Ceremonies on UTube, Pt 2

[BTHarner]

Full Pan An OCs are hard to find. I've seen 1983, a good part of 2007, and 2011 on Youtube, plus smidgets of others. I think people were and are a lot less inclined to record them as opposed to the Olympics because they are held in lower esteem I think the Havana ceremony was broadcast in the US on TNT network, so maybe it will turn up sometime.

[Ikarus360]

Opening ceremony of the 1993 Central American and Caribbean Games in Ponce, Puerto Rico

[Durban Sandshark]

Full Pan An OCs are hard to find. I've seen 1983, a good part of 2007, and 2011 on Youtube, plus smidgets of others. I think people were and are a lot less inclined to record them as opposed to the Olympics because they are held in lower esteem I think the Havana ceremony was broadcast in the US on TNT network, so maybe it will turn up sometime.

If I recall correctly, this was the final time a US English TV broadcaster was inclined to show much interest in the Pan Am Games with those Games being seen as second-tiered with very little American interest and coverage toward those second-tiered unknown American athletes and thus no star power to attract American viewers. So why bother, they say. Why couldn't it promote them as a way to showcase fresh faces who could make an impact the next year with the Olympics or a future one? Nowdays it's domain of the likes of ESPN Deportes in the USA, which Spanish audience tastes are well different from their English counterparts.

[BTHarner]

Frankly I find the fresh faces, well refreshing. It's great to see them given their chance in spotlight. It sure beats re-hashing the life and times of Michael Phelps every four years.

[Durban Sandshark]

Newcomers also help deepen the talent pool for nations in games at events that will provide and prepare them for the much-needed top-notch international experience.

We don't have the full 2014 Incheon Asian Games Opening Ceremony as of yet, believe it or not. But there are portions of it. First deals with the Asian Games Olympic-style protocol with the K-Pop music starting with President Park's opening. The oaths done simultaneously with both genders remind just like in Seoul. Down to the torch serenaded by the K-Pop stars. The OC feel tends to be more regimented than the Olympic version and the anthem is short, just like Japan's. Commentary is in English shown live on Indonesia's TVRI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aQbSraShYE

Guess who was among the Opening Ceremony performers with his latest song sampling Harold Faltemeyer's Axel F playing with Lang Lang in Incheon?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gppMBKw3fIU

BIGBANG will perform at the Closing Ceremony

[Ikarus360]

Got this from a korea website, a resume from MBC back in 1994 of the 1994 Asian Games opening in Hiroshima. Besides the scenes we already saw, it shows short excerpts like the mass samurai performance, kabuki and what seems to be a formation of a "Great Wave at Kanagawa" mosaic

I've also found the opening ceremony of the 2001 IAAF World Championships in Athletics opening in Edmonton, Canada.

Opening

Closing

[Durban Sandshark]

Well, we got Gilberto De Andrade Rezende on YouTube to thank once again for completing the Moscow Parade of Nations coverage from Brazil's TV Cultura less than two weeks ago with his latest Moscow 1980 uploads. Even if the video quality is still yellowishly poor and the audio nonexistent. Probrably thought why not. At least he has access to that whole thing unlike Balanced Australia, who stops at Part 7 with not much footage with hopes of replacing it. I hope the latter is seeing what Gilberto is doing; he can possibly ask for the footage and likely take the time to improve the video and may have the audio to accompany it. Apparently, either he got responses from YouTube members about the incompleteness of Moscow's OC or was planning to do it all along, perhaps found the following footage, and just waited until the time was right to upload them all. He even set up a whole new numbering sequence towards this set instead of continuing onwards. Hopefully he can reassemble all the footage he uploaded and and extend them in the future.

The last part starts with the Swedish team marching in, if you go by the Russian language, after the Czechs. Unfortunately, the Swiss are not shown here, who were there even if one person was marching as the flagbearer and surely filmed coming before Sweden. Then Sri Lanka, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Yugoslavia, Jamaica, and finally the Soviets.

Wide overhead shot of the Soviet Team marching with lots of scenes from the Lenin Stadium stands before they fully enter and the parade ends. Certainly not like many other subsequent OCs when you see the field fully filled and the athletes, coaches, and trainers mixed all over like a mass human kalaidescope. Clearly regimented to their teams and stick with that with lots of space left to fill...

[Durban Sandshark]

Since what happens after the Soviets marched in is already with Balanced Australia, Russian TV replays, and even Ali Hussein's Moscow 1980 Opening Ceremony from the Seven Network already exists, we'll skip much of what Gilberto did here and focus on the missing bits.

