#is bad enough

I CAN HEAR THAT SWEET SWEET KRISTANNA MUSIC IN THE AIR TONIGHT

Perhaps the most eye-opening detail to emerge from the camera script for The Man Out There is the meticulous discipline in effect during the "live" television production, and especially on the final day of the recording, Thursday, 9 March 1961: camera rehearsals start at 10.00 am; there is a lunch break at 12.30 and another rehearsal from 13.30 to 15.30, followed by 45 minutes of tea and make-up so that when the director calls for the tapes to roll at 18.00 sharp, cast and crew on the studio floor and in the control rooms are in position and ready to play their assigned parts. No tape stoppages are scheduled - the recording is set to last exactly one hour. 

Twenty-two minutes and forty seconds into the action, we find Camera 3 with the Russian General and his Colonel as they discuss the impending failure of their prestigious space mission (shot 72). A slow mix fades the Russian control centre to black, and from that void the space capsule, as seen by Camera 4, appears to be hurtling towards us (courtesy of the "high power zoom," shot 73). Indicating a possible passage of time, certainly a change of location, the external view of the floating craft fades again as we transition to Camera 2 and the inside of the capsule (shot 74). 

There is no room to manoeuvre in the crammed cockpit: the camera perspective reinforces the sense of claustrophobia by zooming in on the subject's face, slowly, relentlessly, past MCU distance to full CU at "regular." The illusion of the top-down view is the result of Camera 2 looking at a mirror that is mounted at an angle on the floor - because we know the three earthly axes of movement have little meaning in zero gravity, and also because we know that realistically the camera could not see the astronaut ("Nikki" in the script) through the instruments that surround him. 

The next two shots are a challenge for the vision mixer, who has to combine the images from Camera 4 shooting a view of outer space (75) and Camera 3 giving us that view as seen by Nikki on his control panel (76). The monitor-with-stars insert appears at the indicated position (HE LOOKS UP), but the shift from medium close-up (MCU, shot 74) to close-up (CU, shot 77) has already been completed at "regular" (above). Technically, therefore, we continue on shot 74 at the bottom of the page even though Cameras 3 and 4 are taking positions for the upcoming scene in the snow-bound cabin while Nikki (on Camera 2) still struggles with the cruel irony of his situation. 

Fortunately for everyone involved, the earthbound mission differs from the doomed space adventure in the actual outcome. The successful conclusion of the creative experiment to us now is a memento (thanks to the surviving film of it a material one) from a time when live television was bound by the constraints of live theatre which, fortunately for us, the young medium was still eager to replicate.

And so, at the stroke of 19.00, the tape machines would have been stopped, and the director would have instructed the crew to "strike" the sets. The Canadian cabin, the Russian Mission Control, a special effects set, and the space capsule would have been dismantled during the night. The studio would have reopened for (new) business in the morning.

I don’t know who you’re takling about here, because it’s not me and I think I can be fairly sure that I have written more about Harry’s Thatcher tweet than anyone else on the planet.  I think that tweet implies that he’s a dumbass who knows nothing about politics and said something really appalling, because he was being careless about what he didn’t know.  (I still more or less think that’s true about his politics - so maybe in that sense you’re right that I’m making guesses that his standing is the same).