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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)

#121

Post by absynth »

tclancy wrote: post #82
absynth wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You watched all that content. Did you take action on it? What did you make or do as a result?

Is that to be the end result of the pursuit of knowledge, creating something? There is the true dumbing down, insisting on a vague kind of productivity as the point of life.

Why would doing something or taking action be dumbing down?

You are bristling with something like anger but it has nothing to do with what I wrote.

I'm off to go hiking. There are thousands of stars out there.

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

#123

Post by Gravityloss »

Polizeiposaune wrote: post #21
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…

It would appear that this was the Titan IIIE which launched Voyager 2. They would have had another chance to get the shot about two weeks later when Voyager 1 launched. (Due to quirks of interplanetary orbital mechanics, Voyager 1 got to Jupiter several months before Voyager 2 despite launching second). The IIIE did indeed have a Centaur stage with a "thermos" full of liquid hydrogen and another with liquid oxygen, b…

Actually... Rockets don't use thermos bottle tanks. Having two surfaces with a vacuum in between, like in a thermos bottle, would be way too heavy. That's why you see these chunks of ice falling at liftoff from cryogenic rockets.

Centaur has balloon tanks which is just very thin metal. It can't even stand on its own without pressure. But no thermos.

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

#124

Post by Forgeties79 »

Scroll_Swe wrote: post #68
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.

NOT just you. I feel it has gotten worse the past 10 years. I feel it myself, I am dumbed down too. Having trouble even formulating this as I never type formally anymore. Our state TV SVT buys in documentaries from BBC, Showtime, PBS and some of their own production. Some of their own are still good. The BBC ones are absolute garbage dumbed down now. The world the aristocrats warned about in the 60s and 70s are here…

What are 2 or 3 feature length documentaries you watched produced in the last 5 years? I’m curious what you’re watching and what made them so bad. I saw several excellent ones over the last few years. They’re out there and they’re not obscure IMO.

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

#125

Post by mschuster91 »

I would not be surprised if Tom Scott stated one day that this video was an inspiration for his legendary old video format: just him walking through some random place and explaining things, seemingly completely without script.

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

#127

Post by empath75 »

globular-toast wrote: post #112
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…

This is such a weird complaint. "The shot" is the one where he's standing in front of the blast off. Of course the shot before it is a different shot. Who cares?

He could have sat there repeating the same sentence over and over for several minutes.

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

#128

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#129

Post by angry_octet »

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.

It's very explanatory of his fear of flying.
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