Olympian2004 Posted April 26, 2012 Report Posted April 26, 2012 I think LOCOG has done a great job of keeping us in suspense. I see. Well, but I don't think that LOCOG does that completely on purpose -- it's actually our fault that we are so desperate about not knowing yet what the cauldron will look like or even where it will be. As I said, they still have plenty of time even now to build a complete cauldron tower. It could take another four, five or even six weeks before we get any clue about the cauldron. But I highly doubt that they can keep it secret until the very last minute. Even Beijing and Vancouver, despite all their efforts with the rubber hangar respectively the scaffolding, didn't manage that.
Sir Rols Posted April 26, 2012 Report Posted April 26, 2012 I'm always torn on these cauldron threads as the games approach. On the one hand, I'm too curious and can't not look. On the other, I really don't ant to know too much - I still like to have something to be surprised about with the ceremonies!
kevzz Posted April 27, 2012 Report Posted April 27, 2012 Was thinking about Sydney's cauldron ceremony. It was the most jaw dropping and surprising cauldron moment for me. Technically it is the most difficult amongst all but they pulled it off beautifully albeit the stucked moments. Made me think of things that can go wrong in a cauldron ceremony. Can you imagine what I'd the flying torch bearer in Beijing dropped the torch while running mid-air?? That will be the most awkward and biggest f-up in history. I don't even know what can they do if that really happen. Can you imagine his nerve when he's running up there? Trying his best to grip the torch while harnessed running must not be easy!
mattygs Posted April 27, 2012 Report Posted April 27, 2012 Re: the whole huge structure near the stadium thing, don't forget Beijing's Ling Long Pagoda, which was very close to the main stadium. [imghttp://mw2.google.com/mw-panoramio/photos/medium/67041720.jpg[/img]
SwissO Posted April 27, 2012 Author Report Posted April 27, 2012 Re: the whole huge structure near the stadium thing, don't forget Beijing's Ling Long Pagoda, which was very close to the main stadium. [imghttp://mw2.google.com/mw-panoramio/photos/medium/67041720.jpg[/img] Sorry I disagree, it was not very close from the main stadium.... compared to London, it would mean that the cauldron tower will be on the opposite land across water from the main stadium concourse... Personal Pic (stadium & cauldron at the background faraway !) Nasa Pic (Olympic Green) !
Victor Mata Posted April 27, 2012 Report Posted April 27, 2012 Was thinking about Sydney's cauldron ceremony. It was the most jaw dropping and surprising cauldron moment for me. Technically it is the most difficult amongst all but they pulled it off beautifully albeit the stucked moments. Made me think of things that can go wrong in a cauldron ceremony. Can you imagine what I'd the flying torch bearer in Beijing dropped the torch while running mid-air?? That will be the most awkward and biggest f-up in history. I don't even know what can they do if that really happen. Can you imagine his nerve when he's running up there? Trying his best to grip the torch while harnessed running must not be easy! Like this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm3DDco5Qbs&t=3m20s
pjpauly2k Posted April 27, 2012 Report Posted April 27, 2012 Like this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm3DDco5Qbs&t=3m20s I cant believe how bad that lighting was! Never seen that before. It would be so embarrassin if London messed up like this!
kevzz Posted April 27, 2012 Report Posted April 27, 2012 OMG is this for real?! What a joke... I don't even get how it goes from one sequence to another. First the torch was carried by a couple of runners (without flame on it). The guy continues to sing on stage and the focus seems to be on the singer not the torch runners. Then there's the ship and some people climbing up the mast. Next thing we see is suddenly a roman woman was flying mid air holding a burning 'javelin' (where does the flame come from?). She flew towards the cauldron tower, and before she gets close to it the cauldron lit itself and she also spontaneously threw the javelin towards the cauldron. I believe the intention is for her to fly over/ near the cauldron enough to throw the javelin in. But somehow someone on ground navigate her off-target and there's no way she can throw the javelin from so far away, hence that haphazard 'throw' which looks more like she dropped the javelin. Complete mess, worst case scenario ever. Its kinda hilarious in a way. Never in a million years London's ceremony will be anywhere near this joke.
