Ceremonies and newsreels

[JMarkSnow2012]

With hindsight we can see pretty much exactly how and why Olympic opening ceremonies ended up the way they are today.

Although the inaugural 1896 Olympics had an opening ceremony, with the Games declared open by the King of Greece, the next two, in 1900 and 1904, did not, because the Olympics were treated as mere entertainment for visitors to international exhibitions. The decade-anniversary Games back in Greece notched up the ceremonial and introduced the parade of athletes, a tradition which was continued and refined in subsequent Games.

So here's where the newsreels come in; the Opening Ceremony was a distinct event which could be filmed and used to convey both the flavour of Olympism and the setting for each edition of the Games. The parade, however, introduced a very clever additional dimension- the potential to supply any nation with a short clip of its own athletes marching proudly behind their flag. There was no intention for any cinemas to show the whole parade, so although the number of participating nations more than doubled between 1908 (the first parade with flags) and 1936 (the first ceremony shown live on TV) the increasing length of the parade made very little practical difference.

By the way, the desire for cinema coverage was a key reason why the ceremonies were held in daylight; both film and TV cameras required brighter light than stadium floodlights could supply. For artistic purposes though, artificial light had long been preferred, and when stadium-scale cultural performances began to be associated with Olympic ceremonies, starting in 1928 but reaching an astonishing peak in 1936, they were held in the evening, after the athletes had left the stadium.

The 1936 television coverage was only available in a couple of dozen public viewing venues, but households within reach of the BBC's transmitter in 1948 could view the Games from the comfort of their own homes (though the programme schedule in the evening still ended when the light happened to become inadequate) and by 1956 the Eurovision network enabled live coverage of events across the continent. The liveness of the coverage benefited both viewers and broadcasters, because it would have been prohibitively expensive and complicated to film several days of competition. For the Olympics, being televised was the revolution.

 

TBC

[Sir Rols]

A great, thoughtful and interesting bit of analysis there JMark! Are you planning to continue into the era of Rome and beyond?

BTW - I moved it here, I thought it was more of a pure Olympic topic than general or non-Olympic general discussion

[baron-pierreIV]

2 hours ago, JMarkSnow2012 said:

TBC

Very interesting JMark.  3 questions:

1.  Is this entirely and originally your work?

2. Would you care to collaborate on this for an article for the ISOH Journal?  (I am most interested, but let me investigate first the possibility because authorship is currently limited to ISOH members in good standing.)  

3.  What does "TBC" on the bottom left mean?  

You may reply to me privately (by PM) if you wish.  Thanks.  

Edited March 24, 2022 by baron-pierreIV

[baron-pierreIV]

2 hours ago, JMarkSnow2012 said:

By the way, the desire for cinema coverage was a key reason why the ceremonies were held in daylight; both film and TV cameras required brighter light than stadium floodlights could supply. For artistic purposes though, artificial light had long been preferred, and when stadium-scale cultural performances began to be associated with Olympic ceremonies, starting in 1928 but reaching an astonishing peak in 1936, they were held in the evening, after the athletes had left the stadium.

TBC

Well, even back then, nobody foresaw using their T&F stadia at night.  So, only Berlin 1936 Closing and Oslo 1952 ceremonies -- both exterior -- were conducted when darkness fell.  Then jump to Rome 1960 when that closed at night.  And after that, darkness became a more favored option for the Ceremonies.  

[Olympics2028]

I'm guessing the "TBC" means "to be continued."

JMark, very interesting. Unlike certain forumers, I don't mind conversations about "Olympics." Longer postings too. Not just quips or one liners.

I'm sure TV has affected the Olympics a lot. But I'm thinking segments of things like both the opening and closing ceremonies occurring at nighttime is being done just as much for creative reasons as for anything else.

I believe the 1984 games in LA started earlier than the 1996 games in Atlanta did because of the West Coast having to accommodate the East Coast. Or where, say, 8:00 pm on the West is 11:00 pm in the east.

