CBS, Mugar: Reality is so overrated

Why not superimpose Boston fireworks over Mount Rushmore, the Hollywood Sign, even God help us Yankee Stadium? Since they think - and I wish I could say that they're wrong - people care more about the spectacle then actually showing a live event the way it's going, why not get more people involved?

I didn't watch the show, but when I saw a still somewhere showing fireworks from behind Quincy Market, I could not for the life of me figure out the geometry - it made me think of those movies where people get off the streetcar at Haymarket and immediately run up Boylston Street.

Don't call it 'live' if it isn't.

I think you mean, "First to mention it on UH." Obv., plenty of us noticed it, but had other things to care about.

I don't mind composite shots, as long as they're identified as composite shots, and thus, not reality. Yes, TV shows take liberties with filming places pretending to be the purported setting of the events, but you wouldn't do that for a reality-TV show, which I think the live broadcast of fireworks is.

I like pointing out impossible photographs involving the Moon. My favorite was in a gift shop in the formerly Sears Tower. There was a nice skyline panorama with the full Moon in the background. I said to my friend, "Unless Chicago moved to Antarctica, that view is impossible." Oh, and there are sunsets played in reverse to suggest sunrises.

Do I think it is completely brainstrangling surreal to see a show set in Boston and filmed in Portland, OR? Yes, but I don't twist my knickers over it - that's make believe. The whole show is pretend.

HOWEVER, seeing the fireworks over Quincy Market in a supposed "live shot" is, well, just wrong. For starters, where were the people who would be hanging around if you could see them there? This is supposed to be "live" - not make believe drama. It makes me wonder what else they show that isn't real but pretends to be news.

HAHAHA! Love the graphic

Pam Stone of WCVB stopped by my work today to interview me.

...oh, and the fireworks.

There was a time, not so many years ago, when the July 4th concert was just one of a series of Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra concerts, presented over the course of a week or two from late June through mid-July.

A typical season would feature an Arthur Fiedler memorial concert, a show conducted by Harry Ellis Dickson (usually seated), an awesome Gospel Night, an Opera Night, several complete symphonies, some show tunes, and a liberal scattering of Leroy Anderson favorites. Each night ending with Stars & Stripes Forever.

This tradition gradually eroded, so that by 2003 there was only one Esplanade concert other than July 4 and the July 3 rehearsal. Since 2004, there have been none.

Fortunately, WCRB and the Boston Landmarks Orchestra have stepped into the vacuum in recent years; otherwise there would be no classical music at all on the Esplanade any more.

Check out this Richard Dyer review from the Boston Globe of July 18, 2004 (you'll need to scroll about halfway down the page):

The problem is that the show doesn't really represent what the institution does and what it stands for; it's been years since the concert has been played by members of the Boston Symphony, who are otherwise occupied at Tanglewood. And the national telecast doesn't even adequately represent the event on the Esplanade, since it presents only the last quarter of the concert. At the same time, the presence of television has distorted the Esplanade experience out of all recognition; everything is timed to the requirements of the network and of commercials, destroying the rhythm and momentum of the live concert experience.
...
Still, for nearly three decades the most famous part of the Fourth of July program has been a performance of Tchaikovsky's "1812" Overture with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, cannon fire, and an explosion of fireworks; local television host Lisa Hughes called it "the Pops' signature song."
 
Until a couple of years ago the overture came at the end, as the climax of the program. Now the overture begins before the network -- apparently terrified at the idea of 11 consecutive minutes of Tchaikovsky -- joins in; the last minute or so of the performance becomes part of CBS's opening credits, and there's a half-hour of concert still to go.

2004 was the second year CBS broadcast the event. I'm going to keep looking in the Globe archives to see what they said in 2003.