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Ceremonies on UTube, Pt 2


baron-pierreIV

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That's him, right. I also think his videos are not extremely exciting in most cases, because they mostly compile the material that has already been out there for ages, either on YouTube, the IOC website or other parts of the web. But one must commend his effort to compile all that material in order to present those ceremonies as complete as it gets. BUT: What buggers me is when he simply copies complete videos (like the official IOC footage of the complete Vancouver opening ceremony or the olympia72de channel's video of the complete Munich opening ceremony) and takes them for his own channel. Compilations and re-uploads (if the original videos have been taken down) are okay in my opinion, but not simple copies while the originals are still online.

The only video I seem to remember where he used material that had never been seen before on the web was the footage of the complete Montreal 1976 opening ceremony.


Correction: "bothers me", not "buggers me". My English isn't working yet this morning. ;)

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Recycling all this Olympic footage is really tricky becuz the IOC is very vigilant about its rights. Is he an IOC-sanctioned channel??

For a while (and possibly still), he parked some of his content on a dodgy Chinese site; I'm guessing the IOC has accepted that short of taking him to court, there's not much they can do- and if they do take him to court he'll claim that it's an academic resource, which he wouldn't have had to provide if the IOC had got its act together.

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Quite. Olympic ceremonies are important cultural & historical events, if the IOC want to get serious about stopping private videos, they should first get serious on creating a channel or site where full broadcasts can be watched online. It's not like there's any advertising, so I don't know why it's so difficult :unsure:

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True. And I'd even willingly pay money (as long as they provide high-quality footage) if the IOC chose to issue the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies on DVD, as pay-per-view or by some other means. But as long as they don't provide any complete footage and (even worse) instead provide short videos of only a few ceremonies, sometimes even with annoying techno music replacing the original audio, they shouldn't be surprised that some internet users post original or compiled footage themselves.

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Well, they only offer so much from the Vancouver and London Games because those were the first Games they fully covered also on YouTube, right from the start. They also had an extensive coverage from Beijing on YouTube, but there, they only uploaded compilations of the ceremonies and even snippets from several national teams parading into the Birds Nest, but superimposed with that annoying techno music.

Anyways, it's no miracle that they won't upload that much and especially such extensive footage retroactively from earlier Games.

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What's also so funny is that the IOC, through its OTAB, already have lots of video footage in its vaults dating back from the TV era. But as already pointed out here by several of us, it's the recent ones the IOC tends to focus on. Odd that the Ceremony Database would use exactly the IOC's entire Vancouver OC starting with the OBS Vancouver intro when we can just head to the IOC Vancouver channel. It'll be one thing if he acquired the Canadian Olympic Host Broadcast Media Consortium (English, French, Italian, Cantonese/Mandarin, Portuguese, and Aboriginal Canadian languages) version--and would like to see the coverage from other nations. Many of us would very still hope for the entire ones from LA, Moscow, Mexico City, Sarajevo, and Lake Placid. And you're correct Olympian2004, many are not the complete ones. When we can go for more complete versions elsewhere on YouTube.

Since we're talking about him, he did upload the ZDF (and then to RAI 2 for the Parade of Nations and back) coverage of the Torino 2006 Opening Ceremony. I do have the ceremonies from Torino coming from host broadcaster RAI with intros--another one of those ceremonies NBC infamously butchers. Haven't played those in years. Nice to see again. My favorite part was the Parade of Nations with mostly the disco music, still very popular with Italians. Liked it when Chic's Good Times and KC and the Sunshine Band's Boogie Man started things. Like being in a club. I cracked up when YMCA came on! :lol:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrqG23TzY2M

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Torino was really the Albertville of the past decade, wasn't it?

You mean in terms of the Ceremonies? If so, I tend to agree - in that they were both offbeat and weren't all about some insincerely hokey fuzzfest. I loved the weirdness of Albertville, and loved the industrious majesty of Turin. Although I can see how some found it jarring after the grace and modernity of Athens.

In fact, I think Sochi is going to have some of those elements of Turin.

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True. And I'd even willingly pay money (as long as they provide high-quality footage) if the IOC chose to issue the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies on DVD, as pay-per-view or by some other means. But as long as they don't provide any complete footage and (even worse) instead provide short videos of only a few ceremonies, sometimes even with annoying techno music replacing the original audio, they shouldn't be surprised that some internet users post original or compiled footage themselves.

Exactly... I've been searching for Sarajevo 1984 complete ceremony for ages and IOC channel is unlikely to upload it. Olympic Ceremony Database didn't have it too (I think). Suprisingly, I found a OC highlights with IOC "label" from YouKu (the chinese youtube).

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Exactly... I've been searching for Sarajevo 1984 complete ceremony for ages and IOC channel is unlikely to upload it. Olympic Ceremony Database didn't have it too (I think). Suprisingly, I found a OC highlights with IOC "label" from YouKu (the chinese youtube).

That highlights clip features the best of the Sarajevo OC. It didn't have very long Artistic portions.