Personally, since I favor the brighter, friendlier look of a daytime event, I hope the 2028 games' opening reverts back to a pre-sunset format.

I think 1992's opening in Barcelona started with the sun up, but ended with the sun totally down. I believe even Atlanta 1996 was sort of the same way.

[Sir Rols]

7 hours ago, JMarkSnow2012 said:

For artistic purposes though, artificial light had long been preferred, and when stadium-scale cultural performances began to be associated with Olympic ceremonies, starting in 1928 but reaching an astonishing peak in 1936, they were held in the evening, after the athletes had left the stadium.

You piqued my interest there, so I watched, for the first time in many years, the opening ceremony parts of Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia. That only showed the daytime part - the athletes marching in, Hitler’s opening words and the cauldron lighting. What exactly was in the nighttime cultural performances?  I assume Speer’s Cathedral of Light, but what else? Are there any clips of it?

[baron-pierreIV]

28 minutes ago, Sir Rols said:

That only showed the daytime   I assume Speer’s Cathedral of Light, but what else? Are there any clips of it?

The Cathedral of Light and other gymnastic formations were in the night-time Closing.  I guess there was no handover portion to Tokyo 1940 then either.  

2nd night-time Closing ceremony- Roma 1960.  It was a very quiet Closing Ceremony; I guess they were testing the stadium for the Deaflympics.  
 

 

Edited March 25, 2022 by baron-pierreIV

[Sir Rols]

21 minutes ago, baron-pierreIV said:

The Cathedral of Light and other gymnastic formations were in the night-time Closing.  I guess there was no handover portion to Tokyo 1940 then either.  
 

Thanks for that M. I skipped through to the end (it really is a turgid film) but all they showed of the closing was athletes and flag marching in, a bit of flag waving, and then the bell tolling overlaying the stadium.

One interesting thing - just before that I caught the victory presentation for Japan’s Son. I noticed they gave them all olive wreaths to wear, but didn’t notice any medals. When were hey given?

[baron-pierreIV]

4 minutes ago, Sir Rols said:

One interesting thing - just before that I caught the victory presentation for Japan’s Son. I noticed they gave them all olive wreaths to wear, but didn’t notice any medals. When were hey given?

I guess afterwards.  I wonder if they ran out.  It was also at Berlin where they handed out 124 oak saplings from the oldest oak tree in Berlin to 124 gold medalists.  3 of those which went home with Jesse Owens survived and have grown into great oak trees.  Only time it's been done.  They missed that oppty for Rio.  

[JMarkSnow2012]

4 hours ago, Sir Rols said:

You piqued my interest there, so I watched, for the first time in many years, the opening ceremony parts of Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia. That only showed the daytime part - the athletes marching in, Hitler’s opening words and the cauldron lighting. What exactly was in the nighttime cultural performances?  I assume Speer’s Cathedral of Light, but what else? Are there any clips of it?

As the Baron pointed out, Cathedral of Light was in the closing. There are, as far as I can tell, no clips of the evening "Festival of Youth" opening performance, but there are recordings of the Carl Orff music, and a very detailed description, with a few photos, in the 1936 Games Official Report. Bryan Pinkall has handily extracted the Opening Ceremony pages from the Report on his website:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4Bi7QZNdhDYOWhfMFRJQXQ4Vmc/view?resourcekey=0-CAVh3ye6TKJwH7X9XfHrCg

[JMarkSnow2012]

TBC does indeed mean "To Be Continued" (another instalment this evening UK time with luck). Meanwhile, a couple of British newsreel samples (apologies if the videos turn out to be region-blocked!):

https://www.britishpathe.com/video/oly12-the-olympic-games-1932

https://www.britishpathe.com/video/VLVA6LVFHBDUOO4YYUC2BH8W8BUUH-OLYMPIC-GAMES-START-IN-BERLIN/

[JMarkSnow2012]

PS: The other big British newsreel provider went much more for the full atmosphere of the 1936 opening :

https://www.britishpathe.com/video/oly12-berlin-olympics-opening-ceremony-and-owens-gold-opening-march-and-hitler-speech/

 

[the inclusion of "owens-gold" in the name is a cataloguer's error]

[Olympics2028]

I notice at the 1960 games in Rome, the closing traditionally had only the flag bearer of each nation (maybe the top athlete of each country?) come out and walk around the running track. Other participants weren't active parts of the closing.

