Sorting ceremony and uniforms.

[Petra Pan]

Angela:
> We got to the sorting ceremony and
> she asks- "Their ties, robe bagdes
> and scarves are the colour of their
> houses, as they have not yet been
> sorted how do they know what colour
> tie to buy and wear?"  If you look
> at the students waiting to be sorted
> they are indeed already wearing
> there house colours. I was stumped.
> Explained it away as artistic
> licence. Any thoughts?

Anne U:
> In the books that would be called a
> flint. On the screen, that's a
> continuity problem. I never noticed
> that but will look more closely 
> the next time we watch HPPS. (Petra?)

Hmm...the yet-to-be-sorted students 
logically should NOT be wearing their 
house colors yet; this indeed would be 
a logic error.  (I did not notice, will 
also have to check the next time I 
watch it - very observant of you!)  
A "continuity problem" is a specific 
type of error of logic and refers to a 
problem with believing that, in real 
time, one shot could possibly have 
continued from the previous.  That's 
not really the case here.

Typically, problems of continuity are 
entirely unintentional.  Sounds like 
all of the first years are wearing 
their house colors rather than just 
one or two here and there, so I'd 
guess that wardrobe fully intended the 
kids to wear those particular items of 
clothing for the sorting ceremony 
shots - it's just that they shouldn't 
have assigned those costumes for those 
shots in the first place.

To grant "artistic license" is to be 
generous here (but don't let me stop 
you!) since the effort to establish 
tension on the part of the kids as 
they wait with bated breath to be 
sorted is undermined by the fact that 
in wearing their house colors already, 
they seem to be waiting anxiously to 
hear about something that they (and 
the more observant audience members) 
already know.  Nothing artistic about 
that, me thinketh.

Petra
a
n  :)

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