Beijing Olympic Games 2008

Disappointing that after the fuss over the Opening Ceremony they haven't made the closing ceremony available on BBCi on Freeview today. 302 has gone to Reading and Leeds while BBC Parliament has just shut down and gone blank, leaving 301 just mainly focusing on extended highlights of the marathon - when I'm sure a 2-hour loop replaying the Closing Ceremony would be more appreciated.


As for the Paralympics - I know the BBC are covering them fairly extensively, but will the studio team be based in London or Beijing?


Final thought - just tuned in to Sky Sports News for the headlines at Ten - no mention of the Olympics at all, even though it's the lead story on Sky News. Their obsession with football is ridiculous.

its not that they have an obsession with football, just that they only cover sport Sky has the rights to. I just wonder how they are going to cope on FA Cup weekends.

Not really, that's their target market and in fact and there is no point covering something they can't show footage of.

Yes impressive credits, I always like seeing the credits at the end of these long sports events listing all the presenters and commentators. These ones and the ones at Wimbledon are great, like the end of movie (although using the traditional Wimbledon theme at the end of Wimbledon would have been better)

Did anyone see what they did at the end of Euro 2008?

Yep, horizontal scroll (or were they static?) teeny-tiny credits along the lines of the standard football programme credits, at the bottom of the screen.

The way they did it for this and Wimbledon was just fantastic - legible credits mixed into a wonderful montage.

Yes, ironically Sky News as a news channel will be able to show highlights of the FA Cup matches under the usual 'News Access Agreement' ... but Sky Sports News cannot as it isn't classed as a news channel.

The Olympics is a different case altogether, non-rights holders were only allowed to show highlights after all the rights holders by which time it was out of date.

This was the Euro 2008 one
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=rXaoQ-AMJe0
I thought it was really good, with the lifecycle of a fly being used as a way of showing the montage.

Carrie Gracie and Hazel Irvine were commentating with Huw.

Hazel was there for more sporting context (as befits a sports presenter) and Carrie was there to put the Chinese elements into context, as she is a former BBC Beijing correspondent and is a fluent Mandarin speaker with an understanding of the country. Carrie is now a regular presenter on the BBC News Channel.

I thought that Carrie - in particular - did an excellent job of putting elements of the ceremonies into context. She's also been doing lots of lives on the News Channel whilst she has been out there - it has really let her humour and character come across being outside the studio! (They should let her out more often!)

Lots of openings and stings used by TVE in Spain :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWH-T4z42VQ

Every sport has its own:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sNDlZPQvg8

HQ example of a short football promo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4wPINeyd6M

The RTVE broadcast facilities in the IBC are shown in this 'behind the scenes' video. They had two different sets: one for TVE1/TVE2, which shared the coverage throughout the day, and a very similar one for Teledeporte, which aired 24h/24 coverage. The lighting matches the current style in TVE1 news, with white and cyan as main colours. TVE HD was based on the EBU feeds, and the sports in Telediario -the news- were done from the outside:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLQwhWcW6Hw (bad audio)

Here is a HQ clip from a lighter programme that aired every midnight. You can see the set, the bug and how the astons animate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY8lk_i6jS0

This looong and epic promo was shown before the Olympics started:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98OEj_s0nck

And, just in case you want to compare, a sting from Athens 2004...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqy_ojk7BS8

...and the opening from the midnight programme back in 2004 (less stylish than in 2008, but better music, I think):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evQ5VyD6ZdU (starting from 01:05)

[I have not uploaded any of the clips]

The style of the graphics package follows the guidelines for the season that now is coming to an end, with plain colours, short animations, lots of 'cut' editing and Haettenschweiler type, combined with Helvetica Condensed for astons. This Olympics are the last milestone for the current TVE logo, which is changing dramatically on September 1st along with the rest of RTVE, after more than 50 years being almost the same.

Just caught the little London bit in the ceramony & thought it was rather good, didn't expect the double decker to do that. Shame the volume on Leona Lewis' voice was a bit low, but then again that happens quite often when they do things like this.

I think that was probably for the best.

A source.