Then I believe the athletes at the 1968 games in Mexico City pushed against protocol and walked out unexpectedly into the stadium.

[Olympics2028]

13 hours ago, baron-pierreIV said:

 It was also at Berlin where they handed out 124 oak saplings from the oldest oak tree in Berlin to 124 gold medalists.  3 of those which went home with Jesse Owens survived and have grown into great oak trees.  Only time it's been done.  They missed that oppty for Rio.  

2012 handed out to each participating nation a metal stem of their dandelion-like cauldron.

The 1936 cauldron still sits in Berlin.

As you point out, some of the oak trees from saplings given to athletes at Berlin's games are still alive.

The Cathedral of Lights in 1936 gave that event a heroic-ized touch.

At the 1948 games in London, its cauldron was portable and not a permanent fixture. Same thing with the setup of the 2012 games.

I know the politics surrounding the 1936 games is very dark. But its symbolic elements have a more big-time quality.

 

[baron-pierreIV]

17 minutes ago, Olympics2028 said:

2012 handed out to each participating nation a metal stem of their dandelion-like cauldron.

The 1936 cauldron still sits in Berlin.

As you point out, some of the oak trees from saplings given to athletes at Berlin's games are still alive.

The Cathedral of Lights in 1936 gave that event a heroic-ized touch.

At the 1948 games in London, its cauldron was portable and not a permanent fixture. Same thing with the setup of the 2012 games.

I know the politics surrounding the 1936 games is very dark. But its symbolic elements have a more big-time quality.

 

I know nearly all of that.  

[JMarkSnow2012]

The second instalment, slightly later than advertised (sorry):

Before going further forward in time, it's helpful to consider the content of the ceremonies. The opening ceremony of the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, following the catastrophes of the First World War and the Flu epidemic, introduced multiple protocol elements which would today be considered ideal for Instagram or TikTok, but at the time were perfectly suited to silent cinema newsreels: Baron de Coubertin's Olympic flag design was bold enough to look stylish even in black-and-white; the release of doves to symbolise peace was beautiful, and even the athlete's oath was snappy enough and honourable enough to be worthy of consideration by editors. The display of a traditional Olympic Flame in Amsterdam 1928 was another very newsreel-worthy addition (except of course that in a daylight ceremony, what was most notable was the smoke). All these additions also played well with the stadium spectators, and helped to balance against the ever-increasing length of the Parade of Nations.

It may be no accident that Amsterdam, in addition to its unfilmable evening drama, also featured some ambitious musical performances during the ceremony. Talking pictures were just becoming commercially feasible and there may well have been a hope that such an audiovisual record would be made. As pure audio experiences, the ceremonies did not rate highly; BBC radio seems to have ignored them altogether until 1936, when it presented a 25-minute programme of introduction and ceremony highlights. The 1952 and 1956 ceremonies which were beyond the reach of the available international TV system were given even shorter radio treatments at 10 & 15 minutes respectively. Nonetheless, music (most commonly large bands and/or choirs) and dance became quite regular features of opening ceremonies, often giving a flavour of local culture while providing entertainment between the protocol elements.

Music was also, of course, essential for the parade of nations, requiring ever-longer medleys as the number of competing teams grew. Again, BBC programme schedules indicate how, despite the lack of new regular elements after the introduction of the Torch Relay climax in 1936, opening ceremonies got longer and longer simply because number of competitors kept growing. Ignoring 1948, when the BBC gave themselves a full 155 minutes to experiment with production ideas, the progression is from 105 minutes in 1960 (down to 65 non-live minutes in 1964 because of a combination of time-zone problems and satellite link cost) to 135 minutes in 1972.

