I'd love to hear everybody's pet peeves in movie and TV production.

Drinking from empty cups. The way you hold, drink and move with a cup with hot liquid in it is very different from an empty cup. Whenever I see it it is all I can think about.

CPR. The way they do it with bent arms affects how people think they should do it in real life. Your arms should be straight to get the most power for the least effort. And you'll need to conserve your energy because you could be doing it for an hour. No show has ever portrayed the length of time it takes.

I think this one is pretty common, but whenever there’s a disagreement, argument or debate that could be resolved in less than 10 seconds by one of the characters explaining themself in a single sentence, but instead they say nothing and or get interrupted right when they’re getting to the important bit. I know I know, it keeps the tension going, but the tension is so artificial and convoluted that I can’t help but scream at the TV “just fucking say it!!!”

Syringes getting stabbed into the necks of unwilling people is my niche pet peeve.

I'm a critical care nurse lol. There's no anatomy in a neck to receive an injection. There's not enough muscle mass, and you're not hitting a jugular vein without a person's full cooperation and a helluva lot of skill with IV injections. There's a nontrivial chance that you're just going to inject the medication into a person's trachea or esophagus, or worst case scenario directly into their spine.

Arms, people. Arms are where we inject people who don't want to be injected. Right through the clothes, if need be.

Peripherally related: Why are all needles used in movies like 2-3 inches long? No one uses needles that large for anything in the real world.

I'll admit this is petty, but you asked lol

It really kills my suspension of disbelief when tech just folds up / unfolds from practically nowhere. Typically in sci-fi, and it's most often seen with helmets. I get from a production standpoint, it can all be done in CGI and the actor doesn't have to wear or carry around the prop for the whole scene, but it just gets annoying.

It just makes the tech seem egregiously implausible even if it is handwaved away.

Mine is kind of petty too, but it just seems to pop up so much. I hate when superheroes have to deal with a villain that uses the same source of power. Hulk fighting another Hulk, Ant-man fighting another shrinking guy, Iron Man fighting another dude in an Iron Man suit, Superman fighting other kryptonians, Captain America fighting another super soldier, Black Panther fighting another Black Panther dude.. Once you notice that you realize it sort of the default for this genre

I hate when someone takes a deep drag off of a cigarette and then the angle cuts and they never exhale it. It happened a ton in Sons of Anarchy.

It really bothers me when something is supposed to be metal but is really obviously some sort of plastic. You usually see it with stuff like shields or chains or anything that would be heavy.

They can never seem to get the setup right when two people are tag-teaming the dishes. One person is usually just dunking the dishes in the sink while the other person spends 3 minutes drying the already perfectly dry mug. It's outrageous how often that happens.

Freezing in space. There is no atmosphere in space, and nothing to convect heat. You would freeze VERY slowly (maybe over a week?) as the heat is radiated out. This is assuming you aren't too close to the sun.

Flammable oxygen. Oxygen and Carbon are both required to burn. One doesn't ignite the other. Basic combustion is a reaction between Carbon and Oxygen.

Wilhelm scream. I liked it in one movie. The rest it just takes me out.

Missing headrests so you can see the back of the actor's head.

Spoiling the fucking movie with the trailers...

Concussions. People get knocked out by a blow to the head or neck? They stay knocked out for an hour or so? They wake up okay?

I slipped on ice and cracked the side of my skull into the corner of a dumpster. I was out for...? It was the dead of winter. In Canada. -30. I couldn't have been out more than a minute or two.

I was all kinds of messed up for months. I couldn't control my arms right. My emotions went haywire. I had blinding headaches for weeks.

I still have nasty chronic headaches and memory loss. It happened more than ten years ago!

Knocked out for long enough to wake up tied up in a warehouse? Nah, you died. Buffy? Dead. James Bond? Dead. Sorry.

I hate exhibition exposition. It's so much more interesting when you show me a thing I don't understand and don't explain it than it is when you have a conversation that would never take place in that world because it's like explaining a sandwich to a 45 year old human being as if they didn't already know what a sandwich was, despite the fact we were shown the character eating a sandwich 4 scenes ago.

If a dude pulls out a gun made of flesh and bone and it's meant to be normal to the character whipping it out, stfu about it. Just let it be weird for the audience.

I hate when production companies dupe people into doing work on a movie "on spec". For those who don't know, on spec means that the work is done at a reduced upfront cost with the expectation of a share of profits after release. What the poor schmucks who fall for this don't know is that no movie has made a profit for production companies in over 50 years. At least not as far as paper is concerned. After a movie is made, production companies have to get it out there. The companies who do this are known as distributors, and they charge the production company to do the distribution. Now for the movie magic, the same company that owns the production company also owns the distributor, so they are essentially charging themselves more money than the movie can ever make to do the job. The legal loophole that they fuck people with is that, even though they are owned by the same company, they are separate legal entities, so contracts with one do not bind the other. The on spec contract is with the production company, but the distributor is the one who collects the money from the theaters, which it then funnels into the parent company. The production company shows a loss on the books, so the on spec clauses never trigger. Look into Life of Pi and Rhythm and Hues if you can find the right articles about what happened.

