Tokyo 2020 Ceremonies

[baron-pierreIV]

10 hours ago, mattygs said:

I really am curious as to where the Tokyo ceremonies budget actually went . Would be fascinating to find out the breakdown .

No trapdoors or holes , no fly wire system , no large props , no imposing stage construction , limited costumes…. They didn’t even have that much pyro .  Are hiring drones really that expensive …. Or was a big chunk of it golden handshakes to the multiple creatives that left . 

I doubt if (including Paralympic Ceremonies and medal ceremonies for both Games) it came to more than US$25 mil.  What did they pay Ballich?  $300K might be fair.  $500K would be too much for a consultant only.  Drones were probably loaned on a deal with Intel.  I say $25 mil is generous -- but if they really checked their expenses, might be closer to $17-18 mil. 

The big prop was the stage and the Cauldron.  For the 2 cauldrons, I'd guess $2.75 mil.  And they may be using the same for the Paras.  They used the same one for Nagano for both sets of Games.  

BTW, those gauzy outfits of the Field Marshalls have been the tackiest to date.  I don't know what they were supposed to be.  

[mattygs]

5 hours ago, baron-pierreIV said:

I doubt if (including Paralympic Ceremonies and medal ceremonies for both Games) it came to more than US$25 mil.  What did they pay Ballich?  $300K might be fair.  $500K would be too much for a consultant only.  Drones were probably loaned on a deal with Intel.  I say $25 mil is generous -- but if they really checked their expenses, might be closer to $17-18 mil. 

The big prop was the stage and the Cauldron.  For the 2 cauldrons, I'd guess $2.75 mil.  And they may be using the same for the Paras.  They used the same one for Nagano for both sets of Games.  

BTW, those gauzy outfits of the Field Marshalls have been the tackiest to date.  I don't know what they were supposed to be.  

I’ve seen articles (dec 2020) mentioning a ceremonies budget of US$117m , and that was before a potential increase . 

[Scotguy II]

Biggest let down of the ceremonies was that we did not get this:  

 

[baron-pierreIV]

2 hours ago, mattygs said:

I’ve seen articles (dec 2020) mentioning a ceremonies budget of US$117m , and that was before a potential increase . 

From the results of what we've actually seen, that is wildly fantastic.  As you said, there isn't much to show for and see.   Fireworks seems to be a major item though.  

P.S. Matty, after reading Yoshi's behind-the-scenes story below -- if the translation of the contents is even half-right, and taking into account the $117 million figure you saw, then my sight-guestimation of $17 million for what we saw of the just-concluded Olympic ceremonies, was right.  The "$100 million never seen" was squandered by Dentsu and/or pocketed by those execs.   I cannot imagine that the Paralympic ceremonies will be larger than the regular ones.  

Edited August 9, 2021 by baron-pierreIV

[Palette86]

12 minutes ago, baron-pierreIV said:

Fireworks seems to be a major item though.  

Those were made in euro (ESP or ITA).

[yoshi]

Fully free to read, properly translated page:

https://aramajapan.com/news/tokyo-2020-opening-ceremony-original-plan-leaks-in-full/114631/

This other Reddit thread that came up overnight is interesting too:

Seems like Dentsu and that particular man in charge, Mori are more to blame than Covid - sounds like Japan's famous (and often admirable) respect for elders went rather too far if the OP of that thread is right. Is there also a bit of misogyny involved with some top level decision makers at places like the organising committee and Dentsu, that's twice that an innovative major proposal by a woman has been dumped for much more staid male replacement. Admittedly that was just as well with the impossible stadium but this is such a shame. 

 

[baron-pierreIV]

1 minute ago, Palette86 said:

Those were made in euro (ESP or ITA).

That's so funny becuz for Beijing 2008, they had the New York firm of Grucci do the fireworks.  I wonder who did PyeongChang 2018 (Canada? FRA? Taiwan?  ) -- and wonder if Grucci will again do Beijing 2022?  So the Asian tigers cannot trust themselves to do their own Olympic fireworks shows?  

[baron-pierreIV]

34 minutes ago, yoshi said:

Fully free to read, properly translated page:

https://aramajapan.com/news/tokyo-2020-opening-ceremony-original-plan-leaks-in-full/114631/

This other Reddit thread that came up overnight is interesting too:

Seems like Dentsu and that particular man in charge, Mori are more to blame than Covid - sounds like Japan's famous (and often admirable) respect for elders went rather too far if the OP of that thread is right. Is there also a bit of misogyny involved with some top level decision makers at places like the organising committee and Dentsu, that's twice that an innovative major proposal by a woman has been dumped for much more staid male replacement. Admittedly that was just as well with the impossible stadium but this is such a shame. 

 

Thanks for posting that, Yoshi.  A few thoughts:

1.  It sounds very much like the story of Kristi Alveberg for Lillehammer 1994.  She also had a nervous breakdown when other forces with the OCOG started tinkering with her original ideas and tried to ease her out.  I interviewed her for my book.

