Lufthansa – Total Solar Eclipse – Watch From the Stratosphere
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A Lufthansa flight took a detour over Iceland so that passengers would pass in the shade of the total Eclipse.
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The Right side of the transmission chain – acquisition
The right side of the Transmission Chain is at the event itself. Transmission chain is a term used to describe the route that a signal takes from an event venue to the device on which you are watching an event. As a camera operator the right side of the transmission chain for me is at the event itself.
Belaying
For the IFSC World Cup in Villars this year I was both a camera operator and a belayer. Belaying at a world cup event is an interesting experience because it’s rare to clip and unclip from so many climbers in such a short amount of time. Climbers have a limited time to get up the route. They have six minutes. This means that every 12 minutes or so you’re belaying a new climber as they progress up the wall. It’s a great task for introverts. You observe what the person is doing. When they need rope you’re ready to give it. If they’re struggling you make sure to amortise their fall. When they make it to the top or come back down you help them untie the rope and then you start again.
Camera operating
Aside from this task I was camera operator during the semi-final and final of the climbing competition. This means that whilst most people were standing in the crowd watching the competition I was on a podium in the middle of the crowd filming the climbers as they progress up the wall.
From here you see the crowd and you see the climbers from a privileged point of view. You can see the climbers and what they are doing comfortably. You’re also more attentive. You’re following their every move, watching as they clip and progress. You see them progress and you hear the commentator and hear the crowd cheering.
When you’re on the “wrong” side of the transmission you’re hearing the international sound and you’re seeing what the vision mixer is seeing but you’re not seeing the event in context. The image below illustrates this.
In television broadcasting you usually have the cameras, an OB van and an SNG truck or fibre connections. These go from the venue to the Network Operating centre. The signal is encoded either for web streaming and sent to the content distribution network or it is sent on to national broadcasters. On that side of the transmission chain you are in an air conditioned office as a passive observer ready to react if there is an issue and waiting for the event to end.
World Television
Now that I know that I can treat Netflix as an international film festival I do. Last night I watched the first episode of Crash Landing on You. A South Korean film about a woman CEO who goes for a parapente flight, gets caught in a storm, and dropped in North Korea.
The premise of this television show is interesting because it’s based on a true incident with a South Korean celebrity, but also because this is something we think about much less, especially in Europe, since most borders ceased to be watched.
In my own lifetime borders between France, Switzerland and other countries have been closed down for the most part. We can walk between countries without ever showing our passports. I often drive from Switzerland to Spain without showing a passport. It’s nice. Europe is a village.
That’s where Crash Landing on You is so interesting. It shows us a completely different culture, one where borders still exist. If you’re in the US or other countries, where borders still hold importance then the cultural interest is diminished.
I watch the content in Korean, with English subtitles that are sometimes displayed too briefly in some cases. They need to rethink the reading time of subtitles.
It’s great that Netflix actively encourages people to search for content by original language, but also that if we choose to watch Korean, French, or other language content, that it shows associated content. It’s a way of making Netflix more international, more multicultural, and more inclusive.
Until I found this feature I felt that Netflix was to US centric and that the content on offer was of no interest to me, for the most part.
Now that view has changed, as I have a wealth of new content to watch.