Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2009 March 29

= March 29 =

Anyone remember the name of this documentary
This is a long shot. There was a documentary quiet a while ago which screened on SBS here in Australia.

It was about gaming and such.

It has a segment about a bunch of korean guys which slept in a LAN cafe basically showered in the bathroom there in the sink and lived there. This gave my mates and I a good chuckle.

It also had a bunch of "gold farmers" for wow working for a chinese company. They basically slept in a barrack kind of arrangement and in their freetime..they went out to play wow..after 16 hour days.

Anyway i dont rememeber much else but it was actually a pretty good documentary.

Any ideas? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.220.48.94 (talk) 03:37, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
 * This one? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.171.56.13 (talk) 19:22, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

What do you call the thing used to synthesize voices in electropop?
What's the name of that electronic device used to correct notes that singers sing out of tune, which has the effect of making the stretches of their voices during which it's used sound electronically synthesized (as in Daft Punk's "One More Time")? Thanks! —anon —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.112.166.72 (talk) 05:28, 29 March 2009 (UTC)


 * The page One More Time (Daft Punk song) says it is heavily Auto-Tuned and compressed. See also Pitch correction. I suspect they used the Phase vocoder of Auto-Tune to alter the vocal pitch in a number of ways--sudden stepping up and down, rapid "trills", etc. You can use Auto-Tune to fix out of tune singing, but you can also use it to alter the the pitches of in tune singing. It sounds to me like they might also have used some mild Sample and hold type control signals to twiddle the Auto-Tune's parameters a bit. There's clearly a few other heavy effects too, especially compression. Pfly (talk) 07:17, 29 March 2009 (UTC)


 * The OP may be asking about Pro Tools, a relatively cheap and now ubiquitous virtual studio software suite. What formerly required lots of electronics now can be done relatively easily using Pro Tools.  --Jayron32. talk . contribs  17:32, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
 * You might want to look at the main vocoder article too. Exxolon (talk) 17:57, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The term "auto-tune" has almost become generic thanks to its use by singers like T-Pain, even though other programs may be used. So while you're probably just looking for the term "auto-tune," producers can use Pro Tools or something else for essentially the same effect. zafiroblue05 | Talk 00:33, 30 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I have Pro Tools. It can do things like pitch correction, vocoding, and so on, but via plug-ins not the core software itself. It comes with a set of plug-ins, including compression, pitch and time shifting, but it would take some serious work to make these basic plug-ins do the kind of thing Auto-Tune does. There is, of course, an Auto-Tune plug-in you can buy, as well as a great variety of similar things. My point being that yes, Pro Tools is widely used and is quite powerful, but "most producers" who use it also load it up with plug-ins that are far from free. Plus, quite a few of the more impressive plug-ins are available only for TDM Pro Tools systems, which require expensive hardware. The less expensive Pro Tools LE cannot use TDM plug-ins. Only Real Time AudioSuite plug-ins are supported in Pro Tools LE, unless things have changed since I last updated my system. Over the years I've become disillusioned with Pro Tools and don't intend to use it much longer. There was a time when it was the best tool for multi-track audio recording and mixing on a computer, no question. These days... eh. The expensive high-end Pro Tools systems still dominate the high-end market, but there are plenty of other options for those of us who are not professional producers. Pfly (talk) 06:49, 30 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I fuuuuuuuuuccked a meerrrrmaaaaaiiiidddd! Awesome —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.54.192.144 (talk) 04:05, 31 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Really? Because that, too, raises some interesting questions...??!?  Britmax (talk) 11:25, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

childrens tv show
the show is about a girl who has a physic connection with a tiger at the zoo. her mom is a vet there also has a little brother she also wears a special neckless a cat eye i think —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pegasis07 (talk • contribs) 09:45, 29 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Sorry, is this a request for help? Britmax (talk) 10:20, 29 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Pegasis is probably asking for the name of the show. And it would help if they could tell us what country they saw this show in.  I don't recall anything like this in the States, so maybe it was British?  Dismas |(talk) 10:52, 29 March 2009 (UTC)


