Commonwealth Games 2018 on BBC

Found the video now:


Transcript and more reacton here: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/commonwealth-games/closing-ceremony-live-all-the-colour-and-news-from-the-final-night-of-the-commonwealth-games/news-story/8a2fabaeb4501f9f5acab72db37c2f3b

Prompted by a discussion elsewhere, I've just watched the Birmingham contribution, fantastic production, and a single shot until almost the very end

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-43755833

Does anyone know how they did the Birmingham "live" part? Looked like a steadicam, then it flew up into the air and I thought it must be a drone, then it looked like a handheld again yet it all seamed a seamless shot

As for the closing ceremony in the Gold Coast, those speaches went on for a wee bit too long. It was only afternoon here and I was nodding off

This is what Chris J Dixon in uk.tech.broadcast Usenet group posted today (It's his analysis of the video, and Birmingham Mail footage) :-

I have no idea what hardware was used for the attachment.

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/how-birminghams-commonwealth-games-handover-14534366

At about 0:32 one man is steadying the end of the camera crane
and another assists the two guys carrying the camera. By 0:36
they have stepped away and the crane then starts to move at about
0:40

At 0:56 the second camera crane jib can be seen horizontally
extended ready for later.

At 1:37 the camera is being carried again, on the back of a buggy
which is towing a platform with a robot character on it.

By 1:50 they get off the buggy, and the buggy and robot scoot out
of shot to the right.

By 1:58 the two guys with the camera are visible as they follow
the chaps tumbling over the stone balls.

They then disappear behind the tree in the foreground.

At 2:30 the second camera crane jib dips slightly and then
retracts quickly just on the edge of shot.

By 2:57 you get a clear view of crane 2 as it then rises and
extends.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-43755833

On this video, as transmitted, I think the camera was attached to
crane 1 at 1:30, when the mirror frame is held up. Probably taken
off again at 2:13, just after going through the hoops.

Attaching to crane 2 must be around 3:32, as the camera dips
slightly and cuts off the heads of the dancers.

The dissolve to the drone is at 4:19

With twin screens, it is even possible to run the two videos at
the same time, once you work out where they synchronise.

Mr Blue Sky. Performed against a slate grey sky in Birmingham City Centre. #alwaysrisky!

Those in my office that saw it yesterday was saying either
a) it wasn't live and there was a cut somewhere (no - it was totally live. Victoria Square was closed for most of Saturday and all of Sunday, with marshalls escorting MoP's around the cordon of the performance area)
b) done with a drone.

I said a continous tracking shot could only be done with a very experienced (and athletic) steadycam operator - one that's done something like that whilst filming a Hollywood action blockbuster.

When watching at first I thought it was a drone, but then, if it was they must have been a great operator to get the drone to bounce up and down at speed like it was a gyroscopic steadycam.

So, it must have been a steadycam, and when I saw the crane at the far end, by the town hall, I knew that the rising shot was done by harnessing the operator to that crane and doing the lift up that way.

All in all a brilliant piece of split second timing dance performance (and the same goes for the steadycam operator and I guess his focus puller along side- one the one hand the sheer inventiveness of it all to do it live, and on the other, for us television geeks - something to think about afterwards about just how it was done.

By Sunday evening Victoria Square was still closed and they'd already taken the big banner down off the side of the Town Hall. I had hoped that would have stayed up for a while.

They were lucky with the weather, did very well to mostly hide all the construction work around there too. Most of the comments I have seen in various places were positive about the live sequence but negative about the "We're from Birminum" (sic) film and performance that came before it.

Unfortunately since that all came after a bunch of long and tedious speeches, we have to wonder how many people around the world were still watching by the time they got to Mr Blue Sky. The rest of the closing ceremony wasn't all that great either with just one musical performance after the next, nothing special.

The GOLDOC chairman agreed when interviewed by the host of Sunrise that the closing ceremony had been "put together by some arty farty entertainment organiser who doesn’t know what the games are all about". He has basically spent the day going around the media apologising for how bad the closing ceremony was - it's been pretty big news in Australia. The only way it could have gone worse is if he'd got some sandpaper out of his pocket.

https://www.goldcoastbulletin.com.au/sport/commonwealth-games/sports-life/comm-games-bosses-admit-they-got-it-wrong-for-closing-ceremony/news-story/4fe5a97cef0db5628f8c6c04e5add948

Except it wasn't a steadicam and no harnesses were involved

It was a Movi with a Sony P1 and RF link on it that was operated by one main (and AIUI a second operator or assistant for the hoops sequence?) on foot and on vehicles and also clipped on and off two Super Technocranes, no harnesses involved...

The hoop shot was achieved by two operators working together handing the camera through the hoops to each other apparently.

CTV provided the OB facilities. Nat Hill camera supervised, James Davis was the Movi operator using Shotdock and other kit supplied by Motion 24 TV, with Panavision supplying the Technos.




Except it wasn't a Steadi

Rig picture here : https://www.instagram.com/p/BhnyhcMnIXu/?hl=en&taken-by=motion24_tv

I agree, wish I'd seen it as broadcast live, because it was shockingly good (if you get my drift !). Refreshing to
have something performed that's 100% 'real' in this world of CGI, AR, etc etc....

I missed it all so will have to watch trends whole thing in context, but that shot at the beginning where the Australian woman opens the door into Victoria Square... Was she in Oz or did they just put some Gold Coast logos on the wall of a side entrance to the building?

If the former, how the heck was that done?

I just assumed it was the latter.

She was in Birmingham - they cleverly established the "lecturn + two lights in the dark" staging (where you can't really see the location on a mid-shot) in the Gold Coast stadium at the beginning of the previous music performance, but if you look carefully the mic arrangement is different in Birmingham. Very neat trick though - as the transition from Gold Coast to Birmingham has happened long before you realise it.

The Gold Coast posters were genius - they really kept you in the 'dark' until the doors opened!