MoonEyes Plays
2 HN recommenders · recommended in 5 months, 2020–2023
1:12 · 22M views · Jun 6, 2018
A one-minute clip from James Burke's 1978 BBC series Connections in which he walks past a Saturn V rocket and a timed take-off happens behind him in a single shot, with no green screen.
Held up as an iconic, perfectly timed piece of television whenever Burke or Connections comes up.
5 comments from Hacker News
In a broader context of similar ideas, this is seminal: [LINK] , leading to the totally iconic piece of one shot perfectly timed tv: this video
Ever see the video of a guy walking past a Saturn V (lying in it's side), doing a piece to camera and pointing to the rocket behind him? 'Connections' (1978). this video
Connections was savvy in finding faires, working museaums, and access to the BBC's film vaults for providing much (though not all) such footage. Burke describes going to reenactment festivals to film many of the medieval life scenes. And his journalist background and connections enabled him to have the access necessary to shoot single-take sequences such as this: this video (Hardly the only impressive on-location scene in his work.) Agreed with your comments on the primary importance of writing and research. I'd argue that Chris & Evan Hadfield's "Rare Earth" is getting close, Tom Scott is doing quite well, and Derrek Muller's "Veritasium" and Destin Sandlin's "Smarter Every Day" have promise. Several YouTubers have been picked up by traditional broadcasters/production organisations, notably Hank Green ("Crash Course"), with PBS, and Emily Graslie ("Prehistoric Road Trip"), with the Chicago Field Museum. YouTube as a training and recruiting ground has merits. One reason Connections is so hard to compare to is that it's pretty incomparable: forty years on we're still discussing it in glowing terms. It was produced by someone well-established and experienced at least within the BBC, and backed by the organisation. Notably, little from either national/public broadcasting or commercial production has even approached it. My short list includes Sagan's Cosmos , Burke's own The Day the Universe Changed , Ken Burns. Daniel Yergin's The Prize . And of course Kenneth Clarke's Civilisation
The original series were just so good. I've re-watched them a couple of times over the last ten years after remembering how good they were when I watched them as a kid. The idea of connecting multiple advances and developments to show how we arrived at modern tech is so inspiring and surprising that so much was both random and inevitable. However, as much as James Burke was so good as a host in the original (his dry wit makes me laugh throughout), I think they should go with someone a bit younger and my vote would be Hannah Fry (she hosted The Secret Genius Of Modern Life which was similar, though more more limited in scope). Seeing one of the pictures in the article, it looks like James Burke will attempt to redo the "rocket shot" which has been acclaimed as the greatest shot in television. this video
I was watching James Burke's coverage of the Apollo missions from the 60s and 70s, and came across this very enjoyable clip of him in a reduced gravity aircraft. James Burke was a reporter for the BBC who also hosted a science history TV series called "Connections". His "Greatest Shot In Television" [1] clip was recently on the top page of HN, which rekindled my interest in his work. [1] this video