But 1972 and 1976 marked the tentative beginnings of the truly modern era in opening ceremonies. The first German opening ceremony since 1936 chose to face that dark era head on, by ending with a specially commissioned work from Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki, titled "Ekecheiria" from the ancient Greek word for a truce. Montreal 1976 took a more North American approach, using dancers to accompany the flag handover from Munich (not a closing ceremony feature in those days), and then effectively ending the ceremony with a schmaltzy, ribbon-twirly, mass dance performance by youngsters, all around the running track, treating the oaths which followed as semi-optional extras.

Montreal's famous unluckiness continued right into the Games themselves, which were boycotted, through no fault of the Canadians, by nearly a quarter of the competing nations. That rather drastically shortened the Parade of Nations, and favourably rebalanced it (from an entertainment point-of-view) with the enhanced cultural content. There was surely no way the next Olympics would face such a major boycott, so the logical way forward would be to increase the amount of cultural content ...

TBC

[JMarkSnow2012]

4 minutes ago, JMarkSnow2012 said:

was snappy enough

... to fit on a silent movie caption card. It isn't now, but it was then.

[JMarkSnow2012]

The third instalment ...

The first two instalments of this series showed how the form of Olympic ceremonies developed, mostly between the First and Second World Wars, to provide memorable moments suitable for cinema newsreels around the world, and how the ever-increasing length of one of the key protocol elements, the Parade of Nations, became a problem from the 1960s onward, when live TV broadcasts replaced newsreels. Following tentative steps in 1972 and 1976, Moscow 1980 became the locus for a great rebalancing.

As in 1972 and 1976, the local culture segment in 1980 was placed at the end of the ceremony, after the lighting of the Olympic Cauldron, but this time it was well over an hour long. Its climax was the formation of the Olympic Rings. That running order was problematic for TV viewers, who were not universally thrilled by the prospect of sitting through an indeterminably long Parade of Nations. In LA 1984, the order was therefore amended to start with the cultural segment, displaying the Rings within the first few minutes and making the Cauldron lighting the climax. That helped, but it did not leave enough of an attraction at the end to make viewers endure the parade, so in Seoul 1988 a compromise was attempted: half the cultural segment before the Parade, the remainder, including a particularly creative formation of the Rings, after the Cauldron lighting.

The content of all the 1980s Summer opening ceremonies was in a sense quite similar, heavily dependent upon "symbolic" mass movement routines and huge music ensembles (though there were attention-grabbing gimmicks, including what turned into a memorable battle of "card stunts" in the arena seating between Moscow and LA, the former using ranks of trained military cadets while the latter involved the entire audience in a much simpler routine). Seoul took synchronised movement to a new level, and also featured quite extraordinary costumes and props (the same could be said of the Winter opening ceremony at Calgary in Canada the same year, but not necessarily in a good sense).

A note about Cauldron lighting. Since the first Torch Relay in 1936, in summer Games the last runner had usually been a youngster, typically a potential future Olympian, the most dramatic exception being Helsinki 1952's Finnish veteran Paavo Nurmi, who had controversially been declared a non-amateur in 1932 after Gold medal successes in 1920, 1924 and 1928. Moscow 1980 created its own controversy by picking Sergei Belov, who had been the dominant player in the Soviet victory over the US Basketball team in 1972. LA 1984 played the grown-up card by fielding Rafer Johnson, one of the most respected athletes in history thanks to a career which had taken him far beyond sport. However, Seoul 1988 quite ostentatiously returned to the old tradition, with three young unknowns jointly taking responsibility for the flame brought into the stadium by Korea's most revered Olympian, Sohn Kee-chung, winner of the 1936 marathon.

Closing ceremonies were shorter than the opening ceremonies (typically allotted a TV slot of an hour or less by the BBC, whereas the openings were by 1988 well over 3 hours long) but as TV camera technology had evolved to cope with low light by the 1950s, it became customary to hold them around sunset after a day's competition. This permitted atmospheric lighting, including lights held by spectators, and from 1964 onward, a concluding firework display. The organisers of the 1992 Barcelona opening ceremony observed that local sunset would be around 9pm, right in the middle of Prime Time, and seem to have asked the very reasonable question, "Why not follow the Seoul model of a split cultural segment, but have the second half after sunset, concluding with fireworks?" This would not be the only bold creative decision in 1992.

