| xoxoxoBruce |
05-01-2005 07:49 AM |
Quote:
Originally Posted by glatt
I saw that when it was on our local PBS station recently. It was laughable. First, the film was sped up so it was faster than real life. It was most obvious when he was sawing or hammering that it was being shown at about 1.5 speed or so. Laws of physics determine how fast you can swing a hammer. Doesn't matter how strong or fast you are, two people with the same length arm will swing a hammer of identical weight at the same speed. That's how pendulums on clocks are able to be used to tell time. He was clearly swinging his hammer faster than any human I've ever seen. The saw too. Also, for any given task, he would show 1 step (usually the most visually insteresting one) and skip the other ten steps he had to follow to get to that point and to go past that point.
Yes. He built a log cabin in the wilderness. Yes. That's hard work and it's not something seen on TV every day, so it's neat to watch. But that "documentary" was so biased as to the amount of work you can get done in a set period of time that I would almost classify it as fiction. Shows like "This Old House" make it look like you can do significant amounts of work in a weekend afternoon. It's part of the way material is presented on TV to keep it interesting, but at least those home improvement shows don't speed up the reels.
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C'mon Glatt, this wasn't a "produced" tv show with 17 technicians and grips watching him work. The show was patched together from 35 year old home movies he took as a record of him building a home...a life...out of what nature provided in a very hostile wilderness.
Home movies, even with a good 16mm camera, are not accurate for time and motion studies.
He was 51 years old when he paddled his canoe out of civilization. At 82 he finally had to give it up but he was still climbing that ladder to his meat locker and carrying his water from the lake. 99% of the people trying this would die.
Sure it only touched on the highlights of the work involved and you only saw the last three strokes of the saw when he sliced a board from a log, but they were only trying to present a clue of what was involved, for people that haven't one.
How can you get 32 years into a 1 hour show. You have to fill in the blanks from the timeline they gave you. He told how many weeks elapsed within the few minutes of video to build a cabin.
You could also rightfully criticize them glossing over the hardships he suffered but I think it's near a miracle this remarkable record exists at all.
Were you pissed because they didn't show you exactly how the Bat Cave was built before going after the Joker? :D |
