Bad trombones in film…

captain · by **captain** » 2025-04-04 1:18 p.m.

I’m used to seeing “actors“ just zipping back-and-forth between second and fifthish position, no matter what Music is playing, but I was watching this cartoon: “Sound! Euphonium the movie – welcome to the kitauji high school concert band“ and the very first trombone they show appears to be injected RIGHT THROUGH her neck. <EMOJI seq="1f926-2640" tseq="1f926-200d-2640-fe0f">🤦‍♀️</EMOJI> <ATTACHMENT filename="IMG_7804.jpeg" index="0">~~[attachment=0]~~IMG_7804.jpeg</ATTACHMENT>

<EMOJI seq="1f61d" tseq="1f61d">😝</EMOJI>

Anyone got anything worse than that?

tbdana · by **tbdana** » 2025-04-04 2:04 p.m.

No, but I have a really good one.

<YOUTUBE id="l43TjtfWpkk" t="31">https://youtu.be/l43TjtfWpkk?si=hgr03F9d3W1WT-LA&t=31</YOUTUBE>

Crazy4Tbone86 · by **Crazy4Tbone86** » 2025-04-04 5:05 p.m.

I think the quality of instrument-playing portrayal depends on how much the director is concerned about detail and precision. I have heard that accurate slide positions and realistic playing were a top priority for “Soul” (the clip that Dana contributed).

I have a horn-playing friend who was hired (along with many other musicians) to act like they were playing the over-the-shoulder horns in the 1993 movie “Gettysburg.” The director had them listen to the sound clips repeatedly and discuss with each other the proper fingering patterns for the scenes. Then the director rehearsed them and watched their breathing and fingerings closely. The end result was very successful….they look like they are really playing.

It is easy to tell when accurate playing is not a priority. It is very common to see woodwind and brass players in TV and movies holding the instruments backwards and using fingering patterns that make no sense.

Trombone playing is the same - I think there was a frequent-aired commercial a few years ago that had a trombone player holding the horn with his entire left hand wrapped around the bell brace. The director probably said….”that’s close enough!” Meanwhile, trombone players everywhere were cringing.

brassmedic · by **brassmedic** » 2025-04-05 4:55 a.m.

Perhaps the worst portrayal of the trombone ever.

Digidog · by **Digidog** » 2025-04-05 6:24 a.m.

Commercials are the absolute worst misappropriators of anything musical. Whenever any instrument at all, whatever it is, guitar, wind, drums or bowed, they only portray it as something a person just jerks around on, and that the instrument in question is just another tool to pick up and make it do whatever you want it to without any prior skills or knowledge.

To me, commercials are a deliberate degradation of social and individual functionalism and common practise.

AndrewMeronek · by **AndrewMeronek** » 2025-04-05 8:06 a.m.

I always thought the trombonist actor in Brassed Off did a pretty bad job of physically holding his trombone.

I grabbed a screenshot but I'm having issues getting the attachment system in the reply Full Editor to accept it. This error:

Could not upload attachment to ./files/268_28908ae88b44f5faef6c824efcbac9a7.

Fujiifilm17 · by **Fujiifilm17** » 2025-04-05 1:45 p.m.

On the whole, I found that the Sound! Euphonium series do a pretty solid job of animating the instruments, even down to fingering patterns and slide positions correctly. In fact, I'm pretty sure the animation studio worked with Yamaha for the series, so all the instruments shown are actual Yamaha models/designs.

That being said, yeah that screenshot is not a great look in terms of accuracy :lol:

Here's a clip from the same show:

~~[url]~~https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Fb9fpvpmcc

Fujiifilm17 · by **Fujiifilm17** » 2025-04-05 1:52 p.m.

As a contrast to show a good example of using musical instruments in commericals - Caloriemate (Japanese energy jelly/bar company) recently collaborated with a high school band to a series of commericials and produced versions for pretty much every wind band instrument.

Here's the trombone one:

<YOUTUBE id="ZAAOrTbFGqk">~~[media]~~<LINK_TEXT text="https://youtube.com/shorts/ZAAOrTbFGqk? ... 4Vp9IbHBcs">https://youtube.com/shorts/ZAAOrTbFGqk?si=V7nYe34Vp9IbHBcs</LINK_TEXT></YOUTUBE>

robcat2075 · by **robcat2075** » 2025-04-05 2:32 p.m.

the trombone has been defying artists for centuries

(from Will Kimball's Trombone Timeline)

robcat2075 · by **robcat2075** » 2025-04-05 10:59 p.m.