Olympian2004 Posted April 28, 2012 Report Posted April 28, 2012 Actually, talking about timing of cauldron lightings, when video of the Barcelona 92 Cauldron lighting is slowed right down, you can clearly see the archer's flaming arrow disappear down outside the stadium after it passed over the Cauldron. Until I saw that, I always thought the arrow landed in the Cauldron. The question is if the Cauldron was ignited remotely as a backup, or if the flaming arrow was shot close enough to ignite the gas vapour in the Cauldron as it passed over it. Either way it looked fantastic at normal speed. You can't know that -- but that has been a major topic several times here on this board. There's even a video taken from outside the stadium where you can clearly see that the arrow passed the cauldron: And it could be that the video also answers the question whether the cauldron was lit automatically or whether the arrow ignited the gas vapour. Watch for the delay -- the flame only shoots upwards after the arrow has passed it, not at the same moment. Additionally, the flame shot upwards and you can't see that the flame actually originated from above and shot down into the gas vapour and into the cauldron, as you might expect from a arrow crossing flying through a stream of gas. I'm not a specialist on these matters, though. But I fear that -- stunning as it was -- the cauldron lighting in Barcelona wasn't purely genuine. They apparently lit the cauldron automatically. Interesting about Vancouver is that the primary cauldron lit during the 2010 Opening Ceremony was inside a fully enclosed stadium and therefore relatively low in size. The secondary identical cauldron they lit afterwards in the open city square was so more people could share in it throughout the Games. From my recollections I think those Games were the first time the Olympic Cauldron has ever been lit inside a fully enclosed building. Not quite. It was the first time that the cauldron has been lit in a fully enclosed building at the opening ceremony, yes. But the Winter Games had indoor closing ceremonies in their figure skating or ice hockey arenas for many years (I believe, from 1956 to 1984), and for many of those closing ceremonies they had a special cauldron within the arena. You can see it, for example, here in the video of the Lake Placid 1980 closing ceremony: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmOyvQKx1QI
kevzz Posted April 28, 2012 Report Posted April 28, 2012 Oh wow, that video is a revelation. All these years I have always thought the arrow lands straight into the cauldron, which I thought was just spectacular. It's still a great move nevertheless, just that in hindsight, yes it might be too big a risk to take to expect him to shoot so accurately in a live broadcast. Wonder if anyone gets hurt outside the stadium when the arrow lands? LOL or they already prepared a clearing on the landing spot.
Rob2012 Posted April 28, 2012 Report Posted April 28, 2012 Good pics Kev re the 2008 Beijing Ling Long Pagoda tower which looks to have been quite a distance from the stadium. Good idea to get satellite or google earth pics to get a plan view. Might have to do that for London soon. Last time I checked neither Google nor Bing were up to date with London. Hopefully they'll get some new maps and aerial shots before the Games! Here's the latest map though from the new 2012 website if you want to get an overview of the Park: http://www.london2012.com/mm%5CDocument%5Cspectators%5CVenue%5C01%5C25%5C01%5C45%5CNEWMAP_Neutral.pdf The uniqueness of London is that they seem to have deliberately built this giant eye-catching structure right next to the Stadium, so close in fact that you can see right into the centre of the Stadium floor from near its top. LOCOG wants us to believe that it, the Orbit, is merely a sculpture for sight seeing and artistic purposes (yeah, pull the other one). Not quite. The Orbit is not LOCOG's baby. They had no say in how this was built, nor what it is for. It was a project foistered upon London 2012 by the Mayor essentially. So yes, I think it is just a viewing tower and wouldn't have come into LOCOG's thinking when planning the cauldron. It's a noisy neighbour, not part of the LOCOG household. I just cannot see, with all the practical limitations I and others have already pointed out (frying tourists, and steel loops obscuring the flame), plus the fact that Orbit is not a project of LOCOG's that it's going to be housing the cauldron. I might be wrong, but I don't think I am.
Olympian2004 Posted April 28, 2012 Report Posted April 28, 2012 I remember reading somehwere that they cleared the area behind the cauldron. Of course they did, one should say. But even the sight of the arrow passing the cauldron is amazing. I wish they would do something similar one day. But that said: They should do it in a professional and convincing way, not like these guys: At least it worked, though, unlike that javelin throwing mess two years later That was a reply to Kevzz, of course.
kevzz Posted April 28, 2012 Report Posted April 28, 2012 Geez all these SEA Games cauldron lighting shits are hilarious! Now I am going to youtube all past games to see the things they attempted! These failed attempts only serve to show that if you can't stage one with the technical complexity of Sydney, precise beauty of Barcelona, then keep it simple like Athens where you just lit the cauldron - straight on. That's it. I still think Beijing is quite a mess, not exactly technically difficult, but too contrived and not exactly a spectacle unless you think a man uncomfortably harnessed pretending/ act like he's running is a great feat. I watched the Indonesian SEA Games clip again. It seems the javelin flame was extinguished halfway to the cauldron, can this get any worse? Def the worst cauldron ceremony in history!
