Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

openculture.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 209 posts

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

#91

Post by jleyank »

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.

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

#92

Post by da_chicken »

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…

I'm sure they had a second camera running without Burke in the shot so that they could dub over it if they messed up the shot, too.

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

#93

Post by chongli »

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...

The very first episode of Connections walks through might happen in New York City if power went out and never came back on. Pretty much an apocalyptic scenario for people living there!

He didn’t shy away from talking about technology for good or ill, for the ways it liberates us but can also trap us, for the ways it makes new sources of energy possible, and new weapons.

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

#95

Post by pj_mukh »

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.

Cleo Abrams' YT tomes, albeit much shorter and more attuned to modern attention spans, are getting close to that quality level at least.

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

#96

Post by fzeindl »

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…

You see it when looking at the location of the microphone on his shirt.

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

#97

Post by inopinatus »

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.

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

#98

Post by throw0101a »

mandevil wrote: post #15
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 unde…

> I also want to speak up for the BBC history documentary team that worked with Michael Wood

And for Philomena Cunk's various projects…

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

#99

Post by jaapz »

Scroll_Swe wrote: post #67
seer wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

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

Depends on what you follow. For example, look up The Great War.

At least where I live, basically everything that's on discovery, national geographic and the history channel now is just "experts" talking (reading a script) about "hitler's secret sex life" or some such thing, interspersed with a re-enactment shot or one of the "experts" walking around a slightly relevant building.

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

#100

Post by raverbashing »

Scroll_Swe wrote: post #67
seer wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

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

Close to style, naturally styles are different

Lack of depth? Wrong. Just go beyond the usual pop-sci stuff on YT.

You can go as deep as you want. Surely it won't be "as fun" or "tiktok sized" but if you want depth it's there

Post reply on HN