Paris 2024 Ceremonies - Verdict

[Scotguy II]

3 hours ago, Olympics2028 said:

I read that during the opening, some of the royals in attendance reportedly looked bored during a ceremony that was both wacky and went on quite long.

Queen Elizabeth was the most bored at the London 2012 Opening going by her face haha

[Rob2012]

17 hours ago, kevzz said:

I refuse to accept Paris should be cut some slack because it’s outside the stadium.

More to the point, there was never a rehearsal for the opening ceremony. Apparently there were logistical rehearsals for the camera operators along with Seine, but without the actual performances.

I'd imagine ( @JMarkSnow2012 can perhaps confirm) that for London, for example, the camera teams were in situ during the final in-stadium rehearsal?

So in Paris we had a ceremony in a location not tried before, with no proper rehearsal. In those circumstances, it seems pretty harsh to blame the camera crews for things that went wrong with filming.

[kevzz]

24 minutes ago, Rob2012 said:

More to the point, there was never a rehearsal for the opening ceremony. Apparently there were logistical rehearsals for the camera operators along with Seine, but without the actual performances.

I'd imagine ( @JMarkSnow2012 can perhaps confirm) that for London, for example, the camera teams were in situ during the final in-stadium rehearsal?

So in Paris we had a ceremony in a location not tried before, with no proper rehearsal. In those circumstances, it seems pretty harsh to blame the camera crews for things that went wrong with filming.

Beggars belief if that is really the case that no proper rehearsal took place. Not to blame camera crew as they can only do so much as instructed. It’s the people at top that should have thought all these through. 

There is something quite similar in London OC when David Beckham passed the flame from the boat to Steve Redgrave on the river platform. He ran through an empty route towards the stadium which is quite similar to Paris, but the whole sequence was tight and timed to perfection with no dragging. 

[cfm Jeremie]

One of the main purpose of the full dress rehearsals is to finalise the TV production plan (i.e. camera position, key shots...).

It is really obvious that Paris 2024 Opening could have benefited from one or more full rehearsals as some key shots were missed.

[Rob2012]

But it is, of course, fully understandable why one couldn't happen for this ceremony.

Which goes back - once again - to whether this kind of ceremony concept is a good idea... (discuss...)

[sebastien1214]

There were technical rehearsals on the Seine; but even if they did not include the artistic segments, all the OBS teams were there to rehearse the TV production on their side. (You can also see several excerpts of this on the documentary of the opening ceremony, with excerpts from the OBS control room of these rehearsals)

If the problems with the TV production only concerned the artistic elements that had not been rehearsed on the Seine (for example, the cameraman that we saw on the catwalk on the Debilly footbridge) we could indeed say that it was exclusively the fault of the absence of general rehearsals. But there were plenty of other mistakes in the TV production that were necessarily repeated during the technical rehearsals on the Seine (for example, the fact that we didn't see the Patrouille de France at all; in this case it was just a matter of timing camera shots towards the sky, something that can be repeated very well without needing the Patrouille de France). So the OBS production team also has its share of responsibility in this.

[kevzz]

3 minutes ago, Rob2012 said:

But it is, of course, fully understandable why one couldn't happen for this ceremony.

Which goes back - once again - to whether this kind of ceremony concept is a good idea... (discuss...)

Why couldn’t they have a full dress rehearsal - it to keep the ceremony a secret? I think for a lot of the segments they could have done without the performers or have a 1-1 off site rehearsal. 
 

It also seems that whoever control the button in the control room of which camera shot to broadcast didn’t really do a good job. So many questionable, static/ chaotic/ random shots were broadcast when the person in charge should have not use them when the camera is obviously not ready or in the wrong place. 

[JMarkSnow2012]

2 hours ago, Rob2012 said:

I'd imagine ( @JMarkSnow2012 can perhaps confirm) that for London, for example, the camera teams were in situ during the final in-stadium rehearsal?

Yes: normally, the full dress rehearsals are filmed in their entirety so that if things go wrong on The Night, the live director can cut to video (most famously employed for Russian TV viewers when the 5th Ring failed in Sochi, but also seen occasionally on the London 2012 box-set). In London, the independent team filming the cultural segments was involved in pretty much all stadium-scale rehearsals- a practice not normally possible for the loaned OBS teams, who only turn up about a fortnight before show day.