 * The fact that the OP writes "mom" would suggest otherwise. Malcolm XIV (talk) 12:13, 29 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Since TV shows are syndicated all over the world, the country in which they viewed it is actually pretty much irrelevant. I don't know the answer, btw. --Richardrj talkemail 12:53, 29 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Not all TV programs are, and particularly not ones so rare that people can't recall the name, and need to ask here. StuRat (talk) 15:45, 29 March 2009 (UTC)


 * In addition, it can help with Google searches to know what country the show originated in since things like Land of the Lost, for example, might be described on some web site as "...the American children's show..." Dismas |(talk) 01:18, 30 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Could it be either Wild at Heart (TV series) or the US version, Life Is Wild ? I don't recall the daughter having a "physic connection with a tiger", but I only saw a few episodes.  They ran an African nature preserve, not a zoo. StuRat (talk) 15:58, 29 March 2009 (UTC)


 * You're thinking about the Australian series Wild Kat starring Pia Prendiville and Daniel Daperis. - Mgm|(talk) 10:16, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

College basketball
I know very little about college basketball. But, one day recently, I was looking at the "brackets" for the current NCAA College Basketball playoffs. I could not find UConn (University of Connecticut) at all, although I knew that they were playing ... and winning. I had been looking in the "East" division brackets. Then one day, by accident, I looked in the "West" division brackets ... and, lo and behold, there were the scores and stats for UConn. So, I had been looking in the wrong place the whole time! Does anyone know why a college in Connecticut would be classified in the "West" division brackets for the NCAA College Basketball playoffs? Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 20:54, 29 March 2009 (UTC))
 * According to a blacklisted site, "the initial three teams selected from each conference are placed in different regions." Clarityfiend (talk) 22:00, 29 March 2009 (UTC)