TBC

[JMarkSnow2012]

The fourth instalment ...

First a little more about sunset. Local sunset times can be affected both by latitude and longitude. Latitude matters most in politically-dictated time-zones which are wider than 1/24 of the Earth's circumference; for example Barcelona, Paris and Atlanta are all beyond the western edges of their "natural" time-zones, so local sunset is an hour later than you would expect. Longitude matters most in countries furthest from the Equator, so that the longest day of the year in Atlanta or Sydney is about 4.5 hours longer than the shortest, whereas the longest day in London is about 8.8 hours longer than the shortest.

Before we return to the progression of Summer opening ceremonies, I'd also like to mention the elephant which isn't in the room. Olympic opening ceremonies have always been intended to convey the spirit of Olympism, and the spirit of the upcoming Games. Only the Parade is purely "about the athletes" and the ceremonies are absolutely not supposed to be about sport in general. That's what the sport events are for!

We have seen that the Parade was conceived in the era of cinema newsreels, but thanks to an ever-expanding field of competing nations, became a growing problem once the opening ceremony started to be experienced primarily as a live TV event. Hence the decision in the 1970s to encourage expansion of the "spirit of the upcoming Games" theme to a more general presentation of the host nation's culture. Throughout the 1980s this took its inspiration from the sort of performances seen much earlier in association with other sport events: marching bands, drill teams, cheerleaders, and their Korean equivalents. But now it's 1992, and the Winter Olympic opening ceremony at Albertville in France has taken some stylistic hints from Seoul 1988, boosting the artistic credibility of the performances.

As the capital of a nation subsumed within a major nation-state, Barcelona takes that principle to a new level, using the ceremony to depict Catalonia as a cultural powerhouse worthy of global respect. That is achieved in the 1992 daylight performances both by literal presentation of the work of local cultural icons, and by the introduction of a climactic, stadium-filling drama performance telling the legendary story of Barcelona's foundation. The post-Parade, post-sunset protocol section of the ceremony is peppered with performances and interludes, before the Paralympian perfection of the Cauldron lighting introduces a 25-minute bonus of more traditional acrobatic and musical performances, culminating in a firework display.

You can see the influence of Seoul and Barcelona very clearly in the Atlanta 1996 presentation of the city's culture and history (or rather, the culture and history of another nation subsumed within a major nation-state) but the celebration of the centennial Games provided an opportunity to combine the "spirit of Olympism" and "spirit of the host nation" in segments such as the tribute to Martin Luther King, and the singing of "Citius, Altius, Fortius" by Jessye Norman.

Another element which was becoming standard by 1996 was the combined length of the various cultural elements: over 80 minutes in total, though the balance of pre- and post-Parade elements was gradually shifting to lengthen the pre- and shorten the post-. Atlanta chose to start during twilight, over an hour later by local time than Barcelona but perfect for east coast TV prime-time, which meant that the post-Parade segment occupied the Late Show slot. In Sydney 2000, closer to the Equator and further from the longest day, even a start at Barcelona's early time would be in twilight, so they opted for full darkness throughout, while still starting earlier, by local time, than Atlanta. What that permitted Sydney to accomplish will be considered in the next instalment.

TBC

[Sir Rols]

Reallly great analyses, JMark. Looking forward to see the Sydney installement.

[JMarkSnow2012]

The fifth instalment ...

A key feature of the whole Sydney 2000 Games was the emphasis on providing a great experience for visitors, which was reflected in the opening ceremony. Barcelona 1992 had established the principle that an Olympic opening ceremony should feature whatever types of stadium performance experiences the host nation (and indeed the host city, to which, after all, the Games were officially awarded) could create to show itself to the world*. Sydney 2000 supersized the concept, with the longest artistic segments in Olympic history, and one of the largest ceremony casts ever assembled (despite the nation of Australia having a population under 20 million at the time). Those statistics are directly linked, because Sydney chose to feature a large number of short performances, each requiring its own stadium-scale cast. Preparation for the ceremony involved years of investment in performing arts education.

