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Author Topic: US: That irritating beep tone on censored words... Bruce McGee Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1776 From: Asheville, NC USA... Nowhere in Particular. Registered: Aug 1999 posted 03-01-2008 11:41 AM                     Here in the US, we have alot of censorship on broadcast television. Does it agrivate you when they censor a word on any given TV show, and make sure you KNOW it by adding the tone over the dead space in the audio? Crap like Jerry Springer, Maury Povich, etc, seem to be the worst. Would it kill the producers of this junk to just censor the word and let the soundtrack remain silent for a moment? Just wondering. Bruce  |  IP: Logged James Westbrook Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1133 From: Lubbock, Texas, Usa Registered: Mar 2006 posted 03-01-2008 12:06 PM                     Maybe the stations want the beep noise, so at least on Jerry Springer and Maury Povitch, their viewers won't call the station and say "Your sound keeps cutting out." Since these shows are just a step above satire anyway, maybe they should use a cow moo, a donkey bray, or some similar noise instead of that beep.  |  IP: Logged Mike Olpin Chop Chop! Posts: 1852 From: Dallas, TX Registered: Jan 2002 posted 03-01-2008 01:14 PM                     The producers of those shows want you to know there cussing a lot. If they just left the silence, it wouldn't have the shock impact the producers are looking for. On many more tasteful shows and many movies they do just have silence.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 03-01-2008 01:17 PM                        What's amazing to me, well 2 things really: When somebody says "asshole," they'll bleep "hole" but leave "ass." Why not just bleep the whole word? The other thing is, they often don't even bleep whole words anymore. They only bleep the vowels. Like you'll hear "Go f..k yourself" or "This sh.t really stinks." So anyone who's ever heard the words before at all will know what they are. The Springer show and ones like it belong on cable where the bleeping would be unnecessary. I can't see how anybody can watch more than a couple of minutes of that crap.  |  IP: Logged Tim Reed Better Projection Pays Posts: 5246 From: Northampton, PA Registered: Sep 1999 posted 03-01-2008 01:33 PM                       During the fights on Springer, I like it how they always mosaic a woman's chest out, even though you can tell from other shots that nothing was showing to begin with. They just want you to think her knockers fell out.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 03-01-2008 01:38 PM                     I think it's all pretty silly. I'll make a reference to George Carlin's brilliant "seven words you can never say on TV" bit. Everyone can easily deduce what goes in the blanks where those bleeps are placed. Bleeps of only part of a complex curse word and audible starts and ends of words like the f-bomb just make it even more obvious. As far as I'm concerned they shouldn't have even bothered bleeping or cutting the words at all. We all know exactly what the person said. Even the little kiddies watching know. Some shows cut the curse words out to silence. I've seen some fairly slick methods of doing that where the dialog track is cut while preserving the other audio elements.  |  IP: Logged Stephen Furley Film God Posts: 3059 From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England Registered: May 2002 posted 03-01-2008 01:42 PM                     George Carlin, The seven words you can never say on television. On You Tube. I first heard this in the '70s, at the first school that I worked at; swearing seemed to be a popular pastime among many of the girls there, and one of them brought in a copy of 'Class Clown', that this was taken from. 'Derek and Clive Live' was also a popular record at that time. I remember when I heard the 'Seven words' sketch thinking that I'd heard all of them on British television. Then there was the famous Bill Grundy interview with the Sex Pistols, in 1976 I think, which caused a lot of fuss in the newspapers the next day, but they didn't pull the plug on it when it went out live. However, in more recent times we seem to have become less tolerant of swearing on television over here; it seems to be more common for words to be censored now than it was then.  |  IP: Logged John Walsh Film God Posts: 2490 From: Connecticut, USA, Earth, Milky Way Registered: Oct 1999 posted 03-01-2008 02:59 PM                     I've noticed sometimes with movies that the audio is blanked out when a cure word is spoken, but the word is left in on the subtitling/ closed captioning.  |  IP: Logged Scott D. Neff Theatre Dork Posts: 919 From: San Francisco, CA Registered: Oct 1999 posted 03-01-2008 05:19 PM                        Apparently the deaf and the hard of hearing can't be offended.  |  IP: Logged Sean McKinnon Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1712 From: Peabody Massachusetts Registered: Sep 2000 posted 03-01-2008 06:02 PM                        It depends a lot on the context... an "Ass" is a donkey but when you add the "hole" it becomes something else entirely. You can say "pissed" on the radio but not "pissed on" The "beep" is added during post production editing if it was actually live they would just "dump" it. Live radio shows and tv shows are on a delay and when someone curses or sais something offensive a producer will hit a button that will just cause a "skip" in the program, some people wont even realized that anything happened. When they WANT you to know that something was said that shouldn't have been they will add the "Beep" in post production.  |  IP: Logged Bill Enos Film God Posts: 2081 From: Richmond, Virginia, USA Registered: Apr 2000 posted 03-01-2008 07:02 PM                     OK, so what ARE the SEVEN FORBIDDEN WORDS? There are potentially so many.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 03-01-2008 07:29 PM                        quote: Stephen Furley However, in more recent times we seem to have become less tolerant of swearing on television over here; it seems to be more common for words to be censored now than it was then. Possibly the most infamous British TV 'bleepfest' I can remember was inspired by a fly-on-the-wall documentary about the former England football (soccer) manager Graham Taylor, who famously presided over his team's ignominious failure to qualify for the 1994 World Cup. In the aftermath, a documentary was compiled about the qualifying campaign, based mainly on unbroadcast footage taken in the dug-out during the crucial games. Taylor completely lost it during match after match, as the consequences of his poor selection and substitution decisions unfolded on the pitch: in the programme as originally broadcast, they might just as well have bought several thousand feet of 1khz tone track and dubbed it over the whole thing. In some scenes there was more bleep than dialogue! This led to a 'nanny state-ism' outcry, and a few months later there was a repeat broadcast, with Taylor's effing and blinding restored in all its infamous glory. Wish I'd taped it...  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 03-01-2008 09:39 PM                        quote: Bill Enos OK, so what ARE the SEVEN FORBIDDEN WORDS? There are potentially so many. George Carlin's original seven words: Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker and tits. ...and "tits" doesn't even belong on the list! It's such a friendly sounding word. Sounds like a nickname, you know? Hey Tits, meet Toots! Toots, Tits...Tits, Toots. Carlin's a genius.  |  IP: Logged James Westbrook Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1133 From: Lubbock, Texas, Usa Registered: Mar 2006 posted 03-01-2008 10:08 PM                     I'm still laughing over his suggestion of replacing the word "Kill" with "Fuck."...  |  IP: Logged Evans A Criswell Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1579 From: Huntsville, AL, USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 03-01-2008 11:30 PM                        There are cases where innocent dialogue can be made dirty by censoring it. Suppose a woman was asked about a man and she replied "He has a really big heart." Bleep the word "heart" completely and most people's brains will supply the word "cock" or something like it in the blank, creating something raunchy out of something innocent. I saw a demonstration of bleeped words in interviews with people to create this effect, but can't remember where I saw it.  |  IP: Logged

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