Ah, a wireless geek project! In the old forums I posted a thread about how Gil Grissom, fearless leader of the forensics team on CBS' CSI uses a Motorola v70. So, now I pose the question, since they all use Motorola phones and they are all different phones, which member uses which phone? Can we positively identify the model used by each CSI member? CSI: Crime Scene Investigation airs at Thursdays at 9PM EST/PST I have provided a picture and listing of each member to prevent confusion. back row (LtoR) Jim Brass, Sara Sidle, Warrick Brown, Nick Stokes front row (LtoR) Catherine Willows, Gil Grissom* *We already know Gil Grissom uses a v70 so you don't really need to try and figure that one out, duh. :googlyeye
I caught some of the episode the other night and noticed quite a few i730s. One of the chicks and the guy on the left had them. Isn't that how they found the dead girl?
I'm not sure of the PTT model but I know at least Jim Brass for sure has one. The weird thing is that Gil uses a v70 which essentially was only offered by Cingular and T-Mobile, only Cingular provides service in Las Vegas and, if I'm not mistaken they do not offer PTT. That would mean that the members of the team with PTT capable handsets have either Sprint (which does not offer Motorola phones, except the v60v which is not Ready Link capable) Verizon or AT&T Wireless. Verizon only has the Motorola v60p as a PTT model and none of the people on CSI use that phone so that leaves AT&T Wireless which features the v60 Color, v600, MPx200 & C353 none of which is PTT capable and, if I'm not mistaken, AT&T Wireless does not offer PTT services. I guess reality has no bearing on this show.
They all use Nextel except Gil. And I think he just changed this seadonm. I don't know why. Didn't last nights episode seem like a Nextel comercial at times?
It did seem a little like a Nextel commercial and I just found out that Nextel does offer service in Las Vegas so my previous post makes no sense. So I guess they all use Nextel but Gil, so why would he switch to Cingular? Weird.
I've noticed alot of shows use Motorola phones. I know this might be off the topic of the thread but I have seen CSI, Friends, Joan of Arcadia, and Charmed use alot of Motorola phones. Charmed and Friends are big on the V60 model and Joan of Arcadia she is using one of the newer brand color phones I think maybe the i730 or even the V400 I didn't catch a good glimpse but my mom said it was a nice phone. I guess cause of Motorola not branding their name on the front in HUGE letters it makes it easy to use the phone without making a commercial out of the show.
Do you think it is Nextel or Motorola that has the agreement with the shows, or do you think the prop dept. chooses Motorolas because they have more style than most other brands. (Motorola phones are also seen quite a bit on the Law & Order family of TV shows.) I guess in CSI's case it's probably Motorola that has the agreement as the v70 is not a Nextel phone.
As with most things on TV, it comes down to style. (Unless someone pays for placement - more on that in a sec.) Look at workplace comedies - many of them have various models of Macs sitting on the desks. The Powerbook G4 has even popped up on The West Wing. (And then there's Buffy & Angel, which played like Apple commercials in some episodes.) Apple makes some of the most stylish computers, so naturally they'll look better on camera than your average beige box. The same holds true for phones. It's logical that CSI would use a PTT solution, because instant communication can be vital in public safety situations. And the i730 is the most stylish phone that Nextel offers at the moment. (I've also seen them used on Las Vegas and, again, The West Wing.) It's been a while since I've watched L&O, but I remember them using StarTacs - which would make sense, since they're sleek, but professional looking - and fit nicely in the inside pocket of an off-the-rack sportcoat. The exception, of course, is product placement. During the first season of "Alias", Nokia paid to be a primary sponsor of the show - so whenever someone pulled out a phone, it was a Nokia. (Sydney had TWO Nokias - identical models - a red SD-6 issued phone and a blue CIA phone.) This season, however, the characters have been using LG phones (I think) - I think I even remember spotting the VZW logo on one of them. (Which was a major continuity error, since Vaughn was in EUROPE when he was making his call.)
