In Steven Spielberg’s The Bridge of Spies (2015), a spy story set in 1957, during the Cold War, there is a scene that takes place at the exit of a courthouse, at the beginning of the film.
We see press photographers taking pictures with their flashes.
At the time, flashes had to be replaced after each use.
The actors who played the photographers were instructed to place used flash bulbs in their jacket pockets after use, assuming that was what was done at the time.
However, one of the extras present during the filming of this scene incidentally happened to be the historian of the New York Press Photographers Association.
As an expert, he immediately noticed that the actors who played the photographers made a mistake by putting the used light bulbs back in their pockets.
Listening only to his taste for authenticity, he went to the film’s executive producer, Adam Somner, and explained to him that photographers didn’t put light bulbs in their pockets back then, but just dropped them on the floor. , because they were hot and they wanted to avoid handling them.
Adam Somner passed the remark on to Spielberg, who took it on board and told the actors to change their ways.
After shooting several takes of this scene, Steven Spielberg saw all the light bulbs on the floor of the set and found it interesting. He then decided to shoot a shot at ground level, showing the actors walking among the light bulbs, crushing some.