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Regarding Torino's opening ceremony: I watched that video (or at least parts of it) now, too - the first time in several years that I have seen the Torino OC. And the more years pass, the more puzzled I am how I could initially truly enjoy (albeit not love) that ceremony back then in 2006. Today, it appears so cheap in almost any regard to me. It starts already with that highly synthesized cheap-sounding musical score, with those repetitive musical themes and not to forget the "Greatest Hits of the Disco Age" CD bundle soundtrack for the parade of nations. Sure it was fun and something different from previous parades, but in the end, it simply was a bit of an unimaginative concept.

Additionally, the ceremony seemed highly contrived, it had no clear narrative but a little bit of everything. The execution fell somewhat flat in many cases, it was rather focussed on creating big effects (e.g. the Ferrari F1 racer, Yoko Ono remembering her dead husband, frail Pavarotti's performance - his final one, as it should turn out, the flashy but fake pyrotechnical "lighting" of the cauldron) but that somehow felt stale and unconvincing. It simply was too much, just like the shrillness in the voice of the female English announcer. ;) And sometimes it was simply lacklustre, just like when they used only an abbreviated version of an old 1950s recording of the Olympic Anthem (the same recording that was used on the IOC website back then) during the hoisting of the Olympic Anthem. They even re-used the music of their handover in 2002 in Salt Lake City, something that (if I'm not mistaken) has never been done by any other Olympic host before or after Torino.

All in all, it seemed a bit like a cheapish Italian TV show from one of those Berlusconi channels poured into an Olympic opening ceremony. And that although there were international choreographers and ceremony experts behind it. So it really was one of the weakest opening ceremonies in recent history - in my opinion!

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I found the Yoko Ono moment to be a bit oddly placed - which is a shame because it would have actually worked perfectly at London 2012 (not to mention being actually appropriate - given that neither Lennon or Ono have any link whatsoever to Turin)


But I must disagree about Pavarotti - that was one of the most powerful and amazing moments in any Olympic ceremony - at least in my Top 10.

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I don't watch the Torino opening ceremony much admitedly. I understand their overarching concept, but it wasn't always portrayed as well as it could. There are small moments I enjoyed, but as an overall package, it was abit meh. Entertaining certainly, but meh.

Must say though, they aren't the only ones to have been repetitive.

Don Mischer Productions who were the producers of Salt Lake, managed to rehash alot of stuff from Atlanta, which they also produced.

The most obvious being a run through time.

However more glaringly shameful, was the use of *Earth Rise* in both the Atlanta closing and Salt Lake opening. Wouldnt be so bad if it was a generic piece of music, but it was music specially composed for Atlanta.

The underlit tile circular stage was also pretty much identical in both ceremonies too.

Of course, the Salt Lake ceremony was fantastic, don't get me wrong, but Atlanta influenced abit too much me thinks.

As for ceremony dvds.

I have a funny feeling that the reason more of them haven't been put out by the IOC may have something to do with music licensing rights issues. I'm sure Jeremie mentioned something when we were at the Olympic museum.

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I don't watch the Torino opening ceremony much admitedly. I understand their overarching concept, but it wasn't always portrayed as well as it could. There are small moments I enjoyed, but as an overall package, it was abit meh. Entertaining certainly, but meh.

Must say though, they aren't the only ones to have been repetitive.

Don Mischer Productions who were the producers of Salt Lake, managed to rehash alot of stuff from Atlanta, which they also produced.

The most obvious being a run through time.

However more glaringly shameful, was the use of *Earth Rise* in both the Atlanta closing and Salt Lake opening. Wouldnt be so bad if it was a generic piece of music, but it was music specially composed for Atlanta.

The underlit tile circular stage was also pretty much identical in both ceremonies too.

Of course, the Salt Lake ceremony was fantastic, don't get me wrong, but Atlanta influenced abit too much me thinks.

As for ceremony dvds.

I have a funny feeling that the reason more of them haven't been put out by the IOC may have something to do with music licensing rights issues. I'm sure Jeremie mentioned something when we were at the Olympic museum.

The doves were the same in both ceremonies too.

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Good point, Matt, about the identical or similar elements in Atlanta and Salt Lake. But at least (and that was what I meant) they didn't re-use the music and/or choreographical elements they had used for the respective handover segments four years earlier.

But it's true that in hindsight, I was a bit appalled by how much Mischer Productions copied from their Atlanta ceremonies for their Salt Lake ceremonies. Even the arrangement of the Olympic Anthem was the same (although it was shortened for Salt Lake's OC as opposed to Atlanta's OC). And the arrangement of the Star-Spangled Banner was the same, too.

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Good point, Matt, about the identical or similar elements in Atlanta and Salt Lake. But at least (and that was what I meant) they didn't re-use the music and/or choreographical elements they had used for the respective handover segments four years earlier.

But it's true that in hindsight, I was a bit appalled by how much Mischer Productions copied from their Atlanta ceremonies for their Salt Lake ceremonies. Even the arrangement of the Olympic Anthem was the same (although it was shortened for Salt Lake's OC as opposed to Atlanta's OC). And the arrangement of the Star-Spangled Banner was the same, too.

Funny how I never pay attention to those things; or make any comparisons.

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