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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)

#101

Post by Thegn »

jleyank wrote: post #91
hjkl0 wrote: post #87

This is my pet peeve. I don't know the show, but when I first watched this clip (under the title of "greatest shot on television") I totally bought in to the hype and thought it really was amazing. You start out just walking alongside him, and only slowly realize where you are and what is about to happen, and everything is perfectly timed and composed: he ends his walk, reaches the conclusion of his explanation, and…

If you want a single, unedited shot, Neil’s ladder descent would be a candidate. If you didn’t think Stanley actually did it.

He did, but he was such a stickler for accuracy that he insisted they shoot on location.

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

#102

Post by ghaff »

absynth wrote: post #42
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.

Modern audiences are expected to be glued to twelve different things at once. Producers are being told to adjust to this reality. Watch any movie now and they are all compensating for the distracted audience. Movies used to be watched in a place for that purpose. Now its the toilet. Now the phone itself is ringing. A message comes in. Time to upgrade. Ding! All while some key scene in the movie is taking place.

Well, even if it’s the living room, it’s not like being glued to a seat in a theater.

I used to be associated with content groups at a former company and in the almost 15 years I was there we saw clear trends in type of content and length of content viewers consumed.

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

#103

Post by sublinear »

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?

I hear this often and believed it myself for a while, but I cannot find much evidence for it. It's just the presentation style that people are nostalgic for.

These old documentaries are quite dumbed down as well (and sometimes wrong!). If you were to just read the literal text you'd think it was an excerpt from a children's book. The next time you come across an old video you feel this way about turn on the captions, mute the audio, and block out the rest of the screen except that tiny rectangle at the bottom.

I agree there was pride in the work that shines through, but don't be fooled into thinking it's any "better".

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

#105

Post by natebc »

konschubert wrote: post #81
Scroll_Swe wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The youtube channels are nowhere near the style and depth of documentaries like the ones above...

Check out Technology Connections. This is way, way, way more in depth than anything one can find on TV.

If anybody wants some more encouragement to check out Technology Connections ... the vibe is hour+ long Andy Rooney pieces.

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

#106

Post by HocusLocus »

The "Trigger Effect" episode ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcOb3Dilzjc ) that set off Connections:I was one of the finest hours ever produced for television. It influenced my family and I in the years to come. Hope for the best, while preparing for the worst.

It begins at South Tower of the World Trade Center, and as Burke enters an express elevator (Car 6 or 7 if you must know) he says in effect, "Do I worry about ascending to the top in a steel box? Of course I don't! We take going up in the world like that for granted." When an elevator later goes dark he says. "We expect this to happen sometimes so what do we do? We strike a light and look around in the dark for an emergency button to push and if we find one, we press it." In this discussion of single takes, note what the temperature of the butane lighter must have been by the time he finishes his speech. Ouch!

Also interesting to note in the realm of happenstance: the airliner portrayed in trouble over darkened New York was flight 911.

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

#107

Post by wolfram74 »

Thegn wrote: post #101
jleyank wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want a single, unedited shot, Neil’s ladder descent would be a candidate. If you didn’t think Stanley actually did it.

He did, but he was such a stickler for accuracy that he insisted they shoot on location.

The CIA didn't read his contract carefully enough. He snuck it into one of the rider clauses.

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

#108

Post by Forgeties79 »

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.

There was a lot of garbage back then too, they just aren’t a memorable so that’s why you only remember the best ones. There are a lot of great documentaries out these days. The early to mid-2010’s had a huge surge in particular, though there is plenty happening now as well.

I don’t know how someone could call The Act of Killing or Five Broken Cameras “dumbed down.” Or 20 Days in Mauripol just a few years ago

Unlike with a lot of award shows, one can actually do pretty well watching all the Oscar nominees for documentary any given year. Guaranteed at least half are good or great.

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

#109

Post by Tangurena2 »

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.

I think if you watch Connections 2 & Connections 3 (and even Start Trek: The Next Generation) then you can see the progression that all documentaries went by the 1980s. "Story" used to be more important, but then "eye candy" became far more important.

Connections was so influential that my university (Purdue) introduced a 3 semester series of courses on the history of technology.

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

#110

Post by hypercube33 »

jdub wrote: post #70
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 first saw Connections in the late 2000s... the final scene of the last episode, "inside the British Airways computer" (an entire floor of a large building), had me standing on my couch pointing at the screen. A year or two before I was born, James Burke wandered between mainframes and reel-to-reel tape machines, speaking with extraordinary prescience about data, communications, decision-making systems, and power: "…

A fun background show (for those of us with ADHD?) I like to have on is Computer Chronicles - a weekly show that basically documented the weekly history, for the most part, of the evolution of personal computing. It basically starts out as "these things are cool and can run spreadsheets" to evolution into music, the internet, and beyond. Lots of crazy things happen in the 1980s that we're now realizing today like touch, voice, and ai that people kept saying we'd be 2-4 years away from...I guess that is marketing speak for 20-40 years, but it's still seems very relivant to today.
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