Create accountLogin

Recent searches

No recent searches

Search options

Only available when logged in.
mindly.social is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
Mindly.Social is an English speaking, friendly Mastodon instance created for people who want to use their brains and their hearts to make social networking more social. 🧠💖

Administered by:

Server stats:

1.1K
active users

mindly.social: AboutStatusProfiles directoryPrivacy policy

Mastodon: AboutGet the appKeyboard shortcutsView source codev4.3.8

C.

We watched "Late Night with the Devil" (2023) tonight. I posted a of it earlier. We enjoyed it.

However... one little thing about it is nagging at me, like a splinter in the mind's eye.

It's a period piece, set in the . The major thread of the story includes a psychologist and her sessions with a patient, which are . Part of one is played back as part of a show, and onscreen during that is an open-reel (aka reel-to-reel) playing a tape.

1970s, open-reel recording - it's , it's , it's period-authentic, right?

I can't shake the feeling that whoever put the visual together has never actually seen an open-reel tape recorder in operation. This picture is lousy, because it's a screencap from the movie, which is supposed to be showing a television broadcast in good old analog SD - but it gets the point across.

See anything wrong?

The takeup , on the right, turns clockwise, the opposite direction of the (normal) direction of the supply reel. So the tape wraps onto the inner side of the takeup reel, and ends up "inside out".

There's also no tension arm on the supply side, and an apparent arm on the takeup side, but it's not actually in the tape path.

I don't think any machines were actually made like this, but I'm not an . Can anyone identify the deck they butchered or digi-simmed to create this against nature? 😉

A screen capture from a fictional television documentary featured in the movie "Late Night with the Devil" (2023). It shows an open-reel tape recorder (aka reel-to-reel) with a tape loaded on it. The scene this is taken from shows the playback of the tape. The tape unspools from the left-hand supply reel counter-clockwise normally, but the takeup reel on the right-hand side turns clockwise, with the tape passing to the left of the center axis of the reel. I'm not aware of any decks that actually work this way. There are other oddities too, like no tension arm on the supply side, an apparent tension arm on the takeup side but which is not actually in the tape path, and various other weirdnesses.
#OpenReel#ReelToReel#audio
Apr 13, 2025, 06:32 AM·Public·Web
0boosts·3favorites
Public
C.

Actually I just re-watched the scene in motion, and it's even worse than that.

They actually have the tape going to the inner side of the takeup reel, but that reel is actually turning the correct direction - so if this was real, tape would be feeding out from both reels, and ending up on the floor. 😆

#impossible#wat
Public
Stix

@cazabon Re: Sound device ~ Looks a lot like a Nagra, which all the sound tech guys used on sets in the long ago. Great little machine made in Switzerland.

Public
C.

@SecondStix

Thanks, I was trying to remember the name of that company. My brain kept coming up with Nakamichi...

Public *
C.

@SecondStix

It might be the 4.2:

reel-reel.com/tape-recorder/na

Thanks!

Still doesn't explain why it's running in an impossible fashion 😉

Edit: also here, better source obviously:

nagraaudio.com/product/nagra-i

Public
Stix

@cazabon Can't explain the weird imagery but worked on sets for decades. Nagras were lightweight, dependable, industrious machines to which I was frequently attached while I clocked timings, checked continuity and dialogue. Fun seeing stuff like that again. 🙃

ExploreLive feeds
About