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The Best Timed Shot in TV History (Probably)
- thinkingkong 3y agoIf you haven't watched this entire series you absolutely have to. It totally changed the way I think about things and I can't think of a single person I've recommended it to that wasn't totally blown away by it. Even now it's super interesting and entertaining, even at around 40 years old.
- ulf-77723 3y agoWhere is it available?
- aastronaut 3y agohttps://archive.org/details/bbc-connections-1978 https://archive.org/details/bbc-connections-1978
- ndsipa_pomu 3y agoNot on BBC's iPlayer, despite it being a BBC production. There's so much good old stuff that the BBC can't be bothered to put up on iPlayer - they'd rather fawn over royalty or pretend to be impartial by giving equal time to experts and the sanity-challenged.
- OJFord 3y agoMore stupid is that it may or may not be on their (joint with ITV) paid 'BritBox' service. I'd probably have signed up in an instant (despite the stupid name) if it had the whole archive. (But it doesn't, so (a) it's possible it doesn't have Connections; (b) I haven't signed up and don't know if it does or not.)
- ndsipa_pomu 3y agohttps://archive.org/details/ConnectionsByJamesBurke https://archive.org/details/ConnectionsByJamesBurke Also available on YouTube and torrents.
- OJFord 3y agoI mean the whole BBC (nevermind ITV) archive, not Connections specifically which I've never heard of before now. If they just put up everything they already made they could charge more than Netflix IMO. Instead, god knows why, it's a limited selection that too from which some missing episodes due to the usual 'woke' rewriting of history & present (racist or whatever-ist people exist right, so what's the problem with a show having such a character? Doesn't mean it's right, nor that the show itself is that-ist).
- ndsipa_pomu 3y ago> not Connections specifically which I've never heard of before now You're in for a treat, especially if you can enjoy the 70s stylings of James Burke. I particularly enjoy his dry wit which would probably be toned down quite a bit for modern serious productions. > the usual 'woke' rewriting of history & present It's not so much rewriting (unless you're a publisher looking for free publicity), but attempting to not broadcast very offensive material that was considered normal back in the day (much as slavery used to be considered normal). Personally, I was quite a fan of "Till Death Us Do Part" featuring Alf Garnett as a racist bigot, but then I can appreciate irony and that the programmes were making the point that he was a character to be lampooned and pitied. However, there's too many people that would accept it at face value and use it to justify their vile racism, so I can understand that it's not suitable for modern consumption.
- geoelectric 3y agoIt's not on the Prime Video Britbox channel, which I do have. Only the new one shows on Prime at all, via the Curiosity Stream channel. Britbox doesn't publish their standalone app library but googling the two names together doesn't suggest they have it either.
- ska 3y agoBBC iPlayer access is different in UK than elsewhere, right? I suspect for much of the older stuff it's licensing issues making it not worth the time to verify, in their view. Just because it's BBC production doesn't mean there isn't 3rd party stuff that has to be checked. That and content, they probably don't want to air everything they did in the 60s/70s for example, for fear of being buried in complaints...
- TylerE 3y agoI think a lot of times they licensed the soundtrack for the initial broadcast(s) only. Home media wasn't a thing in the 60s for video.
- ska 3y agoGood point. Very unlikely it was licensed outside the UK even after home video started.
- ndsipa_pomu 3y agoI think they showed it on PBS
- ska 3y agoAs I understand it though, the typical way this would happen is through a new and/or separate licensing agreement (in this case for PBS, and for a different region, etc.)
- ndsipa_pomu 3y agoThe older programmes were typically exclusively BBC produced content - I can't think of any part of Connections that would be problematic for them. Surely with a new series of Connections having been made, they should have a look at making it available. It was a similar thing with their Oppenheimer series - fully available on YouTube and not on iPlayer.
- esafak 3y agohttps://www.kanopy.com/en/video/1217815 https://www.kanopy.com/en/video/1217815
- audunw 3y agoI'm dreaming that someone will remake Connections some day. The quality of the recordings are quite bad, and while I think retelling the stories with a new production would be great in itself, I'm sure there's many new stories that could be told with additional research. I think Robert Murray-Smith would be a great host. He has some of the same energy as Burke and he has some history-related videos on YouTube that has some of the same style of storytelling. Kathy Joseph would be great for the research side. Her book "The Lightning Tamers" is pretty good at describing some of these weird connections and interesting stories throughout the history of electricity.
