Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2007 July 11

=July 11=

comedians
i have a question.in my school club we have this trivias we ask each other and the one rule is that we get our source of info from wikipedia.now the last one we got seems quite tough.its about two people both are comedians one is a fantastic dancer and both are comedians.they are a couple.am not sure if married or not but they are together.who are they?the couple must have an article on them on wikipedia.


 * How about George Burns and Gracie Allen? Her article says she was a "talented dancer". Clarityfiend 07:54, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

i was just thinking about the same thing.


 * There's also Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Both were comedians and Desi was a great musician and dancer. -- Kainaw (what?) 13:22, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I never thought of Desi Arnaz as much of a comedian. Corvus cornix 20:23, 11 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Tell whoever wrote that question that it's badly written: many people in show business are "fantastic dancers", and there are thousands of "couples", especially if you don't limit the word "couple" to mean romantic couple. If you count actors in comedies as comedians, one could even count Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers! -- Charlene 22:38, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Colossus versus Gigantus
I must be spelling this wrong or something. I am sure there is a movie with this title? Julie Moon 10:43, 11 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, it is spelled Colossus. Also, there is nothing like that on IMDB. -- Kainaw (what?) 12:10, 11 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Its about two giant computers - one in Russia and one in the USA (1950-60) before the Internet as we know it today. (Here comes the plot - SPOILER WARNING) These two computers become intelligent and hook-up but need the two top scientists to do something or another - they kill the one in the Russia and then try to enslave the one in the US. I'll leave the rest for your imagination. Julie Moon 13:05, 11 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Colossus: The Forbin Project could be what you are thinking about. DuncanHill 13:13, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes this pretty much sounds like its the one I saw on a late, late, late show back in the late sixties. Possibly the program director of the station that aired it entitled the intermissions back in a moment screens "Gigantus versus Colossus" instead of "Guardian versus Colossus" but to be sure I'll have to watch it again with all the clones even back then. Julie Moon 14:43, 11 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Billion-Dollar Brain is similar. 80.2.197.105 21:00, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

music theory qeuestion
How do I transpose this MIDi melody http://pachome1.pacific.net.sg/~rckl/evat.mid (the score is at http://www.kisa.ca/lj/eva1.png and http://www.kisa.ca/lj/eva2.png ) to be played on tenor recorder so that it fits the instrument's range and uses easy fingerings without too many weird accidentals.

http://home.pacbell.net/jeanannc/mpro/images/FingeringChart.jpg

Currently the first note of the song is C, which happens to be the lowest possible note on my tenor instrument. What note should I change it to, to fit my goals? For example, in part two of the score PNG, it dips below C, so I need to shift everything upward, at least.

--Sonjaaa 14:31, 11 July 2007 (UTC)


 * That piece of music is a little strange, and certainly hasn't been written up in the most convenient (or conventional) manner! It looks like it's either in G minor or Bb major, but the G# accidental seems a little odd for either. Anyway, I'll plumping for G minor for convenience sake. It does sound rather minor. You want the lowest possible note to be C, you say? That means raising the whole thing by at least a tone. A minor might suit you, since it has a blank key signature. That would mean your G# accidental becomes an A# (Bb), which should be fairly easy. So I'd say move all the notes up a tone. That's a major 2nd, if you think like that. :-) Skittle 16:26, 11 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Don't let the notation fool you, that's C minor (just re-write the G# as an Ab). Going to Aminor means some nasty half-hole stuff in the second octave. Far better to just take it up a whole step to Dm. Then there's no half-hole fingerings involved. Donald Hosek 20:54, 11 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Just came here to correct that! I realised as I was getting dressed this morning... As I said originally, going up a tone (a whole step, if that's the terminology you use, or a major second. So C becomes D) will leave you with only Bb to worry about. Moving to no sharps or flats would mean playing everything quite a bit higher (starting on an A, top note being a high A), but you might prefer to play in E minor which would involve an F#, but no flats. Some people prefer F# to F natural, since it's easier to play in tune on some instruments. In that case, you want to move up two tones (starting on E instead of C, a major third). Skittle 09:47, 12 July 2007 (UTC)


