[HN Gopher] The Best Timed Shot in TV History (Probably)
___________________________________________________________________
The Best Timed Shot in TV History (Probably)
Author : rmason
Score : 222 points
Date : 2023-11-13 06:23 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (greekreporter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (greekreporter.com)
| thinkingkong wrote:
| If you haven't watched this entire series you absolutely have to.
| It totally changed the way I think about things and I can't think
| of a single person I've recommended it to that wasn't totally
| blown away by it. Even now it's super interesting and
| entertaining, even at around 40 years old.
| ulf-77723 wrote:
| Where is it available?
| aastronaut wrote:
| https://archive.org/details/bbc-connections-1978
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| Not on BBC's iPlayer, despite it being a BBC production.
| There's so much good old stuff that the BBC can't be bothered
| to put up on iPlayer - they'd rather fawn over royalty or
| pretend to be impartial by giving equal time to experts and
| the sanity-challenged.
| OJFord wrote:
| More stupid is that it may or may not be on their (joint
| with ITV) paid 'BritBox' service. I'd probably have signed
| up in an instant (despite the stupid name) if it had the
| whole archive. (But it doesn't, so (a) it's possible it
| doesn't have _Connections_ ; (b) I haven't signed up and
| don't know if it does or not.)
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| https://archive.org/details/ConnectionsByJamesBurke
|
| Also available on YouTube and torrents.
| OJFord wrote:
| I mean the whole BBC (nevermind ITV) archive, not
| _Connections_ specifically which I 've never heard of
| before now.
|
| If they just put up everything they already made they
| could charge more than Netflix IMO. Instead, god knows
| why, it's a limited selection that too from which some
| missing episodes due to the usual 'woke' rewriting of
| history & present (racist or whatever-ist people _exist_
| right, so what 's the problem with a show having such a
| character? Doesn't mean it's _right_ , nor that the show
| itself is that-ist).
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| > not Connections specifically which I've never heard of
| before now
|
| You're in for a treat, especially if you can enjoy the
| 70s stylings of James Burke. I particularly enjoy his dry
| wit which would probably be toned down quite a bit for
| modern serious productions.
|
| > the usual 'woke' rewriting of history & present
|
| It's not so much rewriting (unless you're a publisher
| looking for free publicity), but attempting to not
| broadcast very offensive material that was considered
| normal back in the day (much as slavery used to be
| considered normal). Personally, I was quite a fan of
| "Till Death Us Do Part" featuring Alf Garnett as a racist
| bigot, but then I can appreciate irony and that the
| programmes were making the point that he was a character
| to be lampooned and pitied. However, there's too many
| people that would accept it at face value and use it to
| justify their vile racism, so I can understand that it's
| not suitable for modern consumption.
| ska wrote:
| BBC iPlayer access is different in UK than elsewhere,
| right?
|
| I suspect for much of the older stuff it's licensing issues
| making it not worth the time to verify, in their view. Just
| because it's BBC production doesn't mean there isn't 3rd
| party stuff that has to be checked.
|
| That and content, they probably don't want to air
| everything they did in the 60s/70s for example, for fear of
| being buried in complaints...
| TylerE wrote:
| I think a lot of times they licensed the soundtrack for
| the initial broadcast(s) only. Home media wasn't a thing
| in the 60s for video.
| ska wrote:
| Good point. Very unlikely it was licensed outside the UK
| even after home video started.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| I think they showed it on PBS
| ska wrote:
| As I understand it though, the typical way this would
| happen is through a new and/or separate licensing
| agreement (in this case for PBS, and for a different
| region, etc.)
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| The older programmes were typically exclusively BBC
| produced content - I can't think of any part of
| Connections that would be problematic for them. Surely
| with a new series of Connections having been made, they
| should have a look at making it available. It was a
| similar thing with their Oppenheimer series - fully
| available on YouTube and not on iPlayer.
| ska wrote:
| Are you sure they didn't license e.g. theme songs, or
| backing music? That's often the source of problems with
| older content.
|
| It's all fixable, but may not be considered worth the
| effort. Sometimes not worth the effort to _audit_ even.
| glaucon wrote:
| According to IMDB [1] 'Connections' was produced 'in
| association with' Time Life Films so probably some sort
| of clearance would be required from them ?
|
| FWIW Time Life were involved in a number of distribution
| arrangements with the BBC, there's some details here [2].
|
| [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078588/companycredits/
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Life_Television#Te
| levisio...