- fho 3y ago> Robert Murray-Smith After watching his videos every day for months now I am still not sure where on the "technical genius" to "free energy advocate" spectrum I should place him. I mean most of his builds are technically correct (e.g. most of his generators produce a voltage), but he often glosses over details that in practice make the idea unfeasible (e.g. a voltage does not help you if the generator can not provide enough current). Other times he is just wrong ... just because whales and "tree-spinning-things" have similar "wings" does not mean that you can blow up the same shape to a wind turbine size. (The reason behind that is that the smaller you get the more viscous air becomes (relatively) ... flies and other small insects literally swim through the air because of that. Imo that could be an explanation why the tree-spinny-things have a similar shape, they are just small enough that they "swim", too.)
- Infernal 3y agoCan you help me understand why air is (relatively) more viscous the smaller you are? Does it have something to do with the volume (mass) of an object growing faster than the surface area available to support it in the air? Or is it something else?
- FiatLuxDave 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynolds_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynolds_number Read down until 'similarity of flows'
- fho 3y agoI recently looked at an old technical encyclopedia at my grand mother's place. I paged through that 30 years ago when I was a little kid ... and was a bit surprised to see that a lot of it is still relevant today.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- royjacobs 3y agoJames Burke has a new Connections series up on Curiosity Stream, I'm looking forward to seeing it.
- upon_drumhead 3y agoI loved it! It's easily worth subscribing for a month to watch.
- TaylorAlexander 3y agoOh wow that’s wonderful!
- mikpanko 3y agoReading the article I wanted to understand why it is possibly the best timed shot in TV history but it didn’t seem to provide the answer? What am I missing? Can somebody explain?
- taylorfinley 3y agoFor the shot to work he had to point towards the rocket exactly as it ignited, meaning he had to deliver the whole line at just the right pacing to punctuate it with the rocket igniting. Today he'd just be standing on a green screen and they would add the rocket in post, but this is "doin' it live"
- ReactiveJelly 3y agoTo be fair, you could practice it as many times as you want ahead of time. It's probably a common skill in presenting, on radio / DJing they call it "hitting the post" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_broadcasting_terms#H https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_broadcasting_terms...
- kstrauser 3y agoThat's a fantastic shot, to be sure. But for my money, Tiger Woods at the 2005 Masters did the most theatrical thing on live TV ever, and the cameraman couldn't possibly have captured the movie-climax moment better if it'd been filmed on a set: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJEysanOT7w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJEysanOT7w
- egoburnswell 3y agoThis is just golf.
- reactordev 3y agoYou obviously never played the game. The shot mentioned was pretty much impossible, yet Tiger pulled it off. Dead lay chip with perfect backspin to stop the ball and allow gravity to pull it down the slope into the hole. Not only was the placement precision, the backspin precision, but the fact that there was just enough momentum to get the ball to drop into the cup. Science is cool, rockets too, but the finesse of this shot hasn’t been seen since.
- idontwantthis 3y agoI still don’t get the comparison to the article. He could have waited 5 more seconds and still hit the shot.
- reactordev 3y agoYeah, having a set timeline like the article’s shot where you have to kinda deliver 10 seconds in 10 seconds so that it ends with the rocket ignition was a clever use of timing that hasn’t been used since in that magnitude. I guess the OP was referring to “The best shot in TV history” rather than timed shot. For timing, The article’s example is pinnacle. For just best shot, Tiger Wood’s 2005 shot. Best photograph shot: Earthrise from Apollo 8.
- potamic 3y ago
- romseb 3y agoThere is a cut a few seconds before the launch, so they didn't have to time 1 minute exactly, "just" ~20 seconds.
- charcircuit 3y agoand the exact time of launch is known beforehand, so it's not like he was guessing and happening to get lucky with it lining up.
- makapuf 3y agoSure but you're still a stutter or a sneeze away from ruining it.