 * There are all sorts of reasons why teams get classified in which bracket. I didn't know the reason Clarityfiend lists, but the committee has many different things to consider when making the bracket. For example, the teams it ranks 1 through 4 get a 1 seed in their region, and I think there were three 1 seeds from the Big East this year. Then the team it determines to be 1 overall always faces the winner of the play-in game (the bottom two teams in the tournament). And many more: a big no-no is the possibility of a team sometime during the tournament playing in its home arena, for example, so it doesn't have a home-court advantage (of course, this by its very nature will tend to make some teams play in a bracket out of their geographical area depending on how the practicalities work). While for 1 seeds you usually do see them better-placed geographically than UConn this year, the East/West/Midwest/South names are really little more than names and people don't think about them much. See NCAA basketball tournament selection process for what is surely a better explanation than this. zafiroblue05 | Talk 00:20, 30 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks. So, in a nut-shell ... the East/West/Midwest/South distinctions are merely "labels" and not the geographic location of the Colleges ... correct?  Geez ... why not just call it A/B/C/D or 1/2/3/4 ... instead of using geographical names to represent a non-geographical concept?   (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 02:10, 30 March 2009 (UTC))
 * For a short time, they were called by the city at which each regional championship was played. And the geographic names are supposed to have some relevancy - it's just not the first priority of the selection committee. zafiroblue05 | Talk 02:50, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
 * So is it always true that the geographic designations of the brackets correspond to the location where the final game of the bracket is played? Rmhermen (talk) 17:35, 30 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Here's how the NCAA seeding works in a nutshell. It may take a minute for me to get there, but follow me for a minute.  There are three weekends worth of games.
 * The First Weekend consists of the round of 64 and the round of 32. These games are held at 8 different locations around the country, with each location hosting two 4-team "pods".  At each of the 8 locations is a Thursday-Saturday pod and a Friday-Sunday pod.  These locations are spread around the country, but otherwise have no regional affiliation.  Generally, the highest seeded teams are assigned to "pods" closest to home, but with 64 teams, sometimes this is impossible.  For example, the University of North Carolina (a 1-seed) and Duke University (a 2-seed)played its first weekend games at Greensboro, North Carolina while Gonzaga University (a 4-seed) and the University of Washington (a 4-seed) played in Portland, Oregon.  These "pods" are assigned to geographic "regions" and feed the next second weekends worth of games.
 * The Second Weekend consists of the rounds of 16 and 8. These games are played at 4 regional sites around the country, and its THESE 4 SITES that determine the East/West/South/Midwest labels.  Usually, the four "1-seeds" are assigned to regions that will place them closest to home, but again, when there is a conflict, they just make do.  This year, the 4 regional sites were Indianapolis, Indiana (Midwest), Memphis, Tennessee (South), Boston, Massachusetts (East), and Glendale, Arizona (West).  Preference is given to the top overall ranks.  The teams were ranked #1 Louisville, #2 UNC, #3 Pitt, #4 UConn.  Then, the teams are placed in brackets such that the higest the closest to their home, and so on.  Since Pitt was ranked higher than UConn, they got preference in the East.  Since there were no "Western" teams among the top 4 teams, UConn, being the "4th" best team, got shifted out west.  They still got to play their opening round games in Philadelphia, though.  The first weekend sites allow them to ensure that nearly ALL of the top seeds get to play at least 2 games close to home.
 * The Third Weekend is of course, the Final Four, held this year in Detroit.
 * As far as seeding the rest of the tournament, the NCAA selection committee has certain guiding principles. Where possible, the highest seeds (1-4) end up closest to home in as many games as possible.  Also, teams from the same conference cannot meet before the round of 8, and teams that played each other during the regular season do not meet in the opening round.  Of course, as games get played out, and upsets occur, later rounds do not always hold to the organization planned by the first round...
 * Hope this straightend things out. --Jayron32. talk . contribs 21:14, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The other No. 1 seeds all play in the Eastern U.S., so someone was going to have to be the odd man out and get sent to the West region. Perhaps UConn got that role because it was the fourth-ranked team overall, behind Pitt, UNC and Louisville. The various rules and regulations of the tournament sometimes have some odd results. I remember one year, Maryland, Georgetown and one of the other DC-area schools, all of which were within 15 miles of each other in Washington, all got sent out to Boise, Idaho to play in the West region. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 04:09, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, sometimes weird stuff like that happens, especially to the lower seeds. Just to clarify a bit, the teams are placed in one of the 4 regional brackets first, then the opening weekend games are assigned to a location after that.  So the selection committee decides only on who is playing who in which of the four regions; THEN they assign the opening round "pods" to the higher seed in each 4-team "pod", almost always based on the proximity of the highest seed in the "pod".  There will be a 1-16/8-9 pod, a 2-15/7-10 pod, a 3-14/6-11 pod, and a 4-13/5-12 pod.  In almost every case, the pod will be assigned a location closest as feasible to the home court of highest seed in each.  Thus, in your scenario, lets say that the University of Washington was a 3 seed, Maryland a 6 seed, Georgetown an 11 seed, and George Mason a 14 seed, and all ended up in the same region.  It is entirely likely they would be sent to Boise, which is would be the opening-round host closest to the best seed (Washington), despite the fact that three of the four teams lie within about 20 miles of each other across the continent.  --Jayron32. talk . contribs  05:28, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Uncredited roles
Does anyone have any idea or insight as to why certain actors are "uncredited" for their performances? I am not referring to very small roles, where it would be impractical to list every single bit actor or "extra". Also, I am not referring to big-name celebrities who appear with no credit for a variety of publicity or other reasons. What I am referring to is this. You have a basically "unknown" actor ... yet the role is somewhat important or pivotal to the story. Why would that actor agree to such a significant role, yet with no credit? And why would the film or TV producer not want to offer credit? These are just some examples that I came across within the last few days ... which prompted me to wonder about this and to post this question. I am sure there are many other examples, but this list should get my idea across.