| esafak wrote:
| https://www.kanopy.com/en/video/1217815
| audunw wrote:
| I'm dreaming that someone will remake Connections some day. The
| quality of the recordings are quite bad, and while I think
| retelling the stories with a new production would be great in
| itself, I'm sure there's many new stories that could be told
| with additional research.
|
| I think Robert Murray-Smith would be a great host. He has some
| of the same energy as Burke and he has some history-related
| videos on YouTube that has some of the same style of
| storytelling.
|
| Kathy Joseph would be great for the research side. Her book
| "The Lightning Tamers" is pretty good at describing some of
| these weird connections and interesting stories throughout the
| history of electricity.
| fho wrote:
| > Robert Murray-Smith
|
| After watching his videos every day for months now I am still
| not sure where on the "technical genius" to "free energy
| advocate" spectrum I should place him.
|
| I mean most of his builds are technically correct (e.g. most
| of his generators produce a voltage), but he often glosses
| over details that in practice make the idea unfeasible (e.g.
| a voltage does not help you if the generator can not provide
| enough current).
|
| Other times he is just wrong ... just because whales and
| "tree-spinning-things" have similar "wings" does not mean
| that you can blow up the same shape to a wind turbine size.
| (The reason behind that is that the smaller you get the more
| viscous air becomes (relatively) ... flies and other small
| insects literally swim through the air because of that. Imo
| that could be an explanation why the tree-spinny-things have
| a similar shape, they are just small enough that they "swim",
| too.)
| Infernal wrote:
| Can you help me understand why air is (relatively) more
| viscous the smaller you are? Does it have something to do
| with the volume (mass) of an object growing faster than the
| surface area available to support it in the air? Or is it
| something else?
| FiatLuxDave wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynolds_number
|
| Read down until 'similarity of flows'
| somat wrote:
| Here is an interesting paper on the topic.
|
| https://cooperlab.wustl.edu/PracticalAdvice/Purcell%20197
| 7.p...
| jstanley wrote:
| I have similar thoughts on Robery Murray-Smith, however I
| remain subscribed because "Rule Thinkers In, Not Out"[1]:
| he says enough things that are new to me that I find him
| worthwhile to listen to, even if I have to subsequently
| think hard about it and verify it before I trust it.
|
| [1] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/u8GMcpEN9Z6aQiCvp/rule-
| think...
| fho wrote:
| He is definitely entertaining enough that I still consume
| his (thankfully short) videos.
|
| In think some of his videos are directly inspired by
| pages like https://507movements.com/mm_100.html ... So
| you might like that too :-)
| ryanfox wrote:
| You're in luck, there's new Connections as of 5 days ago!
|
| https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/11/fans-of-
| connections-...
| broscillator wrote:
| that's kind of exciting except for the amount of CGI in the
| trailer
| troyvit wrote:
| Burke even mentions that in the Ars interview:
|
| > Television is entirely different. I remember walking
| around the world with a film crew, sometimes 15 people,
| and pointing at a bush and saying, "What am I doing
| here?" That's very time-consuming and expensive, and we
| no longer need that kind of thing. This time, there's no
| money. [...] Nobody went anywhere, so we didn't get up
| and catch planes all the time. And nothing got in the way
| of the story except me. All I did was stand and talk.
| Because of the structure, the nature of the production
| style, the story can move more densely and more quickly
| than ever before.
|
| I don't know if I agree with him that it's a good thing.
| One of the things I loved about the original Connections
| was the experiential aspect of it. James Burke in front
| of a green screen is just James Burke in front of a green
| screen.
| Tangurena2 wrote:
| I used to have the VHS tapes of Connections 2 and
| Connections 3. They got more gaudy as the series
| progressed. They were less about the progression of
| technology and more about being shiny and spectacular.
| tivert wrote:
| > I'm dreaming that someone will remake Connections some day.
| The quality of the recordings are quite bad, and while I
| think retelling the stories with a new production would be
| great in itself
|
| I think that "quality of the recordings" thing is just
| something you have to learn to get over. They're not actually
| bad.
| butterfi wrote:
| If you look on YouTube, you can find up-res versions of
| Mitchell and Webb that look amazing compare to other
| sources. Maybe the same technique can be used on
| Connections
| fho wrote:
| I recently looked at an old technical encyclopedia at my grand
| mother's place. I paged through that 30 years ago when I was a
| little kid ... and was a bit surprised to see that a lot of it
| is still relevant today.
| royjacobs wrote:
| James Burke has a new Connections series up on Curiosity Stream,
| I'm looking forward to seeing it.