Where the athletes, coaches, trainers, and other NOC reps walk off the Lenin Stadium field with numerous shots of Lenin Stadium stands, the flags, and the Olympic flame. All of them walking uniformly with and by their respective teams in the Russian alphabetical order and not mingled together like we see nowdays. This is one of the areas where the video quality is definitely at its poorest. Maybe Seven was taking its commercial/news break at this point before going into the hosts cultural presentation. Who knows?

We see the Soviets exit out last as hosts before the artistry begins with the forming of the red and white half sun kicking it off. But not before the Salyut 6 cosmonauts crew Leonid Popov's and Valery Ryumin's Olympic best wishes message direct from space

Switzerland carried the Olympic flag in protest of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and surely, based on what we already saw so far here, TV CCCP didn't show the full shot of that flag as it showed the placard and the Swiss flagbearer marching along the track.

[baron-pierreIV]

I really don't get this fascination on the Marching in of the Nations. I mean to me, you've seen it once, you've seen it all. Durban, what draws you to dig up all the past clips???

[JMarkSnow2012]

I really don't get this fascination on the Marching in of the Nations. I mean to me, you've seen it once, you've seen it all. Durban, what draws you to dig up all the past clips???

As DS's comments on the videos show, there are subtleties in the parade of nations which have historical value. The parade shows how nations wished to present their teams, including something of their attitude to the host nation- and often something of the host broadcaster's attitude too ...

[Durban Sandshark]

Rather interesting comments you'd offer to me, in this case regarding Moscow, considering that you write a very observant book about Olympic ceremonies, Baron. All ceremonies, opening and closing, are obviously not all the same. Not even the Parade of Nations, especially in this case. It was unique obviously for the politics impacting it like no other before and since with the Olympic flags and NOCs carried in defiant protest along with the boycott of the US/West Germany/Norway, and many Western Hemisphere, some African and Asian, and Muslim nations, and the refusal of the western nations to allow their anthems played in medal ceremonies. There's worlds of difference between Moscow, Montreal, Seoul, Barcelona, Athens, Sydney, London, Vancouver, Mexico City, Munich, Sochi, and Rome ceremonies, for example. Subtleties matter with historic value over time, as JMarkSnow2012 points out, in how the nations viewed the Soviet government while present (or not) their teams and how the Soviet government, in their propraganda attitudes to the Soviet public and pro-Afghan Marxist puppet government, that somehow got transmitted worldwide with the camera shots as host Olympic broadcaster with tight video camera shots of the flagbearers with little of protesting Olympic flags so as not to embarass Soviet society of its aggression or encourage the slightest in a public rebellion. Surely many Americans have still never seen the Moscow Olympics, maybe with the proposed Olympic channel we could see that as a reality as part of its programming.

My fascination with Moscow started ever since I was a little kid, an emerging Olympic fan even then, when I learned of the US-led boycott from President Jimmy Carter, who surely be wanted to seen as being tough against totalitarian Communism, prevented the Americans and Canadians from going. I've seen small footage of those Games in the short time since well before 1980. I read and learned about other nations and their struggles whether or not to send their athletes like Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Great Britain, France Japan, and West Germany. Surely the US was more than capable to follow suit what other Western nations did and not permanently wreck and embitter the many Olympic prospects of its own hopefuls to this day, right? It was due to that boycott that the Moscow 1980 Summer Olympics became like a longstanding personal cuIt thing for me ever since with such compelling and enigmatic fashion (to me) like the Soviet Union since NBC could've but ultimately decided not to air the Olympics, where the access to the footage would be greater and more consistent. It was like the forbidden fruit though not exactly. Think a cult film or movie the Moscow Olympics have for me. I was becoming a curious and hardcore sports fan then, eager to look at the multiple sports dimensions at play. I also gradually became aware which nations were more politically sympathetic, nonaligned/neutral, or in the case of many Western European nations, deeply conflicted and critical but ultimately did not join the boycott towards the Soviet Union. When I was in 4th grade at my grade school, I wrote a one paragraph essay summary about the 1980 Moscow Olympics that made the monthly school newspaper under the page title "Thoughts" and at the end expressed interest in making a documentary about it. I was happily surprised it made; my teacher and the school staff who ran the school paper surely thought highly and compelling of my work to include that, perhaps seeing the intelligence behind it from a then-4th grader. Mildly exaggerating that I could write like a college kid (definitely not out of conceit--far more of their words). I read my piece aloud to my class that Friday afternoon when the copies arrived to applause. Before that, I would draw what I hoped to be animated drawings of those Olympics largely based on some photos I saw in encyclopedia yearbooks of 1980 in the hopes of making that to placate my curiousity. Other cases were strictly in my imagination until I eventually saw more records, photos, and video (mostly online--thank God for YouTube) about Moscow off and on over the years. By then though, I long stopped drawing. I then turned to aiming to write a book and did some research that soon got abandoned too due to lack of abundant pre-Internet access to material. I enjoye them and will remain compelled by Moscow. The more footage, photos, and info, the better!

