Why do films and videos get the chessboard wrong?

It seems that film and videos purporting to show chess games (usually a quick shorthand to show how smart the characters are supposed to be) get the board round the wrong way more often than not.  

The most recent example I saw was in Person of Interest, where two supposedly intelligent people were playing a game of chess with the board the wrong way round.  Why is this?  And why do I always feel the need to check it?

My favourite was in Warehouse 13 when there was a chess puzzle attached to a death trap meaning if they got the puzzle wrong 3 times an axe would fall or something. It looked like a typical midgame puzzle with about half the pieces left on the board. The person got it wrong first time and on her second attempt said something like "OK last time I tried the King's Gambit, but the solution must be something else". I died a little inside when I watched that...

Lame continuity director.

I was just watching Rocky 4 the other day. There was a scene where one of Rockys coaches was playing their Russian caretaker.

They showed one shot and the king was in checkmate, then the Russian moves a piece and the coach responds with a (very lame) checkmate.

I thoght "Really, A Russian chess player didn't see THAT coming!"

Honestly, I would have a hard time noticing such obvious things like bishop-knight or king-queen switched. In fact I wouldn't notice the latter.

I definitely wouldn't notice if the board was rotated - maybe it was done intentionally to give those that actually care to check a giggle?

That's a very good point...maybe the producers just focus on filming

but some they sometimes commit serious mistakes. BTW, I liked "The Luzhin Defence" very much, even if it had some mistakes!

http://enjoychesslearning.wordpress.com/

Because films will not shell out money to have it done correctly, but will pay $20,000,000 to one person to make the movie.  Hollywood just aassumes people dont care, and or wont notice.

So true! But I cannot understand why they don't just hire an amateur for a few bucks to check these mistakes.

http://enjoychesslearning.wordpress.com/

Because they're fuggin retarded (I'm sorry, I mean comprehensionally challenged. That's more politically correct) & lazy.

I thought the chess scene in Austin Powers was cool.

It seems surprising to me that someone on a film set doesn't know, but I suppose chess players are rarer than we think.  I also doubt it was deliberate; I'm more of a cock-up than a conspiracy man myself.

I prefer the approach of The Simpsons, where Homer appears to disprove Fermat's last theorem by writing 3987^12 + 4365^12 = 4472^12 on a blackboard, which actually works to 10 significant figures.  Now there's a show that goes the extra mile...

I spend 20-30 minutes trying to figure out the position in Lost. Turned out to be, of course, totally silly. Why? Trying to construct the last move but couldn't because it left three pieces en pris, one of them being a rook allowing a mate when taken.

Black to move. 

I think oftentimes they just think they need to have a board with some pieces on it to make it look like a game is taking place. They probably don't think many chessplayers will watch the show/movie any way. It is extremely annoying, though.

I'm a major fan of Richard Branson, I've always admired his intellegence & creativity & verve for life. But damn it, I was intensely disappointed when I saw this & he's a chessplayer! Or so I've read. It seems maybe he just had to do a quick photo & never even looked at the board except when they shot the photo.

Most of the time the directors don't know anything about chess and most of the people watching won't notice anyway. I haven't seen a good chess scene in a non-chess movie since Harry Potter. 

Now that scene was clever especially because they used the Scandinavian defence to see if the pieces died when they were captured.

http://www.chess.com/groups/home/daeth-opining

I complained, but the superadmin said that it does not matter.

See, if I were the actor in that scene, I would refuse to let that pic be taken or a scene filmed with the board in that condition. I would insist upon correcting it myself, and then continue. I mean, it wouldn't take 3 minutes to fix it and they could move on.

http://video.about.com/chess/Top-Tips-for-Using-Rooks.htm

This is hilarious, especially because they're using a board that folds in the half, and it starts out with the fold between where the two players would be, and then all of a sudden the fold is down the middle.

Yeah, I like how about half way through that they show castling white king side, but the board is positioned wrong and the king was too far left, it looked like queen side castling. Geez, I don't even know what all that is about. But, the sad thing is that was supposed to be instructional! HA!

This.Same thing Happened to me.Just annoying how they make a mockery out of chess.

lol and the a1 to h8 isn't a black diagonal in the video.

that happens if they don't label the squares and they don't know how to tell that a1 is a black square.