You are correct, of course. But I had changed the subject mid-reply, and you didn't address that bit of history, not worthy of fireworks.
As my b'day is the Fourth, and as I was a pyrotechnician for a half dozen years, standing on a barge being pelted with cardboard chunks as reward for three days of hard work setting up the show in the first place, I should not mis-speak about it. Sorry! On Jul 11, 2011, at 16:10 , P. J. Alling wrote: > That's not what fireworks are actually. When the Deceleration of > Independence was adopted on July 2nd 1776, John Addams declared that this > day would be celebrated by future generations with illuminations, as they > were then called, or in other words fireworks, amiong other things. There > was no simulating of battle intended just celebration. The Battle of > Baltimore didn't take place until the war of 1812, and Americans had been > celebrating July 4th, New Years, Christmas and other holidays with fireworks > before and since. > > On 7/11/2011 6:43 PM, Joseph McAllister wrote: >> It's all fish paper. Creative control of a staged production. What are the >> fireworks? A simulation of a battle we happened to win. 150 years ago, or >> maybe 199 years ago, or 235 years ago. >> >> It's no worse than what the TV crews do before a ball game, or football >> game. They send a "color crew" out to capture the feel, the essence of the >> area, a few monuments, people playing in a park. traffic on the roads. >> Usually on a Thursday, while they had the rest of the crew setting up for >> the game. They recorded all these shots, for re-use, so they didn't have to >> do them again, as long as they had enough variety to cover the weather >> prevalent at the time. >> >> My experience is limited to the old days, when the parks had no pre-wiring >> in them, so heavy cables had to be dragged up the camera positions >> throughout, attached to the semi-truck with the producer/director's consoles >> inside. Meanwhile the phone company linesmen connected 100 pairs or more >> from trucks punch downs to the poles near the truck (s) to get the signal to >> the local affiliate for distribution. It didn't matter what network was >> airing the game. The trucks were rented by a consortium to share the signal >> as needed. No satellites back then to beam it up to. Then the cameras, 100+ >> lbs apiece, had to be carefully dollied up to the heavy duty tripods they >> set up on the plywood platforms built over a section of 3 or 4 seats. These >> were tube cameras, and were quite delicate. They soon switched to solid >> state Japanese cameras, which were a little smaller, weighed half of the old >> models, and provided a solid and less contrasty signal, which gave better >> color. >> >> Now I think they just show up with their own cameras to drop into the steel >> tripods already there (maybe the cameras are left as well) and a medium >> sized van with satellite dish, maybe a second or third dish set up beside >> the truck. Send the talent up to their cubbyhole somewhere in the stadium, >> and they are gold. Joseph McAllister [email protected] “ Nature is considerably more creative and inventive than humankind. Without Nature there isn't any humankind. Without humankind, Nature is fine.” -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
