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The greatest shot in television: James Burke had one chance to nail this scene (2024)

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Re: The greatest shot in television: James Burke had one chance to nail this scene (2024)

#11

Post by chaboud »

wagwang wrote: post #9
chongli wrote: post #6

I watched this show religiously as a kid (by then in reruns in the early 90s), along with Star Trek: TNG, Jeopardy, and playing Civilization for PC. The most formative years of my life were spent absorbing as much science, technology, and history as my growing brain could muster. I think that's why I'd grown up to be so optimistic about the future. I think there's still a lot of room for optimism, despite all of the…

The last line of the video was talking about nuking others...

Could have just been intercontinental ballistic human transport... I can't tell you how many times I've wished to just be fired out of a cannon to Hong Kong from SF.

Re: The greatest shot in television: James Burke had one chance to nail this scene (2024)

#12

Post by seer »

RachelF wrote: post #4

The late 1970's were the golden age of documentaries: Connections, Cosmos, Civilization, The Ascent of Man and Attenborough's Life on Earth. Perhaps it's just me, but modern documentaries are rather dumbed down? As a side note: Quite ironic that he ends up pointing to a rocket propelled mostly by solid fuels.

Yes, but the YouTube ed channels are such a treasure in and of itself. We had the “tech” to produce content like this for almost a century, but it took the Internet and democratization of content creation to come up with gems like smarter every day, veritasium, extra history, etc

My fear is that this is also being reshaped with ai, mostly for good now but I feel like the personal touch and passion of these creators is being diluted with the advent of generated content.

Maybe we are in a valley of the uncanny valley and the ai tools will become so good that they can successfully translate someone’s passionate vision faithfully, then it could be another renaissance.

Re: The greatest shot in television: James Burke had one chance to nail this scene (2024)

#13

Post by DavidWoof »

I loved Connections so much as a kid, but I'm so tired of this clip. There's so many better clips from this show.

So he nailed a 13 second countdown. Who cares? Newscasters do this at every commercial break. Sports announcers do this without a script and they still nail the cut to commercial almost every time. Yes, there's a talent to timing your speech to a countdown in your ear, but it's a talent that people do thousands of times a day around the world on far less preparation than Burke had here.

The fact that this article calls a simple cut a "sleight of hand" just terrifies me. Does the public really not know what editing is?

Re: The greatest shot in television: James Burke had one chance to nail this scene (2024)

#14

Post by rmunn »

51Cards wrote: post #10

I always love this video, and I have been a lifetime dedicated fan of James Burke, but few seem to note that the whole segment didn't have to be timed as there is a cut shortly before the launch. If I recall either James or one of the producers talked about it once. They knew they had to start the last bit 13 seconds before launch and had practiced it repeatedly. At 13 seconds to countdown James nailed it. I'm sure e…

Cuts from the speaker to some background footage, then back to the speaker, are a very useful technique. They can be used to lie, too, of course (cut from the interviewee's face to the interviewer, then back to the interviewee, and you can cut out context that changes the meaning of what was said). But when used with no deception in mind, they can really enhance a powerful moment. And this was a perfect example of it: no deception at all, just a wonderful visual image that makes an impact on the viewer.

Re: The greatest shot in television: James Burke had one chance to nail this scene (2024)

#15

Post by mandevil »

devindotcom wrote: post #2

The full series is on Archive: https://archive.org/details/bbc-connections-1978/Connections... It still holds up for the most part, though of course some of the takes, being almost 50 years old, may seem a bit quaint. It's certainly worth watching the first series at least start to finish. Burke is an interesting guy.

I personally feel like _The Day The Universe Changed_ (his second documentary) is better. I love Connections but the basic thesis (there are hidden connections between disparate developments in science and technology) ends up pretty scattershot, spreading out like Brownian Motion. _tDtUC_ is much more focused. Largely based on Kuhn's _Structure of Scientific Revolutions_ for individual stories, it traces how the understanding of time in Europe changed from the middle ages to the 1980's- the idea of time as a marker of descent from a previous golden age (1), or at best a repeating cycle, evolves into our modern conception of time as endlessly improving into a better future. And the supporting book was amazing too.

I also want to speak up for the BBC history documentary team that worked with Michael Wood: _In Search of the Trojan War_, _In Search of the Dark Ages_, _The Story of England_, _The Story of India_ they were also a staple of American PBS and informed my understanding of the world.

1: My go to example for this is imagine you walk into the Pantheon in 1000 AD: no one on your entire continent has known how to build a dome like that in 500 years, and won't again for another 500 years. The fundamental way you understand the world has to be completely different from the "newer is better" baseline that we have understood the world by for the past 150 years.

Re: The greatest shot in television: James Burke had one chance to nail this scene (2024)

#16

Post by bandrami »

chaboud wrote: post #11
wagwang wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last line of the video was talking about nuking others...

Could have just been intercontinental ballistic human transport... I can't tell you how many times I've wished to just be fired out of a cannon to Hong Kong from SF.

He's even clearer about it in the last episode of season 1, where he assembles all the inventions from the season and shows how they make the US nuclear triad.

Re: The greatest shot in television: James Burke had one chance to nail this scene (2024)

#17

Post by magicalhippo »

RachelF wrote: post #4

The late 1970's were the golden age of documentaries: Connections, Cosmos, Civilization, The Ascent of Man and Attenborough's Life on Earth. Perhaps it's just me, but modern documentaries are rather dumbed down? As a side note: Quite ironic that he ends up pointing to a rocket propelled mostly by solid fuels.

> Perhaps it's just me, but modern documentaries are rather dumbed down?

It's not just you. Most modern TV documentaries, especially series, are dumbed down and sped up. Fast cuts, lots of woo, not too much to challenge your brain, don't want it to get strained.

Gone are the days where someone conveyed the information calmly while not driving a car somewhere irrelevant. No more lingering shots allowing you to process what you just saw and heard.

Re: The greatest shot in television: James Burke had one chance to nail this scene (2024)

#18

Post by esafak »

devindotcom wrote: post #2

The full series is on Archive: https://archive.org/details/bbc-connections-1978/Connections... It still holds up for the most part, though of course some of the takes, being almost 50 years old, may seem a bit quaint. It's certainly worth watching the first series at least start to finish. Burke is an interesting guy.

There is also a fourth season from 2023. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt30222317

Also note that there is a book: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Connections/James-Bur...

https://archive.org/details/connections0000burk/page/n7/mode...

Re: The greatest shot in television: James Burke had one chance to nail this scene (2024)

#19

Post by burnt-resistor »

RachelF wrote: post #4

The late 1970's were the golden age of documentaries: Connections, Cosmos, Civilization, The Ascent of Man and Attenborough's Life on Earth. Perhaps it's just me, but modern documentaries are rather dumbed down? As a side note: Quite ironic that he ends up pointing to a rocket propelled mostly by solid fuels.

It was the golden age of the US at least also. Times that belittle, defund, or destroy science or art are dark ages.
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