| upon_drumhead wrote:
| I loved it! It's easily worth subscribing for a month to watch.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Oh wow that's wonderful!
| mikpanko wrote:
| Reading the article I wanted to understand why it is possibly the
| best timed shot in TV history but it didn't seem to provide the
| answer? What am I missing? Can somebody explain?
| taylorfinley wrote:
| For the shot to work he had to point towards the rocket exactly
| as it ignited, meaning he had to deliver the whole line at just
| the right pacing to punctuate it with the rocket igniting.
| Today he'd just be standing on a green screen and they would
| add the rocket in post, but this is "doin' it live"
| ReactiveJelly wrote:
| To be fair, you could practice it as many times as you want
| ahead of time.
|
| It's probably a common skill in presenting, on radio / DJing
| they call it "hitting the post" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
| /Glossary_of_broadcasting_terms...
| kstrauser wrote:
| That's a fantastic shot, to be sure. But for my money, Tiger
| Woods at the 2005 Masters did the most theatrical thing on live
| TV ever, and the cameraman couldn't possibly have captured the
| movie-climax moment better if it'd been filmed on a set:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJEysanOT7w
| egoburnswell wrote:
| This is just golf.
| reactordev wrote:
| You obviously never played the game. The shot mentioned was
| pretty much impossible, yet Tiger pulled it off. Dead lay
| chip with perfect backspin to stop the ball and allow gravity
| to pull it down the slope into the hole. Not only was the
| placement precision, the backspin precision, but the fact
| that there was just enough momentum to get the ball to drop
| into the cup.
|
| Science is cool, rockets too, but the finesse of this shot
| hasn't been seen since.
| idontwantthis wrote:
| I still don't get the comparison to the article. He could
| have waited 5 more seconds and still hit the shot.
| reactordev wrote:
| Yeah, having a set timeline like the article's shot where
| you have to kinda deliver 10 seconds in 10 seconds so
| that it ends with the rocket ignition was a clever use of
| timing that hasn't been used since in that magnitude. I
| guess the OP was referring to "The best shot in TV
| history" rather than _timed_ shot.
|
| For timing, The article's example is pinnacle. For just
| best shot, Tiger Wood's 2005 shot. Best photograph shot:
| Earthrise from Apollo 8.
| potamic wrote:
| I think they were talking about the camera work and
| editing more than the shot itself. It's a fantastic piece
| of work if you look at it closely. Starting with a close
| up shot of the ball, slowly zooming out to show you the
| predicament while seamlessly transitioning to a pan of an
| anxious Tiger surveying the ground. Cut to sweeping shots
| of the beautiful scenery around and timing the pan
| perfectly to stop at Tiger as he readies to play the shot
| while bringing the flag post in view at the other end
| preparing the viewer to bring their full attention to the
| shot.
|
| There's a lot more that goes into that piece end to end.
| The more you watch it, the more you tend to appreciate
| and marvel at the fact that it was all done live. It was
| probably just another round of play and day in the office
| for the production team, but when you shoot sports at the
| highest level, you better be prepared when you get that
| once in a career shot.
| reactordev wrote:
| they probably only realized they were in their career
| shot when the ball started rolling down the slope towards
| the hole. You can kind of tell because the camera
| operator zooms in but is a little shaky until the ball
| slowly almosts rests before dropping in the cup. Producer
| A immediately cuts to Tiger yelling cheers of joy and
| several more cuts showing reactions and congratulations.
| I bet they were all just sitting there like "What just
| happened?".
| georgesimon wrote:
| The 16th hole traditionally uses that pin position on
| Sunday to intentionally create such drama. The golf shot
| was not near impossible at all. It was the occasion that
| made the shot seem magical. Even beginners can pull off
| these kind of shots, and that's what makes people fall in
| love with playing the game.
| karaterobot wrote:
| You nailed the sport in one guess. Awesome.
| Fnoord wrote:
| I mean there are so many epic sports moments. Thinking about
| football (you may know it as soccer) and not just goals
| Gerard's goal vs Germany, Maradona's hand of god, or Zidane's
| headshot versus Materazzi.
|
| So you'd have to be an expert on all of these epic moments,
| being able to draw them in proportion, and then have the expert
| pick the best. With panels, seasons of different topics, and a
| grand finale it would make a great TV show. You could sell the
| format, and become a millionaire..
|
| ..or accept the author's humility (with word 'probably'),
| assume the author is no expert on the field (neither am I
| regarding football), and go on with your life.