Now if Gilberto could find the Swiss marching, everything will be OK...

Keeping it in Russia on this post from Moscow 1980 to present day with Sochi with all the technological and media advancements since, we got this one-hour Sochi behind the scenes documentary of the planning, organizing, rehearsing, and execution of the Opening Ceremony at Fisht Olympic Stadium this past February that was shown on Russia's Perviy Kanal (Channel One) for each of the segments and of the girl who played Lyubov. Reveals all the secrets going on and was shown after the Sochi OC. Even going down to Melbourne, Victoria, Australia to check on the creation, inspection, and workability of the mascots. Notice the Channel One Olympic logo with the flame at the upper right hand corner of the screen. I wonder if this will be part of the ANO/Panaorama-produced Sochi 2014 Russian Olympic DVD set that's supposed to come out. Makes me wonder is it going to be released for the holidays there. For the ceremonies discs, will we get all the commentaries from Perviy Kanal, RTR, and NTV Plus each as separate audio tracks? Had to be televised during the Perviy Kanal Olympic TV coverage. Narrator is an in-house voiceover carrying on the tradition of deep, Russian male bass voice.

Some of the opening broadcasting moments from Channel One Russia's coverage of the Opening Ceremony with Cyril Nabutov and Anatoly Maximov with Alexander Ovechkin-featured Coca-Cola commercial at the end. Would like to see the full one like we did with VGTRK/RTR's Dmitri Guberniev's and Anna Chernobrovina's commentary. But with the IOC official narration-less full OC on, it's now gone. Perhaps unlikely we'll hear the Nabutov-Maximov full commentary from Channel One on YouTube at least for now.

[Durban Sandshark]

Rather interesting comments you'd offer to me, in this case regarding Moscow, considering that you write a very observant book about Olympic ceremonies, Baron. All ceremonies, opening and closing, are obviously not all the same. Not even the Parade of Nations, especially in this case. It was unique obviously for the politics impacting it like no other before and since with the Olympic flags and NOCs carried in defiant protest along with the boycott of the US/West Germany/Norway, and many Western Hemisphere, some African and Asian, and Muslim nations, and the refusal of the western nations to allow their anthems played in medal ceremonies. There's worlds of difference between Moscow, Montreal, Seoul, Barcelona, Athens, Sydney, London, Vancouver, Mexico City, Munich, Sochi, and Rome ceremonies, for example. Subtleties matter with historic value over time, as JMarkSnow2012 points out, in how the nations viewed the Soviet government while present (or not) their teams and how the Soviet government, in their propraganda attitudes to the Soviet public and pro-Afghan Marxist puppet government, that somehow got transmitted worldwide with the camera shots as host Olympic broadcaster with tight video camera shots of the flagbearers with little of protesting Olympic flags so as not to embarass Soviet society of its aggression or encourage the slightest in a public rebellion. Surely many Americans have still never seen the Moscow Olympics, maybe with the proposed Olympic channel we could see that as a reality as part of its programming.

My fascination with Moscow started ever since I was a little kid, an emerging Olympic fan even then, when I learned of the US-led boycott from President Jimmy Carter, who surely be wanted to seen as being tough against totalitarian Communism, prevented the Americans and Canadians from going. I've seen small footage of those Games in the short time since well before 1980. I read and learned about other nations and their struggles whether or not to send their athletes like Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Great Britain, France Japan, and West Germany. Surely the US was more than capable to follow suit what other Western nations did and not permanently wreck and embitter the many Olympic prospects of its own hopefuls to this day, right? It was due to that boycott that the Moscow 1980 Summer Olympics became like a longstanding personal cuIt thing for me ever since with such compelling and enigmatic fashion (to me) like the Soviet Union since NBC could've but ultimately decided not to air the Olympics, where the access to the footage would be greater and more consistent. It was like the forbidden fruit though not exactly. Think a cult film or movie the Moscow Olympics have for me. I was becoming a curious and hardcore sports fan then, eager to look at the multiple sports dimensions at play. I also gradually became aware which nations were more politically sympathetic, nonaligned/neutral, or in the case of many Western European nations, deeply conflicted and critical but ultimately did not join the boycott towards the Soviet Union. When I was in 4th grade at my grade school, I wrote a one paragraph essay summary about the 1980 Moscow Olympics that made the monthly school newspaper under the page title "Thoughts" and at the end expressed interest in making a documentary about it. I was happily surprised it made; my teacher and the school staff who ran the school paper surely thought highly and compelling of my work to include that, perhaps seeing the intelligence behind it from a then-4th grader. Mildly exaggerating that I could write like a college kid (definitely not out of conceit--far more of their words). I read my piece aloud to my class that Friday afternoon when the copies arrived to applause. Before that, I would draw what I hoped to be animated drawings of those Olympics largely based on some photos I saw in encyclopedia yearbooks of 1980 in the hopes of making that to placate my curiousity. Other cases were strictly in my imagination until I eventually saw more records, photos, and video (mostly online--thank God for YouTube) about Moscow off and on over the years. By then though, I long stopped drawing. I then turned to aiming to write a book and did some research that soon got abandoned too due to lack of abundant pre-Internet access to material. I enjoye them and will remain compelled by Moscow. The more footage, photos, and info, the better!