Oh, and remember how I said that theaters pay the distributors? Those contracts are almost as straightforward as the on spec ones. The standard layout is that the theater pays some percentage of the box office to the distributor for opening week, then each week after it reduces by some fixed percent until reaching 0. The initial percentages vary, as do the reduction, but standard is 80/10 from what I understand. The most abusive I have ever specifically learned the details for was a Disney production, I belive it was the first of the new Star Wars movies, but it was a 99% opening week, decreasing by 1% per week for 4 weeks, then 5% thereafter. Oh, and they also tried to strongarm the theaters into having to fork over 50% of concessions as well, which was the first time I had ever heard of that. Luckily the concessions thing was fought and won by the theaters, but it is atrocious that they even tried. Anyway, that is why concessions are so expensive, because theaters make virtually 0 money off box office sales since the bulk of a movie's gross revenue comes from opening week box office. Do your local theater a favor if you genuinely enjoy them existing, buy a fountain drink or a popcorn. Those are the highest profit margin items on the menu and they do actually need the money.

Shaving. Every single time someone is shaving in any movie or show, they always make a few random strokes on one side of the face, maybe a little on the chin, and then they always stop halfway through. Gets my OCD up. Then to make thing worse, they always wipe up the rest of the shaving cream with a towel and casually toss the towel to the side. Covered in shaving cream. With a half-shaved face. Monsters.

Going to the cinema to see a movie, and they show a trailer FOR THAT EXACT MOVIE.

(Although that doesn't really fit the prompt. Still annoys me a lot though)

I've got to reply to myslef just in case it doesn't get mentioned, but when somebody getting shot at hides behind a wooden door or a piece of furniture and the bullet doesn't go through the sofa or wooden door.

Oh cool! You flipped over the coffee table?

You should be totally fine while machine guns rain down ammunition on you.

They aren't poking at the glass without actually sweeping because they are lazy. They are doing multiple takes and saving the crew from having to make a new mess to pretend to sweep up between takes.

Same as not actually eating their food, they don't want to overeat while doing a bunch of takes. It still bugs me to watch everyone run off without anyone touching the stack of pancakes!

People talking in their normal voices in noisy/loud environments.

A club, pub, pool hall, factory, even an airplane in flight - those are noisy environments. You're not going to make yourself heard without raising your voice even just a bit.

In fight scenes where they force the women to only fight women and the men to only fight men. Super bad ass girl could obviously take on guard one and two.

If they aren't sweeping correctly is isn't because they are stuck up actors; it's because sweeping is loud and they want to get the dialog recorded.

No one closes doors!
Empty luggage.
People go on vacation / move away with 1 tiny suitcase which magically has a warehouse of clothing in it.
The "dumb" character. Why is there at least 1 dumb person (who everyone rips on and bullies) in a series or movie. So stupid.
Hand guns with unlimited ammunition in them.
People hiding behind tables, normal walls from gunfire. 1 shot and you are dead.
Movies that are 90% explosions and 4% plot.

Catering to the general population to make money instead of art.

That blurry fisheye lens that's come into fashion. Sabrina used it a ton and that's where I first really noticed it, but I've seen it a few other places now and it annoys me. I just think it looks dumb.

"Reality" shows.

My wife tried to get me to watch American Idol back in the day. I don't remember all the details, but there were like 10 people we were supposed to follow through the process.

Day one, they took the entire group who were auditioning and divided them up into groups.

"Wow, look at that..."

"What?"

"Each of the 10 people they want us following got their own group... No single group got 2 or 3 of them..."

"Why do you ruin everything?"

I have to admit, one of my guilty pleasures are ghost hunting shows. I love that shit.

Expedition X did a trip to Okinawa, which I learned was actually conquered and absorbed by Japan back in 1609, prior to that they had their own, distinct, language, culture, and religion...

But SOMEHOW all the ghost boxes were spitting out English! Man, what are the chances?

The worst is explaining that X can't be done because Y, then doing X anyway. Solo does this by sending Qi'ra on the mission despite just saying the whole point was not to use recognizable gangsters

When people who clearly have never cooked a meal for themselves prepare one on film. The whole process.

We recently watched a movie where a woman was preparing dinner but she’s chopping whatever the hell she was chopping like it was the first time in her life that she had ever held a knife. Sometimes they even use the completely wrong knife for whatever the task is that they’re trying to do. Other times, they’re constantly stirring something like boiling noodles or sauces that don’t need to be stirred. All kinds of dumb things that are obviously done just to give the actor something to do with the props around them but that make the character look incompetent instead.

Even worse is when whatever they’re doing doesn’t even make sense within the context presented in the film, e.g. dicing a lime for drinks instead of cutting slices or wedges, using a pepper grinder on fruit, making another character taste something that would be scalding hot, etc.

Close runner-up is when characters go to a bar and order “a beer” or some other generic version of something. Just make up a god damn brand name, fer chrissakes.

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This current woke trend in movies and television.