It's only when you try to use it for something other than track athletics that you start to appreciate how ridiculously large an Olympic arena really is. To accommodate a field-sports area within an 8-lane, 400-metre running track requires an arena around 190 by 120 metres, so a spectator in the middle ranks of seating beyond one of the rounded ends of the track will be over 100 metres from the centre of the infield, and athletes or performers in that location will appear about 1 degree high. Therefore, if the stadium video screens are also in the rounded ends, the same spectator will be unable to see the screen next to them, and the 7.5 metre high image of a performer or athlete on screen at the opposite end, over 200 metres away, will only appear about 2 degrees high. Compare the recommended height for home TV viewing, 20 degrees, and it becomes apparent that "jumbotron" screens are no substitute for spreading performers over a wide area. In addition to its large cast, Sydney attempted to reduce the maximum viewing distance by offsetting its screens to the ends of the stadium's side-roofs (i.e. the corners if the stadium had been rectangular), alternating the jumbotrons and scoreboards, which had previously been placed side-by-side at the ends of the arena.

Atlanta had struggled with the need to present both local culture and centennial Olympic history, so Sydney opted for a fairly straightforward chronological progression, cleverly framed by the dream-journey of young Nikki Webster. Very significantly, where Atlanta had irrelevantly and irreverently co-opted Native American symbolism to help portray the one theme in local history which was globally well-known, Sydney made indigenous Australians the heroes of Nikki's story, and ultimately the heroes of the whole ceremony thanks to an elegant choice of Cauldron-lighter. There were also some technical improvements, such as the use of roof-level cables to create "flying" effects, plus an early use of very large-scale projection to create the Dove.

In effect, Sydney perfected the ceremony format which Barcelona pioneered- almost. Both Atlanta and Sydney suffered embarrassing hold-ups with mechanical elements of their cauldron-lighting, but Sydney's was forgiven because of its mechanism's epic ambition.

The Parade of Nations in 1996 had taken about 1 hour 55 minutes for 197 teams; Sydney crammed 199 teams into 1 hour 50 minutes. This meant that overall, for the only time in Olympic history, Sydney's cultural performances (if you include most of the song "Heroes Live Forever" which accompanied the extended symbolic dove release) took up roughly as much time as the Parade. This worked well for the stadium audience, but some critics suggested it was too much for TV, perhaps partly because on the typical screen of 2000, a stadium-scale spectacle is reduced to a smallish rectangle.

Dimitris Papaioannou, artistic director of the 2004 opening ceremony, was one of those who held that view, and he began what became a 21st century trend- that each Summer opening ceremony was defined by its opposition to the one before it. He assumed that the stadium spectators, mostly Greek, would be happy with anything that portrayed their culture, even presented on the tiniest scale ...

... because again, the vast TV audience would be experiencing the ceremony in that small rectangle, much better suited to displaying an individual than a crowd. Papaioannou decided that the ceremony should be filmed as if taking place in a studio, mostly using close-ups of small groups of performers; stadium scale would be provided by mechanical and pyrotechnic effects. He also drastically reduced the length of the cultural performance, to about three-quarters of an hour, only 40 minutes of which preceded the Parade. Remarkably, by no means all of this short performance was about Greek culture. Instead, using the theme "Birthplace," Papaioannou implied that Greece was the source not just of the Olympics but of geometry, love, and even life itself.

The introduction of 140 bpm club choons from Dutch DJ Tiësto for the Parade had a surprising effect: with just two additional teams, the Parade was nearly ten minutes longer than in 2000. The main technical innovations in 2004 were the introduction of a stadium basement, from which large props could be raised by the Sydney-style overhead cables, and the flooding of most of the arena to represent the Aegean Sea. The "Clepsydra" historical parade was not an innovation but an adaptation of an old street carnival feature; in keeping with Papaioannou's "TV studio" policy, the parade was abandoned as soon as the last wagon had passed the TV cameras, sited next to the entrance.