Athan Posted April 28, 2012 Report Posted April 28, 2012 No, it appears that Barcelona's arrow didn't land in the cauldron, but the organizers seemed to be ready for that and TV production was so good that they got create an optical illusion and mislead everybody. Anyway, perhaps that was the original plan. If the archer hadn't thrown the arrow past the cauldron, he could have missed and hit the people in the stadium.
kevzz Posted April 28, 2012 Report Posted April 28, 2012 No, it appears that Barcelona's arrow didn't land in the cauldron, but the organizers seemed to be ready for that and TV production was so good that they got create an optical illusion and mislead everybody. Anyway, perhaps that was the original plan. If the archer hadn't thrown the arrow past the cauldron, he could have missed and hit the people in the stadium. Yes I agree the camera work is brilliant. They must have choreographed and rehearsed the camera angle so it is shot in that particular angle where it looks like it landed in the cauldron. But if you look carefully at the official footage, you can catch a quick glimpse of the arrow trail falling behind the cauldron, would not have noticed otherwise!
Athensfan Posted April 28, 2012 Report Posted April 28, 2012 The very first time I saw Barcelona's cauldron lighting I thought the arrow overshot the cauldron. You could tell the line wasnt quite right It didn't diminish the effect for me at all, though. Best cauldron lighting ever. Such elegant simplicity!
barrack Posted April 29, 2012 Report Posted April 29, 2012 Is anyone else having difficulty "finding" this thread? On my end it's showing the latest post as 10 April, so it never shows up as a recently updated thread and I have to page through every time until I find it. Anyway, thanks for all the updates and discussion so far. The bit about Barcelona's lighting finally confirms what I have been suspecting for a while. Still so amazing after all these years.
Olympian2004 Posted April 29, 2012 Report Posted April 29, 2012 Is anyone else having difficulty "finding" this thread? On my end it's showing the latest post as 10 April, so it never shows up as a recently updated thread and I have to page through every time until I find it. That's strange. I don't have that problem. Maybe you should empty your browser's cache. When you have too much old data stored there it can happen that you are being displayed old versions of a web page.
Lord David Posted April 29, 2012 Report Posted April 29, 2012 I think however the cauldron ends up being lit, it should be a 3 piece affair. Commemorating the past 2 Olympics, with a dramatic lead up to the main cauldron.
Kenadian Posted April 29, 2012 Report Posted April 29, 2012 The goal of the flaming arrow in Barcelona was to light the cauldron, not to hit it. Mission accomplished. And with great effect. I think hitting it would have been a disaster. *Clank*Splat*Screams* Arrow hits cauldron, bounces back into stands, sets people on fire. I think London should just go classy and keep it simple but exciting with light and music.
Kenadian Posted April 29, 2012 Report Posted April 29, 2012 Interesting about Vancouver is that the primary cauldron lit during the 2010 Opening Ceremony was inside a fully enclosed stadium and therefore relatively low in size. The secondary identical cauldron they lit afterwards in the open city square was so more people could share in it throughout the Games. From my recollections I think those Games were the first time the Olympic Cauldron has ever been lit inside a fully enclosed building. . That was the first time for lighting the Olympic flame indoors to open the Olympics...but not necessarily the first time the Olympic flame was indoors. The closing ceremony of the 1984 Winter Games were held at the Zetra ice hall in Sarajevo and there was a lantern with a flame in that arena. I believe this was somewhat of a tradition with past Winter Games concluding in an ice arena instead of a larger stadium. The Winter Games from Calgary 1988 onward got bigger.
Olympian2004 Posted April 29, 2012 Report Posted April 29, 2012 That was the first time for lighting the Olympic flame indoors to open the Olympics...but not necessarily the first time the Olympic flame was indoors. The closing ceremony of the 1984 Winter Games were held at the Zetra ice hall in Sarajevo and there was a lantern with a flame in that arena. I believe this was somewhat of a tradition with past Winter Games concluding in an ice arena instead of a larger stadium. The Winter Games from Calgary 1988 onward got bigger. I posted that above already -- including a video clip of the Lake Placid 1980 closing ceremony which shows an indoor cauldron, too.
Kenadian Posted April 29, 2012 Report Posted April 29, 2012 I posted that above already -- including a video clip of the Lake Placid 1980 closing ceremony which shows an indoor cauldron, too. Ooops. Missed it. I haven't been coming around the boards as much lately, so sorry if I'm not up to speed.
barrack Posted April 29, 2012 Report Posted April 29, 2012 Qatar, hosts of the 2022 World Cup, also hosted the 2006 Asian Games where this jaw dropping Cauldron was lit in this Doha stunner. I heard a lot about this ceremony, but this was the first time I saw it. Wow. Really stunning. Thanks for sharing.
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