From: esz001@cck.coventry.ac.uk (Will Overington) Subject: CULTURE: As It Happens Date: Wed, 29 Jan 1992 16:23:45 GMT Organization: Coventry Polytechnic, Coventry, UK Coventry, England 29th January 1992 In England, on a nationwide television station called Channel 4, there is a fascinating programme that appears from time to time called "As It Happens". On this programme a team, consisting of a presenter, together with a camera person and a sound person and, sometimes, a helper, are at a location somewhere in the world and they videotape what happens. This is then broadcast in an "as it happens" format, without any editing. Sometimes these programmes have gone out live, but mainly they are recorded. It is not intended as a spontaneous event of "life as it happens" so to speak, as they have things arranged to do and people to meet. A few examples will best explain the sort of things that happen. One programme came from the Fire Service Technical College, near Moreton-in-Marsh in the centre of England. We, as viewers, went along and watched a training exercise where already experienced fire officers were being trained in leadership and management of emergency situations. In this case a chemical factory being on fire with the danger of explosion taking place was being simulated. When I say simulated I don't mean on a PC! A team of experienced event organizers had got flames everywhere. Certainly, there was no chance of a major chemical explosion as such, but it was certainly well done as occasionally a bang from a pipe fifty yards away would take place, followed by flames and smoke. The trainees were taking it in turns to be in charge of fighting the simulated event, while the others manned the hoses. It looked all too real! Another spectacular show came from Kuwait where we, as viewers, were stood around watching a team trying to put out a blazing oil well. Another show was in the Holy Land, where, as viewers, we went into the Church of the Nativity. Such was the realism of this that, when, this Christmas, there was some film on a news programme showing a procession of people approaching the Church and all bending down to enter through the door that is about five feet high, followed by a picture of the manger, I remember thinking, "Ah, that is the entry, but you have to go along a gallery and down some steps to get to the manger". For me, one of the best items on television over the Christmas and New Year break was the "As It Happens" programme that went out on New Years Eve. Clocks in Moscow are currently three hours ahead of clocks in England. For this programme the teams, there were two teams this time, which is a matter I will come to, filmed New Years Eve in various locations in Moscow, meeting up in Red Square for midnight. The images were relayed back to England by satellite, large chunks edited together, without any internal editing within the chunks, and then broadcast as if live. It was beautifully synchronized so that midnight in Moscow was shown at midnight in England. At about ten minutes to midnight, we, as viewers, got out of a taxi, which is one of the few times when one is really aware of not actually being there as the camera is passed around while the camera person gets out of the taxi, then we hurried about four hundred yards towards Red Square with the Cathedral in the background. It was extremely realistic. The only slight problem with the Moscow show was that there were two film crews, so we missed the traveling from place to place. This is an amazingly informative process, which is why I am here writing about this television programme in sci.virtual-worlds, as I feel that it is a virtual reality relevant feature of the programme that may well have not been intended but which is a serendipitous discovery. In the programme from Las Vegas we traveled from one place to another place in a taxi. It appears to have gone into my memory as a contiguous recollection of Las Vegas, though I have never been there, rather than as a series of separate items, as has the Moscow show. I have noticed that television holiday programmes about, say, Pisa and Florence in Italy, do not seem to give an impression of actually having been there in the way that I feel that, in some sort of virtual way, that I have actually been to Las Vegas. Of course, I did not have any sensation of the temperature, breezes and so on of Las Vegas, so I clearly have only received part of the impression of actually going there. A well known holiday place that I have been to fairly often is Stratford-upon-Avon, which is about twenty miles south of Coventry. In fact, I live on the other side of Stratford and regularly drive within a few hundred yards of Anne Hathaway's cottage on my way to and from work here. I am aware of the locations in relation to each other of the five Shakespeare Birthplace Trust properties and the theatres, as well as the ordinary shops and roads. I do not actually tend to think of Stratford-upon-Avon in terms of temperatures and breezes either. Accordingly, I decided to try to think out precisely why it is that the "as it happens" programmes are so realistic that they seem to leave such strong impressions of actually having been there. In hindsight it seems so self-evident that I am amazed that more television programmes are not made in this manner rather than so carefully edited. Consider that the camera is at location (x,y,z) in space, where x and y are along the ground at right angles to each other and z is upwards. Further, consider that the camera is pointing in a direction such that it can be described as (theta,phi) where theta is round in the horizontal plane and phi is an elevation angle. Also, consider that m is some measure of magnification. Thus these six values, x, y, z, theta, phi and m together describe where the camera is located and in which way it is pointing and at what magnification. However, each of these six quantities varies with time, t, during a programme and so we may consider plotting six graphs, x against t, y against t, z against t, theta against t, phi against t and m against t. Consider such a set of graphs for an "as it happens" programme. These give a set of continuous functions, except for where two camera crews were used. Consider a set of graphs for a typical television holiday programme. These have discontinuities all over the place. Indeed, given only the finished television programme one would be hard pressed to estimate even some impression of these graphs. I begin to question the whole idea that laborious editing to produce some finished film report is at all desirable, let alone that such editing to produce a polished finished product should be regarded as obligatory for a professional finish. I have also tried to notice what features of the filming seem to contribute to the effect of really being there, in the hope that it may be possible to get computerized virtual reality software to use those features to produce an effect of realism. Thus far, I have noticed that slow movement of the camera position seems to give a noticeable enhancement of reality, as does going from one place to another place while keeping some object at the destination in view, whilst not altering the magnification as the movement is made. I have in mind the movement towards the Cathedral in Red Square that I mentioned previously. Copyright (c) January 1992 W. J. G. Overington at Coventry Polytechnic. Published in the usenet newsgroup sci.virtual-worlds and the archive of the newsgroup. Publication elsewhere needs an arrangement with Coventry Polytechnic Enterprises Limited, Coventry Polytechnic, Priory Street, Coventry CV1 5FB, England. Prospective publishers are asked to think in terms of two complimentary subscriptions and a sum of money to help fund research.