 * It's less an issue of avoiding accidentals than half-hole fingerings, I would think. Most of the accidental fingerings are pretty straightforward cross-fingerings but as you go up into the second octave there's an uncomfortable half-hole fingering with the thumb. Donald Hosek 17:49, 12 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Uncomfortable? Anyone who's been playing the recorder for a while should be quite comfortable playing up to high E! Half-hole fingering on the thumb isn't awkward at all, although getting the breathing and fingering right from high A upwards can be. Accidental fingerings may be 'pretty straightforward cross-fingerings', but they can be awkward to move into and out of, particularly if you haven't had a lot of practice playing pieces with them in. Skittle 18:48, 12 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Maybe it's all the time I spend with Boehm-flute fingerings, but cross-fingerings always seem more natural to me than anything involving half-hole. My wife, who's the serious recorder player in the family, doesn't think twice about any of it. Donald Hosek 16:05, 13 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, it depends where. If you're playing one and a half fingers to make a Bb, instead of the split fingering, that is more tricky generally (although perhaps not in some fast pieces). However, half-holing the thumb is a really standard part of playing the recorder, and isn't that hard. Skittle 21:14, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Music in Sandrine Voillet's Paris final episode
If anyone caught Sandrine Voillet's Paris on BBC 2 at 9pm on July 10th,, does anyone remember the name of the pianist she spoke about, and the song he played, is was a very simple piece, sounded familiar. 89.242.81.184 16:09, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

James Bond - how did the producers stop others from using Sean Connery in their James Bond movies?
Think back to the start of the James Bond series. The original James Bond was, as far as I recall, Sean Connery. How did the producers stop Sean Connery (or whoever the James Bond was played by) being offered more money by another production company and going off and making a James Bond movie with someone else?

In fact I've been thinking about this in general - if producers have a successful character or duo - for example Abbott and Costello or Laurel and Hardy or whoever - how did the producers stop the actors going off with some other production company and leaving the original producers in the lurch? 80.2.197.105 21:26, 11 July 2007 (UTC)


 * It would seem to me that only one entity (say, production company A) has the legal rights to the James Bond character. It is not true to think that "anybody out there, if they want to" (say, production companies B or C or D) can go ahead and use the James Bond character in their film.  Production companies B, C, and D (and everyone else in the world) has no right to use that character.  Only production company A has that right.  Production company A can sell that right to another production company if they so choose.   (JosephASpadaro 22:01, 11 July 2007 (UTC))


 * They can't, exactly: Never Say Never Again. But the film rights to the character and stories belongs to EON Productions (see James Bond (films)). As for the other cases, the pairing was enforced at least partially by the studio system in which actors' careers were essentially controlled by the studio to which they belonged. In fact, you can see the breakdown of the studio system reflected in the split of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis who where arguably the most successful film pairing of their time (although the pair actually had much more control of their careers than earlier pairings such as those you name). Donald Hosek 21:54, 11 July 2007 (UTC)


 * All James Bond stories and characters are still under copyright, and the right to use them (as mentioned above) are owned by specific individuals and corporations. Using them for profit in a way not approved of by the copyright holders is legally not permissible except under certain specific circumstances (parody in the United States, for instance). Commercial efforts that use characters created by others, such as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and The Seven Percent Solution, use characters now in the public domain. -- Charlene 22:30, 11 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Cubby Broccoli didn't own the rights to Casino Royale, and therefore David Niven (and Peter Sellers and Woody Allen) portrayed Bond in the original version of that film. But once Dr. No came out, he had exclusive rights to the next X number of films, and therefore nobody else could make a Bond film, so there was no danger of anybody else hiring Connery to do it.  I don't really know why he didn't have the rights to Casino Royale, but it might have had something to do with it Casino Royale having appeared on television in 1954 (starring Barry Nelson, of all people).  Corvus cornix 22:17, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. So if a producer was developing a new comedy duo for example, how could she/he stop the pair of actors involved running off and using the same characters with some other producer if there was no book of the film? I know that this was prevented in Laurel and Hardy because they had different contracts that expired at different times, but now that studios do not get an exclusive contract over the next few years of an actors life, how is it prevented? And what stopped somebody writing an Ian Fleming pastiche that Cubby Broccoli did not own the film rights to, and using Sean Connery to act in it? Do you think Cubby had sleepless nights worrying about this possibility? 80.2.220.179 23:28, 13 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The simple answer to your first question is: It is the producer who owns the rights to the character, not the actors who portray that character.  Think of the character as "property" that belongs to the producer -- the actor cannot take or steal or use that property, as it is not their property.  (JosephASpadaro 04:01, 14 July 2007 (UTC))