Now if Gilberto could find the Swiss marching, everything will be OK...

Keeping it in Russia on this post from Moscow 1980 to present day with Sochi with all the technological and media advancements since, we got this one-hour Sochi behind the scenes documentary of the planning, organizing, rehearsing, and execution of the Opening Ceremony at Fisht Olympic Stadium this past February that was shown on Russia's Perviy Kanal (Channel One) for each of the segments and of the girl who played Lyubov. Reveals all the secrets going on and was shown after the Sochi OC. Even going down to Melbourne, Victoria, Australia to check on the creation, inspection, and workability of the mascots. Notice the Channel One Olympic logo with the flame at the upper right hand corner of the screen. I wonder if this will be part of the ANO/Panaorama-produced Sochi 2014 Russian Olympic DVD set that's supposed to come out. Makes me wonder is it going to be released for the holidays there. For the ceremonies discs, will we get all the commentaries from Perviy Kanal, RTR, and NTV Plus each as separate audio tracks? Had to be televised during the Perviy Kanal Olympic TV coverage. Narrator is an in-house voiceover carrying on the tradition of deep, Russian male bass voice.

Some of the opening broadcasting moments from Channel One Russia's coverage of the Opening Ceremony with Cyril Nabutov and Anatoly Maximov with Alexander Ovechkin-featured Coca-Cola commercial at the end. Would like to see the full one like we did with VGTRK/RTR's Dmitri Guberniev's and Anna Chernobrovina's commentary. But with the IOC official narration-less full OC on, it's now gone. Perhaps unlikely we'll hear the Nabutov-Maximov full commentary from Channel One on YouTube at least for now.

[BTHarner]

I can sympathize with Durban, for the longest time Moscow 1980 was like a forbidden frontier. Yes, you could read snippets about it in books and old magazines and newspapers. But video was largely impossible to view for the longest time. I bought Bud Greenspan's Olympiad series and there are only a few seconds of 1980 footage in the whole series. I don't think I ever saw the cauldron lighting until youtube came into being and now finally the whole OC is getting pieced together and I'm grateful for that, so much that the poor video quality doesn't bother me.

[Durban Sandshark]

I think with the arrival of the Australians into Lenin Stadium, the first to go in Russian alphabetical order after the Greeks, during the parade co-carrying the protesting Olympic flag for the first of many nations doing so that TV CCCP directors/superiors decided that was enough to show of the flag and subsequently kept rather tight shots of them marching along the track area very much right where the VIP box with Brehznev, the Killianins, Gorby, and Novikov all were--and not to upset the CP members and the Soviet public. Whenever there was a wide shot as the flag gets shown along the track, it quickly cuts away from that. So far so good for those nations that came later doing this. But when the New Zealanders marched with the black NZOC flag and TV CCCP showed it, notice how its TV cameras quickly zoomed back to the athletes after showing that flag and realizing exactly what it was (like an "Uh-oh") as if they made a mistake. Earlier Spain's NOC flag managed to get shown even in the tight shots while the Spanish marched. All the athletes, coaches, and officials marching upon entering were mostly shot at the area where the VIP box was and not moving along with them--there were no overhead venue skycams yet, for example. Furthermore, there were some flagbearers like from Sweden, Senegal, Lesotho, and Ecuador who dipped their flag and even had the Olympians took their hats while walking past the VIP zone.