2.  Sad to say, I worked for the Manila office of Dentsu briefly back in the 1970s -- but it was a small one then and had no Japanese execs nor did it do Special Eventing.  It was strictly advertising in the traditional sense.  

3.  So MIKIKO only worked on the Opening? So her original work did not include ideas for Closing and/or the Paralympics?  

4.  I wonder how reliable that Reddit story is --or is it just character assassination of the Sasaki guy? 

P.S.  How odd that TOCOG did not put out RFPs from foreign production companies who do this sort of thing -- even after the Covid-Dentsu fiasco.  I guess the old Mori-TOCOG regime wanted to keep the Ceremonies portfolio strictly Japanese and within the "old-boy" network.    

Edited August 9, 2021 by baron-pierreIV

[Ikarus360]

All this catastrophe regarding the organization of the opening ceremony just highlights heavily everything which is wrong with Japan right now and why they have fallen behind in the innovative area compared to their neighbours China and Korea. Too sad that the young innovative people are always trampled by a bunch of boomers because of muh respect to the eldery (Japan only has one Unicorn city, in fact (a term used for the most innovative cities ) which is Fukuoka, coincidentally the city with the largest number of younger people in the country. Embarassing for a nation which many have promoted to be a hub of innovation).

Like I said before, Japan really can't into opening/closing ceremonies. Next time they host an Olympics I know i'll do best to sleep well that day and don't bother to wake up to watch it.

PS: I see the only things they kept from the original plan in the end were the Drones (though heavily watered down) and the cauldron (only the sphere/flower part of it though).

[Ikarus360]

10 minutes ago, baron-pierreIV said:

Thanks for posting that, Yoshi.  Three thoughts:

1.  It sounds very much like the story of Kristi Alveberg for Lillehammer 1994.  She also had a nervous breakdown when other forces with the OCOG started tinkering with her original ideas and tried to ease her out.  I interviewed her for my book.

2.  Sad to say, I worked for the Manila office of Dentsu briefly back in the 1970s -- but it was a small one then and had no Japanese execs nor did it do Special Eventing.  It was strictly advertising in the traditional sense.  

3.  I wonder how reliable that Reddit story is?  

I think its reliable enough. For a lot of weeks i've seen people in japanese social media talking about how Dentsu ruined the opening ceremony and how they're also the most despised company in Japan at the moment due to many of their shady actions. The reddit user did their homework pretty well, but a lot of weebs are still in damage control and blaming this mess at the IOC and the pandemic.

[baron-pierreIV]

I wonder if the real story behind the 2020 Ceremonies will appear in the Official Records. 

The IOC couldn't get the Beijing 2008 OCOG to produce a more honest OR.  They rejected the first version sent to them; sent it back -- and the Beijing 2008 supposedly said they were revising it but just sent back almost the same thing a few months later/  By that time, the IOC just accepted it because it was already soooo way behind schedule and the IOC was already pre-occupied with Vancouver 2010.  

I wonder if Beijing will pull the same B/S after 2022.  

Edited August 9, 2021 by baron-pierreIV

[yoshi]

So Dentsu are well known for this kind of thing in Japan then - it sounds like the equivalent of us giving the ceremony direction to Serco . Was there an outcry when they were given responsibility for the ceremony?

[baron-pierreIV]

9 minutes ago, yoshi said:

So Dentsu are well known for this kind of thing in Japan then - it sounds like the equivalent of us giving the ceremony direction to Serco . Was there an outcry when they were given responsibility for the ceremony?

What is Serco? 

There probably would NOT have been "an outcry" because that was an inside Creative decision apparently, not to put out RFPs for ideas, but give it to an ad company the way Jack Morton WW is/was a division of the big US advertising firm, Ogilvy & Mather.  As Japan's largest advertising agency, I imagine many of Japan's Olympic sponsors are handled by Dentsu, so it would only seem natural to give a large and experienced company like Dentsu the plum job of Ceremonies.  

But from an outsider's POV (like mine), it appears that some people in Dentsu saw the Ceremonies contract as a cash cow; and when things were postponed in April 2020 and things went to hell, Sasaki-Mori took the money and ran; and Ceremonies became the least of the worries of the new OCOG directrix.   And whoever wanted to still do the Ceremonies only had very little time and a revised, severely limited budget to work up new creatives appropriate to the Covid situation.  

Edited August 9, 2021 by baron-pierreIV

[yoshi]

Ah sorry yeah, that's a bit of a British reference too far. They're like a contractor for all kinds of stuff that's outsourced by government, councils etc and they have something of a reverse King Midas reputation. A better example would probably be G4S, similar thing, similar reputation. They're the ones who got the security contract for 2012, but made such a spectacular moo of it that we had to call the army in to replace them on day 2. 