| listenallyall wrote:
| He's not arguing that Tiger's chip was the greatest moment in
| sports (although it is certainly up there), he is arguing
| that it's the best "television shot", superior to the one
| discussed in TFA.
|
| And it's a strong argument. The BBC rocket shot was about
| timing, and it was pretty damn good, but everything was 100%
| scripted and precisely timed, and could have been practiced
| and rehearsed dozens of times. The Tiger Woods shot was live,
| obviously, and relies on a confluence of good fortune -- of
| 360 degrees, the cameraman was exactly behind the ball, he
| did a masterful job of following its movement while
| continuously tightening up the shot (an ultra-close-up of the
| ball is uncommon), the producer sticking with that shot an
| extra two seconds rather than switching to a reaction, the
| ball displaying the Nike logo, and finally, the extraordinary
| physics of the the ball stopping before finally dropping into
| the cup. And of course the person, place and time -- 16th
| hole on Sunday at the most famous golf course at the most
| famous tournament by the most famous golfer to take the lead
| and ultimately win the Masters. And finally, Verne Lundquist
| making one of the greatest and most memorable calls of all
| time, just naturally off the cuff, amazing. In your life!
| syndacks wrote:
| A ball went in a hole, and a camera was recording it.
| JimDabell wrote:
| > he is arguing that it's the best "television shot",
| superior to the one discussed in TFA.
|
| TFA doesn't say "best television shot" though, it says
| "best _timed_ television shot".
|
| > The BBC rocket shot was about timing, and it was pretty
| damn good, but everything was 100% scripted and precisely
| timed
|
| Well, yes. That's why everybody is talking about it as the
| best _timed_ television shot and why people are puzzled at
| this golf shot being brought up where timing is not
| particularly relevant.
| kstrauser wrote:
| It was late at night and I was about to go to sleep. I
| saw this article with a very cool video. That made me
| think, hey, maybe people who are into neat videos will
| also like this other one I know about, and because I'm
| sleepy, that ball hanging on the edge of the cup is kind
| of perfect timing, too.
|
| That's all. I was sleepy and wanted to share another cool
| video.
| OJFord wrote:
| > And finally, Verne Lundquist making one of the greatest
| and most memorable calls of all time, just naturally off
| the cuff, amazing.
|
| I had to go back and watch it again (not memorable enough
| to me after just the length of time to read your reply,
| apparently!) - are you talking about 'Oh my goodness. Oh
| wow! In your life did you seen [sic] anything like that?!'?
| I don't follow golf, or know the name (Lundquist I mean,
| obviously Woods) but what's.. what am I missing, why's that
| 'amazing' 'just naturally off the cuff'?
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| I remember seeing this live while visiting my grandma, she
| happened to have this on her 8" CRT. She missed it until I got
| her attention: "GRANDMA! What!?"
| benjijay wrote:
| I'm finding it hard to accept that this was 18 years ago, I
| remember watching it at it happened and I'm pretty sure I
| wasn't that young...
| kstrauser wrote:
| I think you misread the date. That was 4 years ago, right?
| Right?!
| js2 wrote:
| That's great, but no, it's the final minute of the Miracle on
| Ice that's the most theatrical (sports) thing on live TV[^1]
| ever:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYscemhnf88&t=71s
|
| [^1]: technically broadcast on tape delay, but for Al Michaels,
| it was live[^2].
|
| [^2]: https://nypost.com/2020/01/08/the-story-behind-al-
| michaels-i...
| romseb wrote:
| There is a cut a few seconds before the launch, so they didn't
| have to time 1 minute exactly, "just" ~20 seconds.
| charcircuit wrote:
| and the exact time of launch is known beforehand, so it's not
| like he was guessing and happening to get lucky with it lining
| up.
| makapuf wrote:
| Sure but you're still a stutter or a sneeze away from ruining
| it.
| charcircuit wrote:
| He was early and had to pause before saying the last word.
| If he stuttered he would still be close enough.
|
| Yes, it's possible to mess up the shot, but the odds were
| in their favor.
| slyall wrote:
| Looks like a completely different take. If you look at his
| microphone it is worn higher in the first "walking" shot than
| in the takeoff shot.
|
| Also the walk is filmed South of the Vehicle Assembly Building
| looking North. Whereas the Voyager 2 took off from LC-41 which
| is East of the VAB
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Learning it wasn't composited surprised me. I always assumed it
| was green-screened (or blue-screened or whatever they used for
| chroma-keying back then) - that's because until ignition, the
| camera focus makes it seem like he's standing in front of a
| sheet with a painting on it, and overall, it feels as a very
| well-made composite.
