Olympic opening ceremony

Phil Rhodes · August 14, 2004

Hi,

Anyone else catch this? I thought it was reasonably good although slightly disjointed, perhaps because of the sheer size of the area. On a slightly more on-topic note, they did manage to succeed in making the stadium look absolutely gigantic. Even so, it must have been a fair project to light.

What interested me most was the staging, which was actually quite audacious if you consider the requirements. It's a lake, which has to empty really rather quickly, leaving a walkable surface. It has to be suspended off the grass of the track and field arena and it can't be there more than a day or the grass will die. It has lights in the bottom which have to be bright enough to work in the context (I'm thinking at least 50W MR16s) which you have to get power to, and they have to be sufficiently recessed in the floor that people don't trip over them. And to cap it all off, you're going to carpet the entire running track and install a huge amount of lighting, and it all has to come out in a single night - and that's the bit that scares me most of all! The overhead rigging, which was possibly the most audacious piece of motion control flying of both people and objects I've ever seen, can at least stay in without affecting what's going on below - although I think it's actually been removed as well.

Very smart.

Phil

Jeff Tanner · August 16, 2004

I was pleasantly surprised as well (with the live event). The water is what blew my mind. I thought to myself "How in the hell are they going to tear all of this stuff down overnight?"

However I was disappointed by the "show". I'm not sure if NBC is responsible for the video feed but there were several points that I thought the picture looked horrible and often the shots were far too wide to see anything worthwhile at all. But it must have been impressive seeing it in person!

Jeff

Mitch Gross · August 17, 2004

A good friend of mine works for the company that designed and executed the Opening Ceremonies show. They are the premiere company for this and it was done out of their London office. These guys design rock concerts, convention events, parades, fashion shows, you name it. They were particularly proud of this one as they could only test and rehearse the pieces in segments and mostly offsite, then crated up the parts and shipped everything off to Athens. NBC did not run the staging although there was a lot of consultation and discussion so that the best coverage could be done. And yes, they ripped it all out overnight for the various sporting events. Par for the course.

Rob Belics · August 17, 2004

Bob Costas lives in my neighborhood. Well, not MY neighborhood, but he eats at my wife's restaurant.

Michael Nash · August 18, 2004

The timing couldn't have been better than I wrapped a 30-day feature, did returns, and slept in before the Friday opening ceremonies. Aside from being a big fan of Santiago Calatrava, the homage to sculpture blew me away as a piece of art and theater. The design and execution was one of the most beautiful and impressive things I've seen in years.

John Pytlak RIP · August 18, 2004

The design and execution was one of the most beautiful and impressive things I've seen in years.

I agree! My family and I were amazed at the complexity of the staging, with very few miscues. Water, wire-work, animatronics, fire, lasers, projection, etc. --- wow! And costuming and make-up for the hundreds of characters must have been a challenge, as most of it was complex, and had to be good enough for HDTV.