- charcircuit 3y agoHe was early and had to pause before saying the last word. If he stuttered he would still be close enough. Yes, it's possible to mess up the shot, but the odds were in their favor.
- slyall 3y agoLooks like a completely different take. If you look at his microphone it is worn higher in the first "walking" shot than in the takeoff shot. Also the walk is filmed South of the Vehicle Assembly Building looking North. Whereas the Voyager 2 took off from LC-41 which is East of the VAB
- TeMPOraL 3y agoLearning it wasn't composited surprised me. I always assumed it was green-screened (or blue-screened or whatever they used for chroma-keying back then) - that's because until ignition, the camera focus makes it seem like he's standing in front of a sheet with a painting on it, and overall, it feels as a very well-made composite.
- ReactiveJelly 3y agoI'm guessing they set the camera very far back, which will appear to compress depth. Otherwise, since he must be standing so far from the rocket, the rocket would be too small to see. (It's not the lens - That's a pet peeve of mine, it's not the lens. The z-divide in any graphics simulation is what appears to compress or expand depth. The lens merely makes a shorter or farther camera distance practical. The lens themselves don't distort anything until you're talking about fisheye effects.)
- chha 3y agoImpressive for sure, but I have to admit that the first thing I thought it would be was the launch of the Apollo 17 lunar module: https://youtu.be/9HQfauGJaTs?si=2smTf9G3tomXPpot https://youtu.be/9HQfauGJaTs?si=2smTf9G3tomXPpot Filmed using the rover camera remote controlled from Houston, with a latency of about a second from a command was sent until the camera responded
- oxygen_crisis 3y agoI've referred to that clip in past conversations about future moon missions revisiting relics like the Apollo 11's flag and the first footprints. People tend to forget every manned moon landing site is also a launch site. Sure, there's no atmosphere to disturb the dust since we left, but the liftoff exhaust didn't care much about that. A launch that knocked over the flag over eight meters away[1] almost certainly also left a smoothly blown-out depression where most of the first footprints were, no matter how inert the site has been since then. And beside that, between the two of them there was enough traffic in and out of the module that the first footprints were probably stepped on over and over again. [1] https://history.nasa.gov/alsj/ApolloFlags-Condition.html https://history.nasa.gov/alsj/ApolloFlags-Condition.html
- M95D 3y agoThe LEM separates at launch from the moon. The descent module remains behind. When the ascent engine fires, it blows the gas on top of the descent module below it. The descent module, having a mostly flat top, would direct gas sideways, blowing away the tall flag, but not the footprints.
- ninkendo 3y agoThat’s actually an interesting thought… on earth, such a redirection of the exhaust gas wouldn’t mean much, since the resulting turbulence would cause the surrounding air to get caught up in the wake of the exhaust anyway (making everything around it disturbed), but with no atmosphere? The result would look a lot different. I still think the footprints would be affected because the exhaust deflection is not perfect or complete, but it’s interesting to think about the idea of exhaust traveling thousands of miles per hour just a few feet above the lunar surface while the surface itself remains undisturbed.
- beer2beerPrtcl 3y agoI don't get why exactly this is so impressive. If the exact time of launch is known, isn't it trivial to begin a short, well-rehearsed speech at a specified time so that the delivery syncs with the launch?
- defrost 3y agoDo you have a better (or equivalent) example of an independent film crew and talking head hitting the nail on a visually impressive third party event outside their control? (Without post production fix up magic, of course) This is an impressive example of exactly that .. but is it the most impressive example, indeed. Off hand I don't know of other great examples.
- kdwikzncba 3y agoIt's not impressive, it was just on Reddit recently, so finally made its way into hn.
- icehawk 3y agoI don't get why it wouldn't be impressive. You say its trivial, but is it? How many times have you tried it?
- defanor 3y agoI tried saying those words in a fixed time (12 seconds) while looking at a clock now, it still does not seem hard. Appears to be easier once you attach parts of the phrase to time offsets, and probably easier yet with a teleprompter.