| ReactiveJelly wrote:
| I'm guessing they set the camera very far back, which will
| appear to compress depth. Otherwise, since he must be
| standing so far from the rocket, the rocket would be too
| small to see.
|
| (It's not the lens - That's a pet peeve of mine, it's not the
| lens. The z-divide in any graphics simulation is what appears
| to compress or expand depth. The lens merely makes a shorter
| or farther camera distance practical. The lens themselves
| don't distort anything until you're talking about fisheye
| effects.)
| roelschroeven wrote:
| > (It's not the lens - That's a pet peeve of mine, it's not
| the lens. The z-divide in any graphics simulation is what
| appears to compress or expand depth. The lens merely makes
| a shorter or farther camera distance practical. The lens
| themselves don't distort anything until you're talking
| about fisheye effects.)
|
| Yes, thank you. It's quite unbelievable how many people get
| this wrong, even on specialized photography forums and the
| like.
| moduspol wrote:
| It's also a _rocket launch_ , which is commonly accompanied by
| a _countdown_.
|
| It was also pretty common to have that countdown broadcast over
| the radio, as many people would show up just to watch the
| rocket launch. Even without a radio broadcast, it'd be as
| simple as a walkie talkie inside the control room and another
| with the filming team.
|
| This shows up on the internet every few months, and I'm still
| astounded by how much attention it gets. It is not nearly as
| remarkable as portrayed.
| chha wrote:
| Impressive for sure, but I have to admit that the first thing I
| thought it would be was the launch of the Apollo 17 lunar module:
| https://youtu.be/9HQfauGJaTs?si=2smTf9G3tomXPpot
|
| Filmed using the rover camera remote controlled from Houston,
| with a latency of about a second from a command was sent until
| the camera responded
| oxygen_crisis wrote:
| I've referred to that clip in past conversations about future
| moon missions revisiting relics like the Apollo 11's flag and
| the first footprints.
|
| People tend to forget every manned moon landing site is also a
| launch site. Sure, there's no atmosphere to disturb the dust
| since we left, but the liftoff exhaust didn't care much about
| that.
|
| A launch that knocked over the flag over eight meters away[1]
| almost certainly also left a smoothly blown-out depression
| where most of the first footprints were, no matter how inert
| the site has been since then.
|
| And beside that, between the two of them there was enough
| traffic in and out of the module that the first footprints were
| probably stepped on over and over again.
|
| [1] https://history.nasa.gov/alsj/ApolloFlags-Condition.html
| M95D wrote:
| The LEM separates at launch from the moon. The descent module
| remains behind. When the ascent engine fires, it blows the
| gas on top of the descent module below it. The descent
| module, having a mostly flat top, would direct gas sideways,
| blowing away the tall flag, but not the footprints.
| ninkendo wrote:
| That's actually an interesting thought... on earth, such a
| redirection of the exhaust gas wouldn't mean much, since
| the resulting turbulence would cause the surrounding air to
| get caught up in the wake of the exhaust anyway (making
| everything around it disturbed), but with no atmosphere?
| The result would look a lot different. I still think the
| footprints would be affected because the exhaust deflection
| is not perfect or complete, but it's interesting to think
| about the idea of exhaust traveling thousands of miles per
| hour just a few feet above the lunar surface while the
| surface itself remains undisturbed.
| beer2beerPrtcl wrote:
| I don't get why exactly this is so impressive. If the exact time
| of launch is known, isn't it trivial to begin a short, well-
| rehearsed speech at a specified time so that the delivery syncs
| with the launch?
| defrost wrote:
| Do you have a better (or equivalent) example of an independent
| film crew and talking head hitting the nail on a visually
| impressive third party event outside their control?
|
| (Without post production fix up magic, of course)
|
| This _is_ an impressive example of exactly that .. but is it
| the _most impressive_ example, indeed.
|
| Off hand I don't know of other great examples.
| kdwikzncba wrote:
| It's not impressive, it was just on Reddit recently, so finally
| made its way into hn.
| icehawk wrote:
| I don't get why it _wouldn 't_ be impressive.
|
| You say its trivial, but is it?
|
| How many times have you tried it?
| defanor wrote:
| I tried saying those words in a fixed time (12 seconds) while
| looking at a clock now, it still does not seem hard. Appears
| to be easier once you attach parts of the phrase to time
| offsets, and probably easier yet with a teleprompter.
