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By gerard55
#4941291
On the movie bar graph as far as i can recollect we only ever see it once and it's basically scrolling up and down. Was it the videogame that came up with the "wig wag" effect on the bar graph when the intensify is pressed or something else?
#4941293
Might have to take a look around for that, always wondered where that effect came from, just assumed it was the 2009 game that introduced it but i think the wand in the game had a different graph on it with the red circular decals being animated instead.
#4941304
gerard55 wrote: October 22nd, 2020, 2:53 pmWas it the videogame that came up with the "wig wag" effect on the bar graph when the intensify is pressed or something else?
Wig-wag?

Re-watching a bit of the game, the bargraph on the thrower doesn't seem to do anything other than steadily climb upwards towards the over-head animation.

One of the bits of behind-the-scenes footage of the thrower's bargraph is this sequence at 7:05:



-which is the same animation as seen in the close-up shot at Gozer's temple.

There's also a brief shot of the barrel strobes and extension at 6:11.
#4941314
Kingpin wrote: October 23rd, 2020, 1:53 am
gerard55 wrote: October 22nd, 2020, 2:53 pmWas it the videogame that came up with the "wig wag" effect on the bar graph when the intensify is pressed or something else?
Wig-wag?

Re-watching a bit of the game, the bargraph on the thrower doesn't seem to do anything other than steadily climb upwards towards the over-head animation.

One of the bits of behind-the-scenes footage of the thrower's bargraph is this sequence at 7:05:



-which is the same animation as seen in the close-up shot at Gozer's temple.

There's also a brief shot of the barrel strobes and extension at 6:11.

Wig wag is what some call the firing animation on the bar graph. :-D I only started seeing this effect in the last 10 or so years after the game came out so I assumed it was something in the game as its not featured in the movie.
#4941315
The wig wag effect I think is when the bar graph splits in 2 when beams are crossed. (The Matty wands have this functionality built in when crossing the streams).



In the movie the bargraph is usually fixed at the selected power output and is rarely shown as scrolling up and down.
The Hasbro and Matty wands also rarely scroll up and down. They do so:

1. When turning on the Activate switch (cyclotron start switch) on Matty / upper right switch (Ancillary Systems switch) on Hasbro.
2. Immediately after firing (Matty)

Neither of the wands scroll the bargraph when the lower right switch (main power circuit switch) is turned on.

These 2 instances when the bargraph scales up and down (to me) indicate it is just calibrating itself to the selected power output.

But in normal operation on both the Matty and Hasbro wands’ the bar graph is fixed and shows the power output selected with the aluminum dial, just like the movies.

E.g. in Ghostbusters 1984 in the ballroom scene we see from the bargraph that Venkman has his thrower at Full Stream (5th “decal”).

01:08s


It’s why Egon tells him to “shorten his stream”. You can tell at 03:00s that Egon (who also had his on Full Stream: 01:54s) has considerably reduced the output of his thrower (by a half) probably after seeing all the destruction it did to the bar, while Venkman only turned it down a quarter after Egon tells him to “shorten his stream”.

Three Quarter stream for Peter and Half Stream for Egon makes sense looking at the difference in streams when capturing Slimer at the 03:00s minute mark after Egon tells Peter to shorten his beam down from the Full Stream he started with at 01:08s.

At 03:00s we also see that there is no immediate short term animation when firing (certainly no wigwag effect). Although the bar graph steadily and slowly dropping when firing continously as overheat approaches is a realistic assumption one can make. From a usability standpoint you’d want to know how long you have left before the overheat when using different power modes.

The wigwag effect (splitting the bargraph into 2) is a very creative and striking way to warn that streams are crossing with only a super simple 1 dimensional GUI. Very out of the box thinking. And it’s the only scenario that makes sense to use that effect. The creative thought that has gone into the props and how they are meant to work is really cool.

I think the same with the rotating barrel, rotating the front grip counterclockwise so the grip faces up and doesn’t allow a firm grip makes sense to me as a disarming safety feature for storage.
Last edited by One time on October 23rd, 2020, 9:51 pm, edited 17 times in total.
#4941318
^ Yeah its in the matty wands on stream cross mode, on most other light kits it just seems to be the standard firing sequence the bargraph changes to.



Can see it in this vid at 12 seconds when he presses the intensify, the graph turns into 2 lines going up and down from the middle to the top and bottom of the graph and back.
#4941319
gerard55 wrote: October 23rd, 2020, 10:24 am ^ Yeah its in the matty wands on stream cross mode, on most other light kits it just seems to be the standard firing sequence the bargraph changes to.

Can see it in this vid at 12 seconds when he presses the intensify, the graph turns into 2 lines going up and down from the middle to the top and bottom of the graph and back.
That’s not accurate to the movie. I think maybe someone decided that it looked cool and made a lightkit at one point and it somehow got stuck as being accurate over the years while it wasn’t really.

I think it’s a shame because the functionality of the movie props is so well thought out and beautiful in its simplicity.
RedSpecial liked this
#4941336
21 years after seeing it on the DVD I'm excited to get the answer. Don't know why I never bothered to ask before. I guess I just assumed since I didn't recognize it immediately it must be something blurry in the background of a scene. Really cool to see how basic it was made and how nice it turned out

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