- matijagoljarkd 3y ago[dead]
- hnbad 3y agoIt's impressive because it worked. Nobody would know if it hadn't because the shot wouldn't have been used then. Yeah, that makes it kind a trivial but it's still a good shot because it worked. What makes this one the "best" is that this shot needed to be done right or it couldn't have been done again for years to come (at least if the launch itself was meant to be somewhat meaningful). A myriad of things could have gone wrong but didn't. Of course it's also easy to see they had some tolerances to work with (turning away from the camera to say "that" while standing motionless to make sped up or dropped frames less obvious if they had been necessary). It's a lot like videos of trick (ball) shots: if you saw them together with all the ones that didn't work, the ones that did wouldn't really stand out much. But when the stars align and everything just "flows" like it should, that gives many people a fuzzy feeling and that's what this TV shot does. It's like a choreographed dance routine.
- readthenotes1 3y agoLike one of Dilbert's laws: if you don't know how to do it, it must be easy
- slyall 3y agoOne thing this shot is sync the sound and visuals. In reality because of the slower speed of sound (around 340m/s) the noise of the rocket wouldn't be heard until the rocket was significantly above the tower. You also hear various other pieces in the sound that indicate it wasn't recorded on site. This is one of the things I really notice in movies. Whenever something explodes in a fight sequence (eg Marvel movies[1]) the sound matches the explosion exactly. I find it annoying although I suspect the average movie-goer would be put off if the sound was realistically delayed. [1] https://youtu.be/4vHxHgYaOes?si=BnzjncUQLHz_6DZy&t=58 https://youtu.be/4vHxHgYaOes?si=BnzjncUQLHz_6DZy&t=58
- xref 3y agothat specific clip would probably work even better if the blast sound was somewhat delayed like the pressure wave…
- TeMPOraL 3y agoYeah, I actually misremembered that scene as being the opposite of what GP described, as the pressure wave was the thing that made the biggest impression on me back those years ago - it's the other thing that's very rarely modeled when things in movie explode.
- scns 3y ago> if the blast sound was somewhat delayed like the pressure wave Aren't they the same thing?
- actionfromafar 3y agoNot sure about rocket launches but in energetic explosions the shock wave moves faster than sound for a certain distance, until the shock slows down and the sound catches up.
- pixelesque 3y agoDepends.... for (large) explosions, there's initial blast pressure waves which travel faster than the speed of sound.
- idontwantthis 3y agoWell actually… There’s no hydrogen burning in that stage. It’s solid fuel and aerozine (hydrazine).
- jeffrallen 3y ago> "Destination: the moon. Or Moscow." This is why we can't have nice things.
- TeMPOraL 3y agoThe show was brutally honest, not just about the history, but also the present. It's fitting for it to recognize that the difference between a space rocket and ICBM is the payload - something people don't understand even today, and then get surprised about ITAR or why space programs and governments getting nervous go hand-in-hand.
- kubanczyk 3y ago> the difference between a space rocket and ICBM is the payload If it was true, nobody would get nervous about the FOBS at the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_Orbital_Bombardment_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_Orbital_Bombardment...
- hyperific 3y agoI knew just from the title that it would be this shot. Connections is iconic.
- expertentipp 3y ago[flagged]
- ta1243 3y agoIt's a nice shot, but it's a basic skill to read your (prewritten) copy to a specific deadline. The last shot was 20 seconds, he had plenty of time to practice and speed/slow down as the clock went on. Sure it would be stressful, but had it failed then the program would still have gone out, just with a voice over and a different angle. The credit goes to the production team (including Burke, but presumably also his producer and camera) for thinking up the shot in the first place. For delivery, there are far more stressful and impressive live timings done every day around the world
- sambeau 3y agoIf you search YouTube, you will find other presenters trying to mimic it and getting it hilariously wrong.
- afavour 3y agoHonestly these old shows had such a low budget I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it was just Burke and the cameraman there. And in a way the stakes were low: if there was no executive producer shouting “GET THAT SHOT” at them they might have just been thinking “why not give it a try, if it doesn’t work out, oh well, we’ll just do a voiceover”.