| hnbad wrote:
| It's impressive because it worked. Nobody would know if it
| hadn't because the shot wouldn't have been used then. Yeah,
| that makes it kind a trivial but it's still a good shot because
| it worked.
|
| What makes this one the "best" is that this shot needed to be
| done right or it couldn't have been done again for years to
| come (at least if the launch itself was meant to be somewhat
| meaningful). A myriad of things could have gone wrong but
| didn't. Of course it's also easy to see they had some
| tolerances to work with (turning away from the camera to say
| "that" while standing motionless to make sped up or dropped
| frames less obvious if they had been necessary).
|
| It's a lot like videos of trick (ball) shots: if you saw them
| together with all the ones that didn't work, the ones that did
| wouldn't really stand out much. But when the stars align and
| everything just "flows" like it should, that gives many people
| a fuzzy feeling and that's what this TV shot does. It's like a
| choreographed dance routine.
| kej wrote:
| >this shot needed to be done right or it couldn't have been
| done again for years to come
|
| There were 32 U.S. launches that year. They could have tried
| again in a matter of weeks. For all we know this was the
| third or fourth attempt.
| aftoprokrustes wrote:
| Note that the article does not say that it was hard, just that
| it was perfectly timed. The fact that the time of the launch is
| known to the second is exactly why they were able to pull this
| off, but they still had to have the idea, and execute it right.
|
| Plus, realize that we looked at it with the headline "most
| amazingly timed shot in TV history", which made us look for
| something extraordinary. It must have been a totally different
| experience to see this on TV at the time, half asleep learning
| about rocket fuel, and all of a sudden the guy points in the
| direction of the launchpad and a rocket lifts off.
| bandrami wrote:
| > isn't it trivial
|
| It is not. Filming things is actually pretty difficult.
| baxtr wrote:
| I agree. I mean today anyone could just do this in LESS than
| 10s with AI!
|
| /s
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| Like one of Dilbert's laws: if you don't know how to do it, it
| must be easy
| slyall wrote:
| One thing this shot is sync the sound and visuals. In reality
| because of the slower speed of sound (around 340m/s) the noise of
| the rocket wouldn't be heard until the rocket was significantly
| above the tower. You also hear various other pieces in the sound
| that indicate it wasn't recorded on site.
|
| This is one of the things I really notice in movies. Whenever
| something explodes in a fight sequence (eg Marvel movies[1]) the
| sound matches the explosion exactly. I find it annoying although
| I suspect the average movie-goer would be put off if the sound
| was realistically delayed.
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/4vHxHgYaOes?si=BnzjncUQLHz_6DZy&t=58
| xref wrote:
| that specific clip would probably work even better if the blast
| sound was somewhat delayed like the pressure wave...
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Yeah, I actually misremembered that scene as being the
| _opposite_ of what GP described, as the pressure wave was the
| thing that made the biggest impression on me back those years
| ago - it 's the _other_ thing that 's very rarely modeled
| when things in movie explode.
| scns wrote:
| > if the blast sound was somewhat delayed like the pressure
| wave
|
| Aren't they the same thing?
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Not sure about rocket launches but in energetic explosions
| the shock wave moves faster than sound for a certain
| distance, until the shock slows down and the sound catches
| up.
| pixelesque wrote:
| Depends.... for (large) explosions, there's initial blast
| pressure waves which travel faster than the speed of sound.
| NikkiA wrote:
| They don't per se, the precursor wave travels through the
| ground at the speed of sound in whatever medium (usually
| rock in nevada tests), which is about 5x the speed of
| sound in air.
| nvartolomei wrote:
| Except Oppenheimer movie, who got it right.
|
| Seek to 4m46s
| https://youtu.be/kqYenzBwlkU?si=y87R0XvuWL8_7t6Q&t=286
|
| If my memory is right, the actual scene, and delay, is longer
| than it is in this clip.
| velcrovan wrote:
| Reminds me that explosions in space in Interstellar were
| silent (as they should be).
|
| I hope this kind of thing catches on. If a movie shows a
| distant explosion and its sound is heard at the moment of the
| explosion, you don't really think about it. But when they
| treat the sound accurately, it really grabs your attention.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| I loved the detail in Interstellar where the audio from
| EVAs is muffled, like you're hearing what the occupant of
| the suit would be. The Expanse also does this to some
| degree.