The unreleased i830 was on the that show too, or maybe it was the CBS Navy show NCIS. The phone got much exposure, makes you wonder if they pay to have them displayed. Screenshot 1 Screenshot 2 Screenshot 3 Screenshot 4
That phone is out for SouthernLINC, just not for Nextel. Granted, it was not out during production I would imagine.
We're getting a litte off subject here, folks. fftopic: Actually, I think this thread should serve as a beacon of light for those who turn to their respecitve loved ones and say, "Hey [insert character name here] is using a [insert cellular phone name here]" and get a blank look in response. Every show on TV that has a wireless phone in it we want to know about it in this thread.
So, I rented the six disk set of CSI's first season episodes. In the pilot episode no one has a cellular phone, they all use radios but by the 2nd episode Gil Grissom is using a Motorola StarTAC (probably a 7868 but it was filmed in 2000 and so could possibly be a StarTAC 3000, etc.) I could not tell which phones anyone else was using but I still have 4 1/4 disks to go yet.
Yeah. I suppose you could always make up a deus ex machina type excuse, like "Marshall modified the phone to utilize both CDMA and GSM technologies", or whatever, but the fact is the props guy screwed up. A little piece of well-placed duct tape, and we never would have seen the VZW logo. Changing the subject slightly, I saw "The Day After Tomorrow" this past weekend. I won't go into what I thought of the movie - suffice to say that I thought it worked really well...as a COMEDY! But there was another operator continuity goof - and it was a really obvious one: In a scene set in Japan (there was a title card & everything) a businessman takes a call from his wife as he's walking home (read: as he finishes drinking his sake) - at that moment, huge ice chunks start falling from the sky. The guy gets hit and he goes down. As he falls, the camera goes to street level, and the guy's phone falls into frame. At which point you can see that the phone has a Rogers-ATT logo near the microphone. Sure, you could say that GSM works all over the place - but this guy was clearly a "local" in the context of the scene, so it doesn't make sense for him to have a mobile phone from a foreign provider. More than likely, the scene was filmed in Canada, and again, the props guy was too lazy to notice the logo. (Because I can't imagine R/ATT would have paid a placement fee for what was essentially a throwaway moment.)
Okay, now I'm confused. It appears that about half of the way through Season 2 Grissom changed phones from a Motorola Timeport to a Samsung Sprint phone and there are other Sprint phones sprinkled throughout Season 2. I am not positively for sure if he was actually using a Timeport in early Season 2 and then switched or if he was always using a Samsung. I'll have to do some more searching about what type of Samsung it is, it was a darker grey flip phone which had the metal Samsung sheild on the front. Any ideas? Can anyone post pictures? Also it appears that a few of the other cast members were using Nokia 252s and Jim Brass was using a Nokia 3300 series. Weird.
I know on Tru Calling (this past season), Eliza Dushku (Tru) used a Motorola T720 GSM phone. Also, John Doe (which used to be on Fox until it was cancelled ) used a Sprint phone (forgot which model), but it was the ultra thin candy bar style phone .
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Season Four just came out on DVD and I've been watching it. Grissom still has the v70 (as noted earlier) but I found that Catherine Willows uses a Motorola i730 as there is a close up on the caller ID on her phone, and i730 is prominently displayed below the caller ID.
WOW! YOU PEOPLE NEED SOME ___KIN LIVES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I saw this as a related thread under one of my posts. I know it's old and dead, but WHAT THE ___K!
I really can't believe that people really sit and take note of the phones that are used on tv shows. They could talk to there counterparts with their pencils for all I know and I probably wouldn't notice You guys are really phone crazy. What's worse is that I sat here and read the entire thread. :loony:
Were all those capital letters and exclamation points really necessary? I think that might have been overkill. See how much nicer it is if you use proper punctuation and capitalization? This is a website about mobile phones and mobile phone service. Most of the regulars here are phone geeks. I find it interesting that you are both surprised there would be such a geeky thread on a forum like this as well as people as geeky as myself. Say what you want about us not having lives... at least we didn't dig up a thread that is over 2 1/2 years old. In a word: duh.
You know when you know something but just the stark reality of it hits you. Not to mention the fact that I'm just like them... dwl. Even the digging up of age old threads attest to the fact.:biggrin:
