The Most Amazing Shot in TV History

I’m not even exaggerating here. Watch:

It’s from the BBC television show Connections, hosted by James Burke. There was no chance for a second take. He had to time his words to the countdown, while watching or hearing the countdown which would’ve had me stumbling over my lines.

So how did he do it? How was he able to perform perfectly under so much pressure?

Experience

James Burke was the main presenter of the BBC’s coverage of the moon landing in 1969. He was no stranger to live television, and I’m sure that reduced his anxiety levels somewhat.

He knew he was attempting something difficult, but he also knew he was in familiar territory.

Not Striving For Perfection

There are several points in Connections where he trips over a line. And keeps going. It wasn’t live. They could’ve stopped and started again and again until he said the line perfectly, but there wasn’t any real need to. His live TV experience had required him to learn how to keep going. So when he did stumble over a line, he was able to keep going in a way that made the shot usable.

We’ve all seen bloopers from TV shows where an actor flubs a line and starts laughing or babbling. Or they just stop and apologize. You can’t do that on live television. So when he was filming that amazing shot, he knew that he was going to keep speaking no matter what. Failure wasn’t an option.

Except…

Failure Kinda Was An Option

What’s the worst thing that could’ve happened? They can’t use the shot because he badly flubs the line, or a bird flies into his face, or he finishes too late, or there’s a problem with the microphone. I’m sure everyone involved knew that they were attempting something incredibly difficult. Everyone would’ve been disappointed, but no one was going to lose their job over this.

No one would’ve ever known they’d tried to get that shot if they hadn’t succeeded.

Practice

When you only have one take like that, you rehearse until you can do it in your sleep. I can only assume that James Burke practiced those lines with a stopwatch to make sure he got the timing right, as well as the actual words.

It looks easy because he didn’t go in cold.

Letting Some Things Go

The wind was blowing his hair all over the place, but that didn’t make the shot unusable. If he’d pointed to the rocket just a little bit earlier or later, that would’ve been OK too. They didn’t have a lot of wiggle room, but they did have some.

Minimizing Risk

Unlike many scenes in Connections, he’s standing still. The shot is framed perfectly. There wasn’t much extra space in the shot where someone could wander in. I’m sure there was someone making sure that there was no one around who wasn’t supposed to be there. He could’ve spilled coffee on his pants 60 seconds before they started filming, and you wouldn’t know.

So how do we apply these lessons to our own lives?

For one thing, we can strive for excellence instead of perfection. It’s easier to do something extraordinary when we’re close to our comfort zones. We can think through the worst case scenario and realize that it’s not that bad. We can practice, practice, practice, practice. We can decide not to worry about certain things, like how our hair looks. And we can control the things that we can.

If nothing else, you can think of this when you’re putting too much pressure on yourself. It’s not like you’re doing anything that has to be timed to a rocket launch.

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