And...

mgladdish · by **mgladdish** » 2025-04-07 5:07 a.m.

We had a series of ads here in the UK for Lurpak butter featuring an animated trombonist. They're really rather good.

<YOUTUBE id="9rmhJfuY48Y">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rmhJfuY48Y</YOUTUBE>

Kbiggs · by **Kbiggs** » 2025-04-07 12:02 p.m.

[quote="mgladdish"]We had a series of ads here in the UK for Lurpak butter featuring an animated trombonist. They're really rather good.

<YOUTUBE id="9rmhJfuY48Y">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rmhJfuY48Y</YOUTUBE>[/quote]

Nick Park of “Wallace and Gromit” fame. Hilarious!

robcat2075 · by **robcat2075** » 2025-04-07 4:21 p.m.

[quote="Kbiggs"]<QUOTE author="mgladdish" post_id="272430" time="1744016849" user_id="13350">
We had a series of ads here in the UK for Lurpak butter featuring an animated trombonist. They're really rather good.[/quote]

Nick Park of “Wallace and Gromit” fame. Hilarious!
</QUOTE>

I've seen him in person at a con. His mouth opens and smiles like Wallace's does. :)

VJOFan · by **VJOFan** » 2025-04-08 1:55 p.m.

This ad is in high circulation in Canada right now. This guy has obviously at least been shown how to hold it. I guess I'm glad my wife's comment is that she is glad that that is not how I sound when I practice. (But once the music goes to the background there is some pretty nice playing.)

<YOUTUBE id="nBR2tdNv8kc">https://youtu.be/nBR2tdNv8kc</YOUTUBE>

brassmedic · by **brassmedic** » 2025-04-08 3:17 p.m.

[quote="robcat2075"]

[/quote]
Looks like Quagmire. Giggity!

brassmedic · by **brassmedic** » 2025-04-08 3:21 p.m.

I always liked the Daffy Duck cartoon with the trombone that has no inner slide tubes.

tjonz · 2025-04-08 3:40 p.m.

Skip to the 3:00 mark.

<YOUTUBE id="io4Mja3cjzE">https://youtu.be/io4Mja3cjzE</YOUTUBE>

JTeagarden · by **JTeagarden** » 2025-04-08 9:00 p.m.

Some directors could care less: you often hear instruments in the sound track that do not appear in the ensemble playing in the scene.

My favorite "who cares about details" moment is the background noise in a scene in the French countryside in the first Bourne movie: Bluejays singing away, except there are no bluejays in Europe.

JohnL · by **JohnL** » 2025-04-09 1:11 a.m.

[quote="JTeagarden"]My favorite "who cares about details" moment is the background noise in a scene in the French countryside in the first Bourne movie: Bluejays singing away, except there are no bluejays in Europe.[/quote]

Nor are there kookaburra in Africa, but their call has been part of the standard "African Jungle" sound package almost since movies have had sound...

Wilktone · by **Wilktone** » 2025-04-13 12:05 p.m.

[quote="tjonz"]Skip to the 3:00 mark.[/quote]

I remember watching that when it was on TV. Slide Hampton provided the trombone soundtrack on that, if I recall correctly. Sounds like him, at least.

I've been an extra in a couple of films as a trombonist. Control, Alt, Dance, where I'm in the background in a couple of scenes of swing dances. This was a budget movie and a band I played with was asked to record some music for the soundtrack and then pretend to be performing that music for the dance scenes. It's been a while since I watched this movie (not a good one, I don't suggest you rent it, but the dancing is quite good), but if I remember correctly they didn't use our tracks in the scene, so it didn't look synched. I did make it into the trailer:

<YOUTUBE id="FbVnseXb6Uo" t="117">https://youtu.be/FbVnseXb6Uo?si=1pBbqo9mMKfV5I5Z&t=117</YOUTUBE>

The other film I was in was A Biltmore Christmas, for the Hallmark channel. This was a more professional production. While we didn't record any music for the soundtrack, the casting company booked 4 musicians to be the extras in the band. During the filming they played a recording of Sentimental Journey for the dancers and us to move along with, but I think they used a different tune in the final film.

