Telephone numbers in films... they're always the same! Why does every American film quote phone numbers beginning with triple 5? I refuse to believe that every phone number in the US begins with that! And why do phone rings always wobble in films? Less so in recent films with electronic phone rings, but old films with old bell-ring phones would always have a wobble. What's that all about then Dave?
I don't know who dave is, but we have the 555 things because if you use a normal phone number, it'll fuck everything up. People will see the number and start calling it, because they're assholes. So, they use 555. And the "bell-ring phones" wobble because they have a big ass bell in them.(Duh) I'm sure phones in the UK at some point used bells too.
Nope, the wobble I'm talking about is a clear "wow" sound as of a tape running at varying speed, that is, a tonal change, not like a usual bell-ring phone sound - these have consistent tone (we had one when I was growing up and they didn't sound like the ones in films!)
Ohhh, the sound would wobble. I thought you meant it visualy wobbled and shook. That's bad audio recording. It was probably recorded on tape, or if it's really old, cut on a record. Both of which, after an extended period of play time, distort sound. For the tape, it stretches as it gets old and causes distortion. For the wax, the grooves widen and deepen over time. I have the sound in my head, and I'm pretty sure thats why. Also, it could be bad acoustics and mics.
That's what I thought, and it seems the most likely explanation, but I'm talking about major big-budget hollywood films, "Ghostbusters" is an example of the type of film I mean... you'd think they'd make the effort to get a sound that was close to reality, it happened so often in films throughout my childhood that I began to think it was deliberate! Unless there's just one standard SFX tape they all use which has that wow sound... Film-sound itself optical, so it couldn't be stretch on the copy of the film shown in cinemas or the one used for TV telecine versions. The wow must be there at the sound editing stage! You'd think someone would notice! So what happens when you dial a 555 number in the US? And what is the standard format of American phone numbers? Some people might think these questions are trivial, but they've been bugging me for years!
"Your call cannot be completed as dialed, check the number and try again" is what I get when i call 555-5555. What do you get when you call over there? I don't know what the sound could be then. It's really starting to bug me now, I wanna know what that sound is. I don't think they could have missed though.
The beginning three fives are the standard beginnings to all numbers in movies because otherwise people would call the numbers in movies and annoy people. There are no numbers in the U.S. that start with 555. I think it started with Dick Clark or somebody in a movie, i don't know just google it or something.
Actually... they do have area codes for 555 numbers in films but the real reason they use 555 is up until a few years ago, the phone company maintained a service that provided fictional (i.e., unused) numbers to producers and writers. But it soon developed, in this wide, wonderful country of ours, that there wasn't a single number that wasn't in use somewhere. The "555" gambit was created in 1973--no matter where you are, dialing the 555 number plugs you into directory assistance, where a legion of professionally trained operators awaits to answer the particular crankiness of your call. 555 isn't an FCC regulation, but simply a convenient creation of Ma Bell.
You get the "number unobtainable" tone... What format do US phone numbers actually take for internal calls within the country? Ours are a three-digit area code beginning with 0, such as 020 for London, followed by eight digits ... so if you are already within the 020 area you only need to dial the eight digits. Am I the only person fascinated by this?
Hope this helps, showmet. A local call is usually seven digits. For example: 555-1234. It also might help to know that everybody in the USA has an area code, usually serving a geographical area. For example, most numbers in NYC have a 212 area code, Los Angeles has 213, and so on and on and on. In some areas, there are overlapping area codes. Where I live, those two area codes are 330 and 234. If my number were 330-555-1234, people in my area would have to dial all ten digits. If the number is a long distance call, you have to dial 1 first. Someone calling from New York or Los Angeles would have to dial 1-330-555-1234. There are also toll-free numbers, and their area codes are 800, 888 and 877. There may be some new ones that I don't know about.
we would dial 1-555-555-5555 for a long distance call in the US. of course there wouldn't be all those 5's.
we have a 3 digit area code which can begin with any number but 0, and 7 digit after that...ie 304-239-2300 or 304-752-4443 or 504-420-6776 or 721-324-7896 basically any combo of that format...but i dont think we use a 0 for the first # anywhere in the states, but u would have to dial 1 before calling out of area code
The only time I know to dial a 0 first is for international calls.....for instance when I call Spain 011-34-93-xxx-xxxx.
Yeah, ours is kind of like that. We start it with a three-digit area code, followed by seven numbers. Then if your in that area code, you just dial the seven didit number. I think local calls are free too, btw. We've changed phone numbers here though. It started out by just picking up the phone and telling them the town and residence you want to call, then it turned into this number assigned thing, with one digit, followed by four other didits. I belive the first number was the area code, followed by the resident number. That pretty much evolved into our system today. Well, I think it evolved into our system today. That as more and more towns were built on the grid, and more and more house were build, they just kept on adding numbers.
Do you have to dial 1 to get out out of the area code, or is it just in your state? Because where I live, if I want to call out of my area code, I have to dial one first
If you dial a no-longer-local number without putting the new area code in front of it, you get a message telling you to redial it with the area code first. But their computer is perfectly capable of figuring out what number you were trying to get and put the call through. It just doesn't want to--or rather, the phone company geniuses who program it don't want to. On the contrary, they're trying to teach you a lesson so next time you'll do it right. Sounds a little schoolmarmish, but the phone company doesn't have much choice. "One-plus" dialing was implemented to make more three-digit combinations available for area codes and local exchanges. (Previously the middle digit in all area codes had to be a 1 or a 0 so the switching computer would know a long distance call was being dialed.) Now it's possible for Berkeley to have the area code 510, and for each area code in North America to have a 510 local exchange. But--this is the important part--not right away. First the phone companies have to pound the idea of one-plus dialing into the consuming public's head, so when Nick in Newark calls Berkeley long distance information, 510-555-1212, the call doesn't wind up at Joe's Pizza, 510-5551, to the consternation of Joe. Thus the message. Eventually, of course, 510 will be assigned for local use, and if you forget one-plus you won't get the recording, you'll get Joe (or whomever). The phone company just hopes you'll have gotten the idea by then.
To dial international form the use: 01-1-local phone nuymber including area codes us and canadian phone numbers are in the style XXX-YYY-ZZZZ area code, prefix code, telephone number prefixes are assigned to cities or regions depending on size, more then one is allowed per region as the need for numbers increase the phone number xxx-555-1212 is assinged to directory services for the xxx area code.