* On the topic of performance experiences, I should have mentioned in the last instalment that the 1992 and 1996 ceremonies both added Caribbean carnival to their repertoire of celebratory styles.

TBC

[JMarkSnow2012]

The sixth instalment

The Athens 2004 opening ceremony had been minimalist, but austerely beautiful and thoughtful. In the 21st century spirit of opposition to the opening ceremony four years previously, Zhang Yimou, director for Beijing 2008, did something rather startling: he put an austerely beautiful, minimalist performance inside a dynamic, maximalist display of precision mass movement to outdo even Seoul 1988. The 2008 opening demonstrated to Western viewers that Chinese culture had developed over a similar timespan to Greek culture, for the most part quite independently, and on a much larger scale. The duration of the cultural performance returned to the 80-minute standard (effectively all before the Parade), and to the multiplicity of short scenes favoured by Sydney, necessitating an even larger cast. In keeping with the artistic seriousness, however, Nikki Webster was replaced as unifying factor by a concept: the Four Great Inventions (although children were featured at appropriate moments).

What made the Beijing ceremony work so astonishingly well was the shapes formed by the mass movement. They used performers as pixels, and their overall beautiful neatness & simplicity worked as well on the TV screen as in the stadium (or perhaps even better, as no stadium spectators had the sort of celestial view of the whole arena available to some of the TV cameras). Technically, the main innovation was the use of an LED floor, which permitted a pictorial equivalent of Athens' Clepsydra parade to run concurrently with the human performances. Two years later, the Vancouver Winter Olympic opening ceremony showed that a roughly equivalent effect could be obtained much more cheaply using multiple computer-coordinated projectors (which in 2008 were used only on the inner wall of the stadium roof) setting a precedent which would be used in almost every Olympic ceremony until Beijing unveiled an improved version of its LED floor in 2022. Incidentally, the recent availability of an HD recording of the 2008 ceremony on YouTube has made it possible to examine and appreciate details like the LED floor images, whereas paradoxically, because of camera limitations in 2004, the Athens ceremony is best seen in SD, a version no longer available on YouTube.

There were several further developments in the media world between 2008 and 2010, when planning of the London 2012 opening ceremony began. User bases for social media platforms had grown exponentially, and played a significant part in promoting the Vancouver Winter Olympics; 8k was being developed as the logical format for future flat TV screens which would occupy an entire living-room wall; and most dramatically in the shorter term, live 3-D coverage of sporting events was being provided by various broadcasters around the world. All these developments had potential consequences for the 2012 opening ceremony.

Social media had encouraged TV shows to include "Easter Eggs"- seemingly minor elements which alert viewers could interpret and share online. 400 years previously, William Shakespeare had been doing much the same in his plays, which are stuffed full of teasing references. The London 2012 opening ceremony was intended to work in much the same way; the more people shared references they spotted, either during the live broadcast or on later revisits via the increasingly popular video streaming services, the more value they would get from the experience. For example, the official media guide for global commentators never explained how the show was designed to illustrate both the 2012 Olympic slogan "Inspire a Generation" and the 2012 bid slogan "Games For Everyone" which was hidden in plain sight within a very wide interpretation of Tim Berners-Lee's slogan for the World Wide Web "This Is For Everyone". Also, amusingly, the media guide could not name the British company which had created the high-efficiency processor designs used in the majority of handheld electronic devices around the world, so instead a wide variety of sponsor-made gadgets using the technology were shown, and the hint was picked up on social media. In general, the media guide was much less prescriptive than those for Athens and Beijing, which had featured small pictures with captions for almost every incident in the performance. For example, the whole industrial revolution scene got just three captioned pictures plus a general summary and a few statistics.