 * The Song of Bernadette (film) - Linda Darnell - uncredited as the Virgin Mary, a significant role in the story
 * Remote Control (game show) - Jani Berry - uncredited as the voice of Ken's Mom, a significant role in the story
 * The Exorcist (film) - Mercedes McCambridge - uncredited as the voice of the Devil, a significant role in the story
 * The Ten Commandments (1956 film) - Delos Jewkes - uncredited as the voice of God, a significant role in the story

Thanks for any insights. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 21:12, 29 March 2009 (UTC))
 * Not to be too picky, but Linda Darnell was a "big-name celebrity", while Mercedes McCambridge was moderately well-known. Clarityfiend (talk) 21:53, 29 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, three of those refer to Biblical characters. In the case of Mercedes McCambridge our article states that - after a dispute - she was credited in later releases.  In the case of Linda Darnell it may have been the insistence of Franz Werfel which caused her name to be dropped from the credits.  Our article on the film points out the possible reasons.  IMDb shows that Delos Jewkes worked in some 20-odd movies, mostly uncredited.
 * Also bear in mind that in the older movies the credits were fairly short. Minor characters - as defined by the studio and possibly including voice actors -  were never listed, nor were the names of the key grip, the gaffer and the best boy mentioned.   --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 22:06, 29 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Mercedes McCambridge was an Oscar-winning actress who had one of the most distinctive female voices on radio. She never agreed to appear uncredited. According to Ron Lackmann's 2005 biography of McCambridge, director William Friedkin felt Linda Blair would not receive a Best Supporting Academy Award if it were known that three other actresses were involved in creating the character of Regan/Pazuzu by doing voice and stunt double work. (Ken Nordine and Ron Faber, who played the assistant director, were also somehow involved in the voice creation.) At the premiere, McCambridge was so distraught to find her name missing from the closing credits that she drove away from the area in someone else's car, discovered her mistake and returned the car. The Screen Actors Guild settled the dispute, and her name was added. Pepso2 (talk) 22:36, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Well, the above responses sort of make my point. Whether the actor is famous or unknown ... whether the film is old or recent ... isn't this the exact type of detail that the actors/agents/lawyers/producers "iron out" before-hand? How are the actors later on caught by surprise to not see their names in the credits? And, for relatively "significant roles", why does an actor even agree to go uncredited? (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 02:16, 30 March 2009 (UTC))


 * In the film Hellboy, David Hyde Pierce intentionally went uncredited as the voice of one of the characters Abe Sapien, because he felt it was Doug Jones' work that brought the character to life and not his voice. So, respect for the craft is another reason an actor can appear uncredited. Livewireo (talk) 19:05, 30 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Can you give an example of a movie in which an actor has been "caught by surprise" by being uncredited? The rules for credits in Hollywood movies are hellishly detailed about what the studios can and cannot do.  Tempshill (talk) 21:30, 30 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Mercedes McCambridge was "caught by surprise" in 1973, and so was Linda Blair in 2004 when footage of her was used in the trailer for Exorcist: The Beginning. She said, "I am astounded and mortified. I was shocked to see my image and hear my voice, and I'm certain the public thinks I'm in it. I want to work, and it's hard to get past this image." In the case of McCambridge, how did it happen? In her autobiography she wrote, "Nobody on the lot was to know I was there! Nobody! Billy Friedkin said it would spoil the mystery surrounding the movie if people knew how we were doing it. I believed him, like a fool." Then she saw the film minus her credit. So what about her contract? She wrote, "...nasty Billy Friedkin, the boy wonder, insisted that the question of my billing 'was not set down in the letter of my contract.' He was right! Since then I have never signed a piece of any kind of paper without seeing Billy Friedkin's face in the middle of it." Pepso2 (talk) 22:42, 30 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the note; I didn't know this. This link says that although writers' and directors' contracts address credits exhaustively, actors' contracts don't.  Tempshill (talk) 05:11, 31 March 2009 (UTC)


 * One of the more famous instances of an actor being accidentally left off the credits might be Thurl Ravenscroft, who sang the songs in the original TV version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (His was the inimitable voice that sang, "You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch.") — Michael J  22:32, 1 April 2009 (UTC)