[hjkl0]

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 realize what is going on, all at the exact time the launch begins. Brilliant!

Except that this is not "a shot" at all. I just hadn't noticed on my first watch that there's a very obvious cut just at the end of the "walk". It's a different angle from a different location at a different time of day, and he just has one sentence to say before he looks back at the blast off.

It would be no different from any news reporter on location at the time, reading a prepared message ahead of the launch, timed to end before the launch itself with no need for extensive rehearsals, the launch timing is widely broadcast, you time yourself accordingly with your talking speed, by adding pauses, etc. And on top of everything they probably had to do it live too.

I have no issue with James Burke or his show. And this scene is really beautifully done. But it's not the greatest shot in television. It's not even one shot!

(edited: typos)

[quietbritishjim]

The article mentions this:

> Watch it enough times yourself, and you’ll notice that it also pulls off some minor sleight of hand by having Burke walk from a non-time-sensitive shot into another with the already-framed rocket ready for liftoff. But that hardly lessens the feeling of achievement when the launch comes off.

Personally, I saw it exactly that way when I first saw it - the cut is super obvious because the background is totally different after. If the commentary before had been with the same background then it could well have had the illusion of being continuous.

Regardless: Like the article author, I still think it's great television.

[inopinatus]

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

[OhMeadhbh]

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.)

[xattt]

> … when Itchy plays Scratchy's skeleton like a xylophone, he strikes that same rib twice in succession, yet he produces two clearly different tones. What are we, to believe that this is some sort of a magic xylophone?

[dredmorbius]

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...>.

Burke's time-shifting is a relatively minor sin, though I'd have appreciated if they'd allowed the original sonic lag to be experienced.

[WalterBright]

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.

[OhMeadhbh]

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.

[WalterBright]

Having a delay gives a feeling of depth to the movie.

[nullhole]

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

[OhMeadhbh]

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.

[gosub100]

Reminds me of the 3 minute rube Goldberg machine in "this too shall pass" by Ok Go.

https://youtu.be/qybUFnY7Y8w?si=DBSqRMciDY41QPzD

I thought they really did it all in one cut but there are at least two. Still a great music video and song.

[throw0101c]

A number of their music videos are quite creative:

* in a zero-G plane: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWGJA9i18Co

* one-take (?) on electric unicycles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1ZB_rGFyeU

* 4.2s real-time scene with the footage slowed down to 4 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvW61K2s0tA

* Chevrolet-sponsored video where they use a moving car as an instrument: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MejbOFk7H6c

[_dan]

Honestly that would still be impressive if it were 20 cuts.

[jleyank]

If you want a single, unedited shot, Neil’s ladder descent would be a candidate. If you didn’t think Stanley actually did it.

[Thegn]

He did, but he was such a stickler for accuracy that he insisted they shoot on location.

[OhMeadhbh]

https://youtu.be/P6MOnehCOUw (Mitchell and Webb's take on the fake moon landing.)

[wolfram74]

The CIA didn't read his contract carefully enough. He snuck it into one of the rider clauses.

[angry_octet]

It's very explanatory of his fear of flying.

[AnimalMuppet]

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

[vikingerik]

I've always thought he just kind of slurred over the "a", like you'd do in casual speech, it came out like "f'r'a man". In the recording there's a tiny slight bit of a vowel after the "r" sound. I don't think he blew the line, just didn't speak it clearly.

[WalterBright]

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.

[Zecc]

> astronut

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

[WalterBright]

"Look, Ma, I'm on the Moon!"

[PaulDavisThe1st]

I always liked a joke about this:

Not a lot of people know that after his famous lines as he descended the ladder, Armstrong quietly muttered "and good luck Mr. Lansky". The few people who have heard the audio asked him about over the years, and he was never willing to explain ... until one day. "Well, you see" said Armstrong at a NASA publicity event, "when I was a kid growing up one of my neighbors were Mr & Mrs Lansky. I was playing on the street one day, maybe 8 or 9 years old, it was a hot summer's day and everyone had their windows open. Mr & Mrs Lansky were having some sort of argument inside their house - I couldn't hear much of what they were saying. But then Mrs Lansky must have moved closer to the window, because I heard her very clearly say "Oral sex? You'll get oral sex from me the day that kid next door walks on the moon!"".

[OhMeadhbh]

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 shot wasn't reverse projection as the screen would have to be exceedingly large (too large to keep sufficiently flat.)

I remember seeing film (yes, film!) on the news of the Voyager 2 launch and I remember seeing this episode of Connexions on PBS shortly after.

I'm honestly flummoxed you think there's a cut in the final shot of that sequence. I just don't see it. Maybe it's a generational thing

[MarkusQ]

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

[OhMeadhbh]

The final shot of the sequence runs from about :44 to 1:06. I'm talking about the bit that STARTS at :44, after the cut. I think you're talking about the sequence before the SHOT.

[MarkusQ]

Ah.

I think that's why you aren't seeing what people are talking about then. It's being pitched as "one long shot", folks are seeing the cut at :44 and saying "no it isn't!"

It's also not as hard as it might seem because they could track the countdown and cue him at the appropriate time.

[joshspankit]

What if we instead look at the last clip as “the one shot”

Personally I don’t think that takes anything away

[jp57]

Well, he is standing still, the camera is stationary. For just that last segment, it is easy to answer "how did he do it?" Write out his remarks, rehearse with a timer, then figure out at what point in the countdown to begin speaking.

The main thing is that he has say basically one sentence right in a single take, but he is a seasoned television announcer, so that in itself is not too surprising.

The much longer segment, including walking with a moving camera at exactly the right timing, would have been much harder to get in a single take. (Not to mention that that Saturn V lying on its side is probably not even in the same location.)

[OhMeadhbh]

Yes and no. The Saturn V he walks past was on it's side next to the Vehicle Assembly Building, which is close to launch complex 41 from which the Voyager missions launched.

But I think it's about 120 degrees to the left from where they shot the shot of Burke walking. They absolutely had to set up a different shot to get Burke and the Titan III in the same shot.

As an aside... That Saturn V is no longer at that location. Several years ago they moved it a mile to the north and built a building around it to create the Apollo / Saturn V center. Or at least I think it's the same artefact.

[lopsotronic]

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.

[fzeindl]

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

[globular-toast]

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?

[empath75]

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

[curiousObject]

No, because then the rocket would probably launch in the middle of the sentence. He had to start saying that sentence at the right second and pace the words and his movements perfectly.

[rayiner]

It's not a "weird complaint" at all. The cut goes to the heart of why it's supposedly impressive. Because of the cut, all he had to do was say one sentence before the rocket lifts off (which is happening at a time that's known down to the second).

[Cockbrand]

I never understood it any different, but the effect still superb IMHO.

[globular-toast]

All Paul McCartney had to was write a sequence of words to a melody beginning with the word "Yesterday".

[tantalor]

This is pointless quibbling.

[OhMeadhbh]

It's not at all pointless! (This is a joke, where I'm quibbling pointlessly, but saying it's not. It's stupid, I grant you, but it's offered in good humor.)

[IAmBroom]

Yes, you are on Hacker News. Ergo...

[hyperbovine]

Come now, he still managed to time the final walk scene to within <100ms of perfection. It's probably luck but still, you have to admire to feat.

[snypher]

You do realize he have recorded the walk at any point? The shot of the rocket launching could have been a month later.

[OhMeadhbh]

How are you suggesting they composited the two sequences (Burke walking, rocket launching) together in 1978?

[hyperbovine]

What? I'm talking the final scene where he says "...that" and the thing immediately lights up. Absent a green screen, that's damn impressive.