Social media boosted the "For Everyone" concept, turning spectators into active participants. This was most apparent during the concluding firework display, which was shown on TV only from within the stadium and from the air. Video coverage from ground level, at distances ranging from tens of metres to tens of kilometres, was provided by hundreds of personal videos uploaded to YouTube, Facebook etc.

There was no chance that 8k would be available to consumers by 2012, though it could be fed to viewing rooms as the original Berlin 1936 Olympic TV coverage had (there were even the same number of cameras available: three). 3-D, on the other hand, was a developing market which could benefit massively from high-quality coverage of the Games. However, one thing which had already been definitively established was that shooting everything in 3-D and broadcasting only one eye's view for viewers without the appropriate equipment satisfies nobody. There would have to be two separate camera teams, shooting in very different styles, for every event broadcast in 3-D, including the opening and closing ceremonies (also two control rooms, two commentary teams, etc.).

Finnish broadcaster YLE's expertise in track & field coverage had been demonstrated in the inaugural IAAF World Championships in 1983, and  their producer Raimo Piltz was appointed to oversee the work of a Korean production team in the Seoul 1988 Olympics. As the idea of a neutral, international host broadcast organisation for the Games developed, YLE ultimately became responsible for all TV coverage of events in the main stadium at every summer Olympics. The Athens and Beijing opening ceremonies had been designed around the limited rehearsal time available with the YLE camera team, who would not arrive in the host city until shortly before the Games. London 2012 Ceremonies' Executive Producer for Broadcast, Hamish Hamilton, demonstrated that Danny Boyle's ceremony proposals made no such concessions, and the camera team would need to rehearse for much longer. Documentation on the discussions with the IOC about this does not seem to be available, but I wonder if the original suggestion was for YLE to provide the 3-D coverage, and a specialist team to be brought in for the main feed. The IOC insisted that the main coverage of protocol elements such as the Parade of Nations and the Cauldron lighting must come from the YLE team, so it seems likely that there were, in the end, three camera teams, two of which were only used for part of the time.

The insane complexity of the 2012 show was part of the 21st century opening ceremony tradition of opposition to the predecessor. So too was the decision to rely as much as possible on true volunteers without either military or performing arts training (though this was also another example of the "For Everyone" principle). The use of a slightly raised performance area to hide inflatable and kit-build scenic elements was not so much oppositional as a budgetary necessity, given that a 2008-style deep basement would extend well below the level of the adjacent rivers. Perhaps the most influential of such oppositional decisions was the appearance in each major scene of dark themes, up to and including death.

Overall, the ceremony had most in common with Sydney 2000, except for its use of extended stories with featured characters rather than mass movement vignettes. Even the "Glastonbury Tor" hill was a version of the elevated platform seen in Sydney and other pre-2004 ceremonies. The most significant showing-off extravagance was without doubt the provision of LED "pixel paddles" beside each seat. Attempts to use battery-powered radio-controlled units had failed, so hundreds of kilometres of wiring had to be installed so that each paddle could have its own full-time connection. In the context of the London stadium, however, the expense was fully justified, because the minimal roof coverage meant that most seats were visible in aerial shots. The paddles also provided the main visual attraction for stadium spectators at the closing ceremony, which rarely featured large groups of performers.

Finally, did the 3-D work? Yes it did; the visuals were highly praised by those who saw them (though broadcasters who chose "youth-oriented" commentators for their 3-D coverage did themselves no favours). On the other hand, no it didn't, because only the polarised lens projection system used in cinemas for 3-D is bearable to watch for long periods. Only about 1 in 200 viewers watched the opening ceremony in 3-D, and some of the subsequent 3-D sport events were hardly seen by anybody at all. Over the course of 2013, broadcasters around the world quietly wound down their 3-D projects.

TBC

[baron-pierreIV]

NOTHING can beat NoKor's ARIRANG GAMES for Ceremonies . . .  NOT even Beijing!!
 

Nothing on earth like it!!  SHeer spectacle for the sake of spectacle!!  

[JMarkSnow2012]

Yup, but size isn't everything ...