Paris was high-wire without a safety net.

[JMarkSnow2012]

1 hour ago, kevzz said:

So many questionable, static/ chaotic/ random shots were broadcast when the person in charge should have not use them when the camera is obviously not ready or in the wrong place. 

I suspect that the main problem there was the 6km long setting. You see the same sort of glitches during coverage of road races, where there may be many cameras overall, but, at any given time, only one or two where the important action is happening.

[JMarkSnow2012]

1 hour ago, sebastien1214 said:

the fact that we didn't see the Patrouille de France at all; in this case it was just a matter of timing camera shots towards the sky, something that can be repeated very well without needing the Patrouille de France

The briefly-glimpsed aerial heart was about timing, but did the Patrouille return at all for the Marseillaise flypast, or did the weather prevent them?

[JMarkSnow2012]

2 hours ago, kevzz said:

There is something quite similar in London OC when David Beckham passed the flame from the boat to Steve Redgrave on the river platform. He ran through an empty route towards the stadium which is quite similar to Paris, but the whole sequence was tight and timed to perfection with no dragging.

There was sooooooo much cheating with the Beckham appearances! The Tower Bridge section was filmed over three nights, with even the "live" version on 27 July being about 45 minutes before it appeared on TV. The handover to Steve Redgrave by the stadium was filmed "as live" during the early part of the Parade of Nations.

[JMarkSnow2012]

4 hours ago, Scotguy II said:

Queen Elizabeth was the most bored at the London 2012 Opening going by her face haha

As I mentioned earlier in this thread, you wouldn't normally expect to see that sort of thing in coverage of an Olympic opening, but the fact that OBS lingered on her looking bored during the Parade etc. suggests they were acting out of resentment against the employment of an independent camera team for the cultural segments.

[Bear]

rewatching the olympic opening ceremony, and the immediate transition from minion fart joke to the literal national anthem of france and subsequent serious segment honoring important and significant women will always be insane to me

[JMarkSnow2012]

4 hours ago, Bear said:

rewatching the olympic opening ceremony, and the immediate transition from minion fart joke to the literal national anthem of france and subsequent serious segment honoring important and significant women will always be insane to me

But was it much more insane than having the head of state parachuting from a helicopter to hear her national anthem?

[Rob2012]

4 hours ago, Bear said:

the immediate transition from minion fart joke to the literal national anthem of france

Was it really that immediate? lol, that's pretty funny, I might have to rewatch.

[kevzz]

Does anyone know whether Paris has original soundtrack music composed just for the OC? I presume the only original music is the silver horse/ medal ceremony music? Is there also a theme song for Paris 2024 e.g Muse’s Survival?

[sebastien1214]

2 hours ago, kevzz said:

Does anyone know whether Paris has original soundtrack music composed just for the OC? I presume the only original music is the silver horse/ medal ceremony music? Is there also a theme song for Paris 2024 e.g Muse’s Survival?

Victor le Masne composed a lot of music for this ceremony (the very beginning of course with Parade, the Paris 2024 anthem, but also during Synchronicité, Sororité, Solidarité, Solennité & Eternité. And he also made the arrangement of Supernature by Cerrone).

And besides, in Parade, there is a sample used by Victor le Masne... which is none other than the voice of his 3 year old son!

Musique des JO de Paris 2024 : Victor Le Masne a samplé la voix de son fils ! | Samples.fr

[Rob2012]

https://www.thepoke.com/2024/08/14/this-compilation-of-andrew-cotters-hilarious-one-liners-from-the-olympics-closing-ceremony-is-gold-medal-winning-stuff/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=pic&utm_campaign=facebookpic

 

[baron-pierreIV]

/\/\  Good one.  

[baron-pierreIV]

Turns out anyone can read my review of Paris 2024 Opening Ceremony on the ISOH online Journal. (The website is usually reserved for ISOH members only.)

“Sleight-of-Hand,” One-off Ceremony. | International Society of Olympic Historians – ISOH 

(I was limited to 500 words only or thereabouts . . .) 

[baron-pierreIV]

Let's BUMP up another thread over those pedantic, quite absurd, IRRELEVANT posts of a velociraptor (Velo -- he/she/it(?)  loves bicycles 😄).  Any other thread will do.