Nations like France, The Netherlands, and Portugal who protested with the Olympic flag and never had the flag shown along with none of their athletes marching along the track, apparently end up having a Moscow volunteer marching with the flag and not someone tied to their respective NOCs. You can tell in the tight shots with a red track suit and white/blue cap-wearing guys are carrying them. Definitely not an athlete at all from them. Puerto Rico did had its flag in Moscow--was spotted in the Closing Ceremony but was never shown in the Opening Ceremony, assuming it was protesting like the Portuguese right before them. Indeed, this parade did have a plenty of military-like atmosphere--also notice how the Cubans dressed like they did in Montreal four years earlier and the Tanzanians marching heads turned at the VIP area upon their leader's call.

[Ikarus360]

I decided to upload the full Opening Ceremony of the 1998 Asian Games in Bangkok from my files (I got this video in 2007 thanks to a thai friend who shared it with me). It is already online, however that version is sliced on many parts and has pesky TV comments. The one i've uploaded is from the official videos, without comments and with slighty better quality (although there is a credit in the lower corner of a website which is now longtime gone, though.

I will be uploading Part 2 soon.

[Durban Sandshark]

Actually I stand corrected about the audio from Gilberto's Moscow 1980 Olympic videos. There IS actually audio with Brazilian commentary, tried it with different headphones at another library; I just happen to have one side of my headphones silenced. Must get brand new ones soon.

[Durban Sandshark]

Incheon's run at the 2014 Asian Games now is over. We now turn our attention towards the next (and returning) hosts Indonesia with Jakarta, the first one for the city in 56 years. Lot has changed in the largest Muslim nation since then. Now time get to it is the Jakarta 2018 Asian Games presentation at Inchoen's Closing Ceremony with English commentary on Indonesia's TVRI:

[baron-pierreIV]

/\/\ Awful. Looks like typical tourist clap-trap trash.

[BTHarner]

Well, they were only awarded the Games two weeks previously. Not much time to put something elaborate together.

[phandrosis]

I thought this was kind of cool, but while watching the LA 1984 Athlete's March, I noticed that starting at the point of the video I've linked, they play the Tokyo March from 1964! They must have played other marches from other games, bu the Tokyo one was really iconic so it really caught my attention.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glAu9xxlMJ8#t=5643

[baron-pierreIV]

I thought this was kind of cool, but while watching the LA 1984 Athlete's March, I noticed that starting at the point of the video I've linked, they play the Tokyo March from 1964! They must have played other marches from other games, bu the Tokyo one was really iconic so it really caught my attention.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glAu9xxlMJ8#t=5643

That might have been generic marches that you picked up on...but the entire music for the 1984 Parade of Nations was planned and plotted out by a musical research specialist and director Tommy Walker and producer David Wolper timed the beats and bars of music (all pre-recorded) as best as they could just at about the time the 16 Commie nations said they weren't coming.

Edited November 9, 2014 by baron-pierreIV

[Ikarus360]

I liked the patriotic greek song at the beggining of the parade. Forgot its name but i know it was used again in Seoul '88 parade and in Barcelona '92 when the olympic flag made its entrance.

[Olympian2004]

I liked the patriotic greek song at the beggining of the parade. Forgot its name but i know it was used again in Seoul '88 parade and in Barcelona '92 when the olympic flag made its entrance.

The song is called "Tha Semanoun oi Kampanes" and it's from Mikis Theodorakis' work "Romiosini".

[phandrosis]

That might have been generic marches that you picked up on...but the entire music for the 1984 Parade of Nations was planned and plotted out by a musical research specialist and director Tommy Walker and producer David Wolper timed the beats and bars of music (all pre-recorded) as best as they could just at about the time the 16 Commie nations said they weren't coming.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glAu9xxlMJ8#t=5643

This is exactly it. They only played it for a few minutes but I was pretty sure I recognized it.

Edit: oops I relinked LA by accident. I meant this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2Oz89K6o1Y#t=121

[baron-pierreIV]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glAu9xxlMJ8#t=5643

This is exactly it. They only played it for a few minutes but I was pretty sure I recognized it.

Edit: oops I relinked LA by accident. I meant this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2Oz89K6o1Y#t=121

It sounded neutral enough to fill in that spot where they were leading into 3 major countries (Ireland, Israel, Italy) which if they played "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling," "Hava Nagila," and "Arrividerci Roma" side-by-side and it didn't exactly match time with a particular's team's passing in front of the Tribune of Honor, then would've caused some protocol/diplomatic complications. Which is why I think they picked that neutral piece from Tokyo 1964. I could actually ask Jeffrey Ernst, the guy who put the 1984 marching music together -- but I think it's so long ago and he may have other things on his plate now, that it may seen a little trivial to try and piece together the how and why at this point.

Here's the composer for those 1964 march themes: Yujii Koseki. It seems his speciality was writing martial themes and "fight" music.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y%C5%ABji_Koseki

Edited November 9, 2014 by baron-pierreIV