During one of the breaks during the filming there was some downtime and the band decided to jam a little while we waited. The cast and crew seemed surprised that we were actual musicians, I guess they aren't used to real musicians being hired as extras to act as musicians.

I can't find any clips online of the scene, but one of my friends watched the movie on TV and snapped a photo when I came on:

cmcslide · by **cmcslide** » 2025-04-14 10:52 a.m.

It's common to mime along with a prerecorded track in film. I appeared in the birthday party scene at the end of Divine Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood, and they hired players to mime along with a track made by T-bone Burnett. The tune was simple, but we had to follow along with the track, which was New Orleans improv, so pretty much impossible to play exactly what we heard. We were part of a crowd, so being spot on with the recording wasn't even that easy to see, but at least we knew how to hold our horns!

Wilktone · by **Wilktone** » 2025-04-14 11:25 a.m.

Was the same track you mimed to used in the final cut of the film? It seems that as the different scenes are edited and put together that the continuity of the music and the miming are not always a concern, particularly when the musicians are in the background.

cmcslide · by **cmcslide** » 2025-04-14 12:24 p.m.

Yes, it was. We heard it very low along with a "click track" (actually more like a bass drum sound, no headphones or anything) to keep us in time. I would have to look at the scene to tell you how the music is synced up to everything, but we were definitely there for looks, not for sound.

JTeagarden · 2025-04-14 1:46 p.m.

Here, at around 2: 08, the trombonist decides to play the high Db in 3rd position:

<YOUTUBE id="jrzxW0rsD1Q">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrzxW0rsD1Q</YOUTUBE>

elmsandr · by **elmsandr** » 2025-04-14 2:44 p.m.

It’s more than trombones…. It is about whatever takes somebody out of the moment. Think it was some podcast that I was listening to, one viewer hated a stranger things episode because of a visible HVAC unit that was a style not invented yet; for another it is all the chickens of time period incorrect breeds that make it on screen. And let’s not even get started on all the alleys in Manhattan that are shown in NyC cop dramas (go look how many actual alleys exist in Manhattan.

Buttons on Jackets, holding instruments wrong, anything that requires specialty knowledge can ruin a film scene… but most won’t even see it. But the ones that get it right…. We love them.

Cheers,

Andy

JohnL · by **JohnL** » 2025-04-14 4:18 p.m.

[quote="elmsandr"]Buttons on Jackets, holding instruments wrong, anything that requires specialty knowledge can ruin a film scene… but most won’t even see it. But the ones that get it right…. We love them.[/quote]
Absolutely. When someone nails an obscure detail that's within my area of special knowledge, it's a hallelujah moment.

Sadly, such moments occur far less frequently than "hold it! That's just wrong!" moments.

Wilktone · by **Wilktone** » 2025-04-15 11:56 a.m.

[quote="JTeagarden"]Here, at around 2: 08, the trombonist decides to play the high Db in 3rd position:

<YOUTUBE id="jrzxW0rsD1Q">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrzxW0rsD1Q</YOUTUBE>[/quote]

I hear that note as high C?

JTeagarden · by **JTeagarden** » 2025-04-15 12:21 p.m.

You're right, checked it against a better recording: Bb3-Bb4-Ab4-Bb4-C5

The older I get, the worse my sense of pitch becomes

dwcarder · by **dwcarder** » 2025-04-15 5:10 p.m.

I'm often wary in trusting youtube videos for pitch / speed. It's often altered I suspect to try to fool the copyright checking algorithms. (or in this case, it looks like VHS... so who really knows)

robcat2075 · by **robcat2075** » 2025-04-17 4:05 p.m.

There are many reality-defying trombones in animation; Mickey's is exceptionally so in this performance of "Minnie's Yoo-Hoo"

starting at 5:15

<YOUTUBE id="y6tQ7QKPomU" t="315">~~[media]~~https://youtu.be/y6tQ7QKPomU?t=315</YOUTUBE>

AtomicClock · by **AtomicClock** » 2025-04-17 6:08 p.m.

[quote="robcat2075"]Mickey's is exceptionally so in this performance of "Minnie's Yoo-Hoo"[/quote]
At least this is an artistic choice, rather than ignorance and apathy.

dbwhitaker · by **dbwhitaker** » 2025-05-02 10:57 a.m.