[TorchbearerSydney]

Well that story makes sense of the no-budget mess of the ceremonies.....that managed to have no contemporary Japanese references (manga/JPop/ Harajuku girls/ anime etc...).... Sad that Studio Gibli (Howls Moving Castle, Spirited Away) for example wasn't just given control.

[baron-pierreIV]

1 hour ago, TorchbearerSydney said:

Well that story makes sense of the no-budget mess of the ceremonies.....that managed to have no contemporary Japanese references (manga/JPop/ Harajuku girls/ anime etc...).... Sad that Studio Gibli (Howls Moving Castle, Spirited Away) for example wasn't just given control.

What makes you say that Gibli might even have been interested in the job?  Do you really think the Japanese organizers are so naive as to NOT have approached the right parties?  Gibli is an animation studio. What qualifications do they have in putting on Unique Special Events?  It was a combination of corrupt parties at Dentsu and then larger-than-life events like Covid that sank the original plans.  

For Nagano, they worked with the right theatrical parties in Tokyo.  That one does not like results doesn't mean that OCOG made the wrong choices.  You might as well blame the IOC for consenting to the artistic choices.  

[BigVic]

Ceremonies were scaled-back due to COVID.

 

Vancouver hired David Atkins Enterprises who are an Australian company to do their ceremonies instead of local Canadian talent. London went with Danny Boyle 

[Ikarus360]

1 hour ago, BigVic said:

Ceremonies were scaled-back due to COVID.

 

Vancouver hired David Atkins Enterprises who are an Australian company to do their ceremonies instead of local Canadian talent. London went with Danny Boyle 

David Atkins produced the show but all of the performers were canadian and i'm pretty sure Atkins also brought in some talents to be in charge of aspects of the ceremonies.

Ironically, Australia used a british production company for both 2006 and 2018 CWG (Jack Morton) and I remember the Gold Coast decision was heavily criticized back then though in the end they're producers who are still using native talent to create a show.

[SeriousPotato]

11 hours ago, baron-pierreIV said:

I wonder if the real story behind the 2020 Ceremonies will appear in the Official Records. 

The IOC couldn't get the Beijing 2008 OCOG to produce a more honest OR.  They rejected the first version sent to them; sent it back -- and the Beijing 2008 supposedly said they were revising it but just sent back almost the same thing a few months later/  By that time, the IOC just accepted it because it was already soooo way behind schedule and the IOC was already pre-occupied with Vancouver 2010.  

I wonder if Beijing will pull the same B/S after 2022.  

Huh. I wonder what was so objectionable that caused the IOC to reject it, if it was basically what we got in 2008. 

[baron-pierreIV]

4 hours ago, SeriousPotato said:

Huh. I wonder what was so objectionable that caused the IOC to reject it, if it was basically what we got in 2008. 

Because it was just a propaganda piece that those Games of 2008 were the PERFECT GAMES, produced from HEAVEN -- no flaws, no hiccups, no warts -- nothing that could really be passed on to future organizing committees that there were hurdles to be overcome, and this is how the Org Committee confronted the problems and resolved them.  In other words, it was like a perfect sales catalogue from Forest Lawn.  Other Official Reports show that they are run by humans, warts and all.  Nope; not the OR of 2008.  

Edited August 10, 2021 by baron-pierreIV

[SeriousPotato]

1 hour ago, baron-pierreIV said:

Because it was just a propaganda piece that those Games of 2008 were the PERFECT GAMES, produced from HEAVEN -- no flaws, no hiccups, no warts -- nothing that could really be passed on to future organizing committees that there were hurdles to be overcome, and this is how the Org Committee confronted the problems and resolved them.  In other words, it was like a perfect sales catalogue from Forest Lawn.  Other Official Reports show that they are run by humans, warts and all.  Nope; not the OR of 2008.  

D'oh, I misread your post as talking about the ceremonies concept being rejected, not the OR. My mistake!

That makes sense.

[Nacholympic]

No news about the Opening Ceremony of the Paralympics???

Any idea? Any sneak peak?

[JMarkSnow2012]

3 hours ago, Nacholympic said:

No news about the Opening Ceremony of the Paralympics???

Any idea? Any sneak peak?

Please, please, leave us a just a tiny bit of hope ...

[Palette86]

Little bit off of flow of recent discussion.

Here's a link to rewatch closing ceremony.https://olympics.com/tokyo-2020/en/replay/a10fea3d-d768-48ef-bba6-f94ed63c7d34/closing-ceremony

Probably,full video.

[baron-pierreIV]

14 minutes ago, Palette86 said:

Little bit off of flow of recent discussion.

Here's a link to rewatch closing ceremony.https://olympics.com/tokyo-2020/en/replay/a10fea3d-d768-48ef-bba6-f94ed63c7d34/closing-ceremony

Probably,full video.

NOTHING in there.