a vegetable and the slices are wildly inconsistent, like at least twice as thick and thin each slice, even after they're supposed to have gone to culinary school or practiced for 10,000 or whatever.
  Small thing, but this is a peeve thread, and I love the show otherwise or I wouldn't even complain about it, but those thick and thin slices are such a glaring incongruence with the rest of the show.

This current woke trend in movies and television.