| CrimsonCape wrote:
| Pretty sure that awful Sandra Bullock movie Gravity was
| quiet as well. Except that they made the awful choice to
| have Sandra Bullock screaming, moaning, and making all
| sorts of groans which came across as stupid and
| melodramatic. If she had been calmly radioing "Houston,
| vehicle breakup. Houston, pressurization loss. Houston,
| emergency EVA" it would have been better.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| So, you'll notice that humans had that sort of flattened
| affect you're looking for in Kubrick's 2001, but he
| placed it in contrast to HAL, which for most of the film
| is the only character who communicates with an emotive
| affect.
|
| You need some emotion, some performance. Kubrick got that
| and managed to achieve this in 2001 by combining the
| emotional austerity of spaceflight with an artificial
| intelligence who, in an inversion of expectation, is the
| emotive one. Then he exploited this for the climax, the
| loss of HAL's personality, being.
|
| Lacking a HAL like element, especially in a film that has
| one actress, you can't make the humans dull, you need
| _some_ emotional experience to attach to. In the context
| of Gravity, that means dramatic calls and the sounds of
| her human presence. People don 't go to the cinema to
| listen to an ATC feed.
| onetimeuse92304 wrote:
| They got the timing thing, but the flames totally
| unrealistic.
|
| Flames are chemical reaction. Surface of the flame is where
| oxygen rich fresh air interfaces with fuel rich, oxygen-
| depleted hot plasma.
|
| The nuclear bomb can cause secondary chemical fires, but the
| fireball itself has does not have "flame" look to it.
| Aardwolf wrote:
| > I find it annoying although I suspect the average movie-goer
| would be put off if the sound was realistically delayed.
|
| At least one might be familiar with the effect when seeing
| videos of controlled demolitions. Or just fireworks.
| recursive wrote:
| Lightning is the most common place I've seen it. Although I
| guess not everywhere has lightning.
| jzb wrote:
| Years ago I got to watch the last night launch of the Space
| Shuttle from a parking lot in a hotel some miles away. It was
| like watching a high-speed sunrise, and the sound followed
| several seconds later after the Shuttle had already gone into
| the clouds. It was really something the way the sound rumbled
| in after we'd already seen the launch.
| emmelaich wrote:
| One of more egregious examples is the alleged declassified Tsar
| Bomba video to which I commented similarly.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24249084
|
| Seems the video has been taken down....
| idontwantthis wrote:
| Well actually... There's no hydrogen burning in that stage. It's
| solid fuel and aerozine (hydrazine).
| jeffrallen wrote:
| > "Destination: the moon. Or Moscow."
|
| This is why we can't have nice things.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| The show was brutally honest, not just about the history, but
| also the present. It's fitting for it to recognize that the
| difference between a space rocket and ICBM is the payload -
| something people don't understand even today, and then get
| surprised about ITAR or why space programs and governments
| getting nervous go hand-in-hand.
| hyperific wrote:
| I knew just from the title that it would be _this_ shot.
| Connections is iconic.
| ta1243 wrote:
| It's a nice shot, but it's a basic skill to read your
| (prewritten) copy to a specific deadline. The last shot was 20
| seconds, he had plenty of time to practice and speed/slow down as
| the clock went on. Sure it would be stressful, but had it failed
| then the program would still have gone out, just with a voice
| over and a different angle.
|
| The credit goes to the production team (including Burke, but
| presumably also his producer and camera) for thinking up the shot
| in the first place. For delivery, there are far more stressful
| and impressive live timings done every day around the world
| sambeau wrote:
| If you search YouTube, you will find other presenters trying to
| mimic it and getting it hilariously wrong.
| afavour wrote:
| Honestly these old shows had such a low budget I wouldn't be at
| all surprised if it was just Burke and the cameraman there. And
| in a way the stakes were low: if there was no executive
| producer shouting "GET THAT SHOT" at them they might have just
| been thinking "why not give it a try, if it doesn't work out,
| oh well, we'll just do a voiceover".
| psvv wrote:
| In radio, talking over the start of a song and ending right
| when the lyrics kick in is called "hitting the post" and
| sometimes it's done without prewritten copy, just winging it.
|
| It's just a skill you can practice and some people get quite
| good at it.
|
| One difference with this is if you miss the lyrics, you can
| just try again next time. There's a new song every few minutes.
|
| There was only ever one launch of Voyager 2.
| ta1243 wrote:
| Sure, but if he missed it you'd have never known he'd have
| missed it.
|
| Get the timing wrong on Eurovision, despite having one every
| year, and 100 million+ people will know it.
| shoxidizer wrote:
| > There was only ever one launch of Voyager 2.