- psvv 3y agoIn radio, talking over the start of a song and ending right when the lyrics kick in is called "hitting the post" and sometimes it's done without prewritten copy, just winging it. It's just a skill you can practice and some people get quite good at it. One difference with this is if you miss the lyrics, you can just try again next time. There's a new song every few minutes. There was only ever one launch of Voyager 2.
- ta1243 3y agoSure, but if he missed it you'd have never known he'd have missed it. Get the timing wrong on Eurovision, despite having one every year, and 100 million+ people will know it.
- shoxidizer 3y ago
- aftoprokrustes 3y agoAnother "perfectly timed" TV moment with Rockets, unvoluntary this time, would be Ariane 5's first launch. The commentator literally says "all propulsion parameters at their normal value" (in French) as the thing is blowing up. (1:25 in the video) https://youtu.be/PK_yguLapgA?si=zS9ak1nFT5tJ_Z9l https://youtu.be/PK_yguLapgA?si=zS9ak1nFT5tJ_Z9l
- ThinkingGuy 3y agoReminds me of how, for a certain of cohort of Americans, the phrase "Challenger, go at throttle up" has an ominous connotation.
- stormdennis 3y agoI used to love watching James Burke's Connections on tv as a kid. So much so that when years later I saw his book, Connections in a second hand bookshop I bought it and it sits in arm's length from where I am sitting now, unread. Just checked now and it's copyrighted 1978, this edition published 1979.
- ysoft 3y agoOnly because that was take 421!!
- smusamashah 3y agoThis reminded of this (now private) subreddit with videos/gifs of coincidently well-timed events https://www.reddit.com/r/breathinginformation/ https://www.reddit.com/r/breathinginformation/ It was mostly full of sports events where some text appears on screen at the exact moment of something else. I think most of them were comedic. https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/1bihza/breathing_information/ https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/1bihza/breathing_inf... https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/3mb05q/xpost_rbreathinginformation_billy_gunn_surprised/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/3mb05q/xpost... https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/1nq7w2/frank_gore_shits_himself_xpost_from/ https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/1nq7w2/frank_gore_sh...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- sizzzzlerz 3y agoThat brings back some very fond memories. Connections was a seminal TV show that was interesting, funny, and intelligent. As a newly minted electrical engineer, I loved learning the obscure history of things I used daily. Until Carl Sagan created Cosmos, there had been nothing like it nor has anything been like it since.
- pynchia 3y agoYou MUST do a post with the WORST timed shot: i.e. on 9/11/2001 the BBC announcing the fall of the WTC Building 7 while it was still standing on her live background
- xtracto 3y agoI was thinking about the shot by the crew doing Firefighters documentary. That shot of the first plane crashing is to me the best timed TV shot, even though it's for the wrong reasons.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- urbandw311er 3y agoMy brain autocompletes the domain name of this to “geek reporter”.
- darkerside 3y agoI thought he was going to walk into the shot in a single take, and I was prepared for my mind to be completely and utterly blown.
- uwagar 3y agomoon or moscow planets or peking that was unnecessary. always the need for war.
- Julesman 3y agoNah. There's a cut. This has been going around for so long and isn't what it says.
- bearjaws 3y agoThis is the most reposted item on Reddit. All launches are timed, even the shortest notification window is 24 hours for a launch, I could go make this same exact video every week at Cape Canaveral.
- ChrisMarshallNY 3y agoAwesome! I understand the show (with Burke) is coming back[0]. Can't wait. [0] https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/11/fans-of-connections-rejoice-rebooted-classic-sci-doc-series-returns-with-original-host/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/11/fans-of-connections-...
- waynenilsen 3y agoThe bright exhaust is from the solid rocket boosters not the hydrolox engines it's somewhat misleading for the target audience
- account-5 3y agoI remember years ago reading about the operating system and language used for voyagers 1 and 2, and how they've last so long because of them. Really interesting read, really wish I'd bookmarked it because I can't find it anymore.
- mrcwinn 3y agoI beg to differ. The timing of the blinds falling onto George after Elaine rips off his toupee is unparalleled: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L37Rckt5WFA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L37Rckt5WFA I'm kidding. Mostly.
- MostlyStable 3y agoYoutube completely ruins that timing by popping a "watch this video next" overlay almost completely covering George.