As someone who has an all but useless BA in history I accept your apology.
On 7/11/2011 7:57 PM, Joseph McAllister wrote:
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.”
--
Where's the Kaboom? There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom!
--Marvin the Martian.
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