Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2012 May 21

= May 21 =

Christopher nolan
Was Mr. Christopher Nolan an assistant to any cine personality for cinematic techniques like direction/editing/cinematography etc.? Has he done a course for any of the above mentioned studies? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.224.149.10 (talk) 04:36, 21 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Is our Christopher Nolan article about the man you mean ? (It's a common name, so I want to be sure.)  StuRat (talk) 04:45, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the director of Dark Knight


 * He worked as cinematographer and editor on his first two films, Following and the short film Doodlebug but he doesn't seem to have formally studied filmmaking. His partly self-taught and partly learned through the film society at University College London.  Most likely, he worked on other people's amateur films during his childhood and student days, but he's not listed as doing paid work for anybody else on any commercial films. --Colapeninsula (talk) 13:16, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Pause button, play button
Does anyone know where the designs for the pause button (two vertical bars), play button (right-pointing triangle), fast-forward button (two right-pointing triangle), stop button (square), etc., came from? They're now pretty much found everywhere from smartphones to MP3 players to DVD players to flash videos but where did they originate? I'm guessing they were first developed for cassette players, so maybe around the 1970s, but it would be interested to find a first recorded use or designer even. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.206.101.76 (talk) 11:33, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Checking out google images, they don't appear to have been used on 8-tracks, which were an early portable audio tape system. They would have been useless on a record player. So that leaves cassette audio and possibly reel-to-reel to check out. Here's the thing, though: When you're dealing with physical buttons, the words are sufficient. I can't recall ever seeing a reel-to-reel with those symbols, and I don't think they were used in early cassettes, either. The reason for adopting non-language symbols like that would likely be for international markets and for "virtual" buttons like on computers. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:25, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Not at all. The words may be sufficient for you, but it doesn't necessarily follow that they are for everyone.  If a play button on a CD player is labelled ►, for example, that is a lot clearer than one marked PLAY.  It's shorter, neater and completely intuitive, so please stop making meaningless generalizations. --Viennese Waltz 12:50, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, you're right. I intended to say they were sufficient at the time. Obviously not now. Totally guessing here, but if there were cassette recorders being sold in non-English countries, they might well have had to print words in that language... until someone came up with the famous language-independent symbols. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:16, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
 * The booklet for my first video cassette recorder, from about 1981, already has the well-known symbols - as well as the corresponding English words. Looking now for my early-1970s audio cassette recorder. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:46, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Booklet for my first audio cassette recorder, from about 1970, has the arrows and the words, but does not have a pause feature at all - just a stop/eject. Likewise with one from 1971 or 1972, which shows the standard symbols and words, including a little black square for "stop", but again no pause button. It was either playing/recording - or it was stopped. No in-between. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:01, 22 May 2012 (UTC)


 * That brings up a further point. "►" may be fine for left to right scripts, as it is general considered forward movement, but what about in countries reading right-to-left: do they reverse the triangle? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.206.101.76 (talk) 13:06, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Those arrows describe the physical direction the tape is moving, so switching them could be even more confusing. I may be wrong, but I think CD's spin counterclockwise, which would be left-to-right at the front of the player. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:49, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Of course, the play symbol still appears on digital music players, which have no moving media the arrow is supposed to indicate the direction of. -- Jayron  32  00:08, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Sure. It's just that everyone now is used to the standard symbols, independent of the physical media. Old habits. Like the sound you hear when you pick up a land-line phone, a "dial tone", never mind that no one "dials" anymore. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 08:32, 22 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Some theories - Jarry1250 [Deliberation needed] 13:03, 21 May 2012 (UTC)


 * (after edit conflict) This Grundig reel-to-reel recorder from 1963 already had the arrows for forward/backward (a rather intuitive choice) and the red circle for record (a pretty arbitrary symbol). The Grundig C100 from 1965 had the double arrows for fast forward/rewind, but text labels for all other buttons. At the time, it seems like Philips and Grundig were the only ones offering cassette players, and the Philips models of the time had text labels until 1966 or 1967 (when they adopted the symbols we know today), so it looks like those symbols were designed by someone working for Grundig. According to this forum discussion, these symbols were defined as an international standard by the IEC in 1973 (IEC417 -Graphical symbols for use on equipment), but I don't know if the earliest version of the IEC definition already included the pause symbol....from going through the images at the cassette recorder museum, it looks like the pause symbol did not become an established standard until well into the 1970s (of course, early tape recorders mostly didn't have a pause function, so there was no need for a standardized symbol early on). -- Ferkelparade &pi; 13:08, 21 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Interesting question. I always assumed the symbols were chosen because they were clear about tape movement and direction. The red for record being a color of warning--careful, you don't want to accidentally record over something you want to keep! I'm pretty sure I've seen red arrows in addition to red circles. The double lines for pause I always guessed had to do with how tape heads look, (but this is just a guess). Finally, for what it's worth, here is a photo of a 1974 Polish reel-to-reel machine showing those symbols (you have to zoom in to see clearly). It's a non-English example anyway: File:Unitra ZK-147.jpg. Also, I would think the symbols are more likely to originate with reel-to-reel machines than cassette players. It's more important to know which way the tape is moving with open reels than with cassettes. The fast forward and rewind functions are particularly linked to the way the spinning reels look when working with those machines. And the visual idea "I want all the tape to be on that reel", press button with arrows pointing toward that reel. The reels in cassettes are more hidden from view, and unlike open reels you don't unwind the tape completely from one of the reels. Pfly (talk) 00:44, 22 May 2012 (UTC)


 * About the pause button. I thought the main point of it was to be able to engage the recording head without starting the tape moving—pressing both pause and record. That way you can immediately start recording without the record head having to physically move up to the tape, which would involve a small amount of time and needless head movement. The pause button seems much less useful on cassette players. At least, back in the 1980s when I was recording in a studio on reel-to-reel machines "pause-record" was the way we were taught. I wonder if early reel-to-reel machines did not let you engage the record head without moving the tape, or if perhaps they had some other way to do it—perhaps you could engage the heads with a lever or something? Pfly (talk) 01:06, 22 May 2012 (UTC)