|
| I get that it probably wasn't in the production schedule, but
| strictly speaking they could have come back a couple weeks
| later and done the shot with the voyager 1 launch.
| Crunchified wrote:
| At my college radio station, every applicable record had
| intro time cues written on a label on the record jacket. You
| would know that there was, say, seven seconds you could talk
| over before the song began in earnest. "Hitting the post"
| (not familiar with the term) was not really a problem for the
| deejays. p.s. - I loved being able to inject our call letters
| into the gap on 'Riders On the Storm', timed to the top or
| bottom of the hour.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I always think it's pretty impressive when there is a military
| fighter jet flyover at e.g. a sport event and they hit the
| timing within a few seconds to coincide with the last few bars
| of the national anthem. I don't know if they plan the exact
| flyover time in advance or if they are just circling a few
| miles away and coordinating by radio with someone in the venue.
| bombcar wrote:
| I assure you it's quite precise and there are people working
| to time it down to the portion of a second, and they're all
| on radio.
| aftoprokrustes wrote:
| Another "perfectly timed" TV moment with Rockets, unvoluntary
| this time, would be Ariane 5's first launch. The commentator
| literally says "all propulsion parameters at their normal value"
| (in French) as the thing is blowing up. (1:25 in the video)
|
| https://youtu.be/PK_yguLapgA?si=zS9ak1nFT5tJ_Z9l
| ThinkingGuy wrote:
| Reminds me of how, for a certain of cohort of Americans, the
| phrase "Challenger, go at throttle up" has an ominous
| connotation.
| stormdennis wrote:
| I used to love watching James Burke's Connections on tv as a kid.
| So much so that when years later I saw his book, Connections in a
| second hand bookshop I bought it and it sits in arm's length from
| where I am sitting now, unread. Just checked now and it's
| copyrighted 1978, this edition published 1979.
| ysoft wrote:
| Only because that was take 421!!
| smusamashah wrote:
| This reminded of this (now private) subreddit with videos/gifs of
| coincidently well-timed events
| https://www.reddit.com/r/breathinginformation/
|
| It was mostly full of sports events where some text appears on
| screen at the exact moment of something else. I think most of
| them were comedic.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/1bihza/breathing_inf...
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/3mb05q/xpost...
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/1nq7w2/frank_gore_sh...
| sizzzzlerz wrote:
| That brings back some very fond memories. Connections was a
| seminal TV show that was interesting, funny, and intelligent. As
| a newly minted electrical engineer, I loved learning the obscure
| history of things I used daily. Until Carl Sagan created Cosmos,
| there had been nothing like it nor has anything been like it
| since.
| pynchia wrote:
| You MUST do a post with the WORST timed shot: i.e. on 9/11/2001
| the BBC announcing the fall of the WTC Building 7 while it was
| still standing on her live background
| xtracto wrote:
| I was thinking about the shot by the crew doing Firefighters
| documentary. That shot of the first plane crashing is to me the
| best timed TV shot, even though it's for the wrong reasons.
| urbandw311er wrote:
| My brain autocompletes the domain name of this to "geek
| reporter".
| darkerside wrote:
| I thought he was going to walk into the shot in a single take,
| and I was prepared for my mind to be completely and utterly
| blown.
| uwagar wrote:
| moon or moscow
|
| planets or peking
|
| that was unnecessary. always the need for war.
| Julesman wrote:
| Nah. There's a cut. This has been going around for so long and
| isn't what it says.
| bearjaws wrote:
| This is the most reposted item on Reddit.
|
| All launches are timed, even the shortest notification window is
| 24 hours for a launch, I could go make this same exact video
| every week at Cape Canaveral.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Awesome!
|
| I understand the show (with Burke) is coming back[0].
|
| Can't wait.
|
| [0] https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/11/fans-of-
| connections-...
| waynenilsen wrote:
| The bright exhaust is from the solid rocket boosters not the
| hydrolox engines it's somewhat misleading for the target audience
| account-5 wrote:
| I remember years ago reading about the operating system and
| language used for voyagers 1 and 2, and how they've last so long
| because of them. Really interesting read, really wish I'd
| bookmarked it because I can't find it anymore.
| mrcwinn wrote:
| I beg to differ. The timing of the blinds falling onto George
| after Elaine rips off his toupee is unparalleled:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L37Rckt5WFA
|
| I'm kidding. Mostly.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| Youtube completely ruins that timing by popping a "watch this
| video next" overlay almost completely covering George.
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