[quote="Wilktone"]I guess they aren't used to real musicians being hired as extras to act as musicians.[/quote]
I had always assumed that hiring real musicians as extras would be standard practice. It seems like an obvious thing to me...but I'm not in the business.

Continuing on the subject of trombones in film, I was perusing the available movies on an Air France flight last week and was surprised to see a trombone featured prominently in the movie's image. Fortunately for me English subtitles were available. One of the main characters of the film is an amateur trombone player in a mining company band and the other is a famous professional orchestra conductor. All of the instrument playing in the film seemed pretty realistic to me, both the poor playing of the amateurs as well as the fine playing of the professionals. The original title is En Fanfare but the English title is The Marching Band.
<ATTACHMENT filename="En.Fanfare.jpg" index="0">~~[attachment=0]~~En.Fanfare.jpg</ATTACHMENT>

Retrobone · by **Retrobone** » 2025-05-10 2:18 a.m.

<LINK_TEXT text="https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxGe7dknRzHs ... TwjAVMe7YT">https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxGe7dknRzHsFrYopVU6R6rGItYQXaIH9O?si=xUgvFUTwjAVMe7YT</LINK_TEXT>

robcat2075 · by **robcat2075** » 2025-05-10 12:37 p.m.

[quote="Retrobone"]<LINK_TEXT text="https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxGe7dknRzHs ... TwjAVMe7YT">https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxGe7dknRzHsFrYopVU6R6rGItYQXaIH9O?si=xUgvFUTwjAVMe7YT</LINK_TEXT>[/quote]

I believe that is Stokowski conducting.

[quote="dbwhitaker"]<QUOTE author="Wilktone" post_id="273067" time="1744560355" user_id="220">
I guess they aren't used to real musicians being hired as extras to act as musicians.[/quote]
I had always assumed that hiring real musicians as extras would be standard practice. It seems like an obvious thing to me...but I'm not in the business.
</QUOTE>

I found an old AFM rate sheet and it looks like if you hire a musician just to appear as if they were playing you are going to pay a musician rate of $400+ per day, where as a union extra holding a "prop" will get about $200 per day.

It's not like they hire real physicists when they need a crowd at the mad scientist's lecture.

tbdana · by **tbdana** » 2025-05-10 12:52 p.m.

I was in four movies as a sideline musician, lip-syncing the trombone, and on one Robert Altman flick we played live for the scene. The thing is, even if you play exactly with the track you never know what they're going to piece together in the editing bay. You could hire all pro musicians and it might come out looking completely ridiculous.

LeTromboniste · by **LeTromboniste** » 2025-05-10 1:36 p.m.

[quote="dbwhitaker"]<QUOTE author="Wilktone" post_id="273067" time="1744560355" user_id="220">
I guess they aren't used to real musicians being hired as extras to act as musicians.[/quote]
I had always assumed that hiring real musicians as extras would be standard practice. It seems like an obvious thing to me...but I'm not in the business.

Continuing on the subject of trombones in film, I was perusing the available movies on an Air France flight last week and was surprised to see a trombone featured prominently in the movie's image. Fortunately for me English subtitles were available. One of the main characters of the film is an amateur trombone player in a mining company band and the other is a famous professional orchestra conductor. All of the instrument playing in the film seemed pretty realistic to me, both the poor playing of the amateurs as well as the fine playing of the professionals. The original title is En Fanfare but the English title is The Marching Band.

En.Fanfare.jpg
</QUOTE>

This is an EXCELLENT movie! The conducting is also generally (not always) surprisingly good for a movie with a non-conductor actor playing a conductor.

Another French movie, also released last year, that did really well with musicians looking realistic (actually hiring real musicians and generally having the miming matching the sound) is Monsieur Aznavour. The one thing I noticed that made me really laugh, though, was that while they generally show instruments that at least vaguely pass as period-appropriate, in a scene set in 1960 where the band is seen most prominently, including the trombones, one of the trombonists is using probably one of the most rare and distinctive-looking instrument that definitely can't pass for a 1960's trombone, one equipped with Reyrolle's rotorless F attachement

Mikebmiller · by **Mikebmiller** » 2025-05-15 11:09 a.m.

FWIW, in the movie Patton, when the band comes by playing Washington Post, the slides appear to be correct. They probably hired an actual band for that.

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Bad trombones in film…