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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)

#161

Post by anonymousiam »

dotancohen wrote: post #47
anonymousiam wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Decades ago, I worked a mission that went up on a Titan IV, and I spent a few weeks at Pad 41 working in the IUS clean room. Riding up and down the tower in the rickety (self operated) elevator was frightening. Walking the gantry and looking out at CCAS, you could see for miles in all directions. Standing under the thrust cones was an amazing experience. Unfortunately, no photos were allowed because it was a classifi…

Do you mean a Saturn IV-B? Those were the third stages of the Saturn V. If so, the complete Saturn V was displayed horizontally outdoors for quite a while. I was in the US in 2018 and stopped by KSC too see a Falcon 9 launch, by then the complete Saturn V was in a building. If you mean just the Saturn IV (no B), that was the second stage of some early Saturn rocket. I don't know much about those or if one was ever on…

Sorry about my typo. I meant Saturn V. If you watch the video in the parent article, you'll see James Burke walking around it with the VAB in the background.

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

#162

Post by OhMeadhbh »

inopinatus wrote: post #97
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…

The press location is surely double-digit seconds sonically from the launch site. So the simultaneous launch rumble is also an edit.

It's high single digits of seconds away. But I think your point still stands. Burke turns his head to look at the rocket, so you can't see his lips aren't moving. His voice-ove that includes "planets or peking" is surely an edit and yes, you can hear the rumble of a rocket (maybe not even the same rocket.)

However, I don't think people were praising this shot for it's audio editing. I wouldn't be surprised if Burke re-recorded it and they dubbed it over the video. I think they're saying this is an amazing shot because the timing seems to be pretty good... He points at the rocket and about a quarter or half of a second later it ignites. This comes at the end of a 10-ish second sequence. Pretty good timing. Unlike other shots in popular media up to this time it would have been difficult to try to do a second time (though I guess they could have tried again at the Voyager 1 launch a couple weeks later.)

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

#163

Post by MarkusQ »

OhMeadhbh wrote: post #160
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…

I'm not seeing it. Starting at "if you mix those gasses..." to after "...you get that." seems to be a single shot. Just a reminder, we didn't have AI editing tools at the time. Traditional editing tools of the time would probably be obvious. Maybe you're responding to the focus change where the camera operator adjusts the focal plane from Burke to the rocket in the distance. That focus change makes me certain the sho…

It's really, really obvious. Watch the bit from 43 to 45 seconds in to the video on the article.

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

#165

Post by OhMeadhbh »

WalterBright wrote: post #147
dredmorbius wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount of sound creation in documentaries, particularly nature docus featuring long-lens shots of animals in the wild, is a whole 'nother domain of lying-to-tell-the-truth. The Conversation 's treatment (there are many others): "The animal sounds in most nature documentaries are made by humans – here’s how they do it and why it matters" (2024) https://theconversation.com/the-animal-sounds-in-most-nature... >. Bur…

I think Full Metal Jacket is the only war movie that correctly delays the sound of an explosion. The sounds in combat footage of WW2 are all dubbed in, as the cameras did not record sound.

Odd Angry Shot... One scene in Gallipoli... Apocalypse Now and Big Red One do "funny" things with the sound... I'm not sure those two films trying to be accurate as much as they're toeing some fi formalist line.

If you dig around, you can find more examples, but I think you're right in that the vast majority of films take liberties with physics in the service of visual storytelling.

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

#166

Post by Zecc »

WalterBright wrote: post #149
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But he blew his line! He intended to say "That's one small step for a man", but he left out the "a".

I was never impressed by that line anyway. I would have said something trollish, which is why I never would have been selected as an astronut.

> astronut

I honestly can't say for sure whether that was intentional or an actual typo. Good job.

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

#167

Post by lopsotronic »

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…

I think the level of irritation is proportional to knowledge of the technical art of cinema, since what makes a good "shot" is often a discussion of minutiae. There are innumerable examples of better shots in television, particularly in the "second golden age" begun with series like "The Sopranos" and climaxing in television like "Better Call Saul" or "Chernobyl"[1]

[1] Which would certainly have some scenes competing for actual best shot. Calling it TV feels a bit misleading.

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

#168

Post by OhMeadhbh »

nullhole wrote: post #111
inopinatus wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The press location is surely double-digit seconds sonically from the launch site. So the simultaneous launch rumble is also an edit.

There's also clearly a voiceover, they must lose points for that too. /s

No. They don't lose points for using a film production technique that was in popular use at the time (and is still in use.) The reason people say this is a well timed shot has nothing to do with the voice-over at the end of the shot.

They say it's a great shot because Burke hits his mark at the beginning of the shot, then he progresses through the shot, hits his final mark and points within half a second of ignition. All while delivering dialog. (Props to the camera operator who tracked Burke and pulled focus at the appropriate time.)

And then I think there's the thematic element of the subject matter. What you don't get by watching the final shot in that episode was the emotional impact of the Voyager launches. The space program was, at the time, continuing on from the high of the moon landings. The Pioneer probes had returned black and white images from Jupiter and Saturn but the Voyagers were going to return more colour images. They were a RETURN to space, demonstrating that the pioneer mission wasn't a fluke and that, as a people, we were capable of doing great things.

And now, as a people, we bitch in online forums about voice-overs.

One does not, as you suggest, need to deduct any points for editing the sound of an impressive bit of writing, timing, presenting and camera work.

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

#169

Post by Polizeiposaune »

Gravityloss wrote: post #123
Polizeiposaune wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I wrote "thermos" in quotes because that's how Burke referred to the propellant tanks.

That said, on the Titan IIIE at launch, there was an second outer surface around the Centaur -- the payload fairing -- which was discarded only after atmospheric pressure was low enough that it was no longer needed to protect the payload and the Centaur upper stage. (It wasn't a true thermos as the space in between wasn't sealed and was at ambient pressure at launch).

See the cutaway views on pages 16 and 17 (pdf pages 19-20) of https://www1.grc.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/TC-6-Voyager-Fl...

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