Just realised where I have seen that tree before - brought back an old childhood memory of mine.... it The Learning Tree! (not the film but the old pre-school children's programme!)
Has anyone else watched the full NBC coverage yet?
I have, thanks to the wonders of torrents.
What an absolute car crash.
The inanity of the hosts is astounding. Oft mentioned is their "google him" comment re: Tim Berners Lee. However this is AFTER they mentioned that he invented the web, so they were essentially revelling in their own stupidity rather than actually being unsure of who he was. They also babbled over nearly all the music.
The woman was particuarly moronic. "You may recognise Rowan Atkinson, known to US audiences as Mr Bean" she said near the start of the performance. Then at the end she said "I don't know what sort of musician Rowan Atkinson is but he has nice legs".
Eh? Did she forget who he was over the course of three mins or was that possibly the worst joke ever?
Meanwhile, the manner in which it was cut up with adverts was shocking. So poorly placed, so frequent and completely ruining the flow of the performance.
In addition to this the parade of nations consisted of approx 4 seconds for each country as their names were quickly read out. If a country had an American connection or was a big threat to a US star they may get 6 seconds. Then about 4 mins of endless shots of the US team. Only Team GB got an accurate amount of time as their entrance was such a big part of the show.
Also they added in a load of random camera angles, of which only one actually was superior to the BBC feed (a better shot of the Queen parachuting). All the others were either just odd, or caused the show to look more amateurish.
Utterly utterly poor. It's really worth a look to see how shockingly bad it is. I was baffled by some of the poor reviews I'd read on some US sites given that the live tweeting (from those who had got internet feeds) was very positive. Having seen NBC's coverage I can understand this.
Also they added in a load of random camera angles, of which only one actually was superior to the BBC feed (a better shot of the Queen parachuting). All the others were either just odd, or caused the show to look more amateurish.
That's an Olympic tradition.
NBC send 2700 people (more than 3 times the number the BBC do) - mainly to reduce the quality of the coverage by cutting into and out of very well crafted host broadcaster coverage, clipping shot changes, or taking ISO feeds of host broadcaster cameras that they don't have talk back to just as they reframe...
I know the real Daniel Craig and the Queen appeared in the beggining of Bond short, and those jumped out of the helicopter were professional stuntmen in dress. But who was the actress playing the Queen in the filmed close-up of her jumping out of the helicopter? (I know, it's the real Craig in that close-up.)
I know the real Daniel Craig and the Queen appeared in the beggining of Bond short, and those jumped out of the helicopter were professional stuntmen in dress. But who was the actress playing the Queen in the filmed close-up of her jumping out of the helicopter? (I know, it's the real Craig in that close-up.)
I know the real Daniel Craig and the Queen appeared in the beggining of Bond short, and those jumped out of the helicopter were professional stuntmen in dress. But who was the actress playing the Queen in the filmed close-up of her jumping out of the helicopter? (I know, it's the real Craig in that close-up.)
Julia McKenzie, an actress of some note in theatre as well as television fame - Miss Marple as well as sitcoms, played HRH in the segments in and around the helicopter, excluding the stunts.
I know the real Daniel Craig and the Queen appeared in the beggining of Bond short, and those jumped out of the helicopter were professional stuntmen in dress. But who was the actress playing the Queen in the filmed close-up of her jumping out of the helicopter? (I know, it's the real Craig in that close-up.)
Julia McKenzie, an actress of some note in theatre as well as television fame - Miss Marple as well as sitcoms, played HRH in the segments in and around the helicopter, excluding the stunts.
Very poor video quality imo. Also Barry Davis does waffle on quite a bit, even the NBC commentators stayed silent during the opening VT up to the entrance into the stadium. "Here we have the famous programmes of previous games". Really? I thought they were adverts for shoes. urgh.
Rather liked the flyover of London approaching the park. Gave it a nice sense of geography. Interesting however that they did NOT play the 60 second countdown VT on the official feed.