Agreed – although, if reducing the influence of televoters are you acknowledging the fact that their vote is flawed? In which case why include it at all? Either it is flawed or it isn’t. Is a 50% input from televoters a 50% flawed vote?
So, in reviewing the show, first and foremost it has to be said that the two presenters Maria Menounos and Sakis Rouvas are officially the worst hosts of Eurovision in at least the past 14-15 years – truly appalling, especially Rouvas.
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He just stood there like a gombeen, with absolutely nothing to say either during the voting or for his links during the show. And as a pair they uttered nothing but infantile remarks about how AMAZING, how MAGNIFICENT everything was, and could do little more during voting other than complement the various link presenters about their appearance. No other presenters have been so incompetent – Rouvas in particular didn’t seem to have a grasp of English at all, whilst neither of them had decent French. Wholly incompetent presenters.
I’m very surprised the UK came so low down the list in the end – you deserved way more than the pittance you got for what was a very catchy and well performed piece. Most certainly the impact of political voting.
Ireland did very respectably (and we automatically qualify for next year!), and was glad to see Brian’s vocals weren’t drowned out as they were during the semi.
As for the skycam, agreed the quality from it was very poor, also rather shaky. Overall the camera operations were very stodgy – anyone who was watching Germany’s performance (with the cactuses etc on stage) will have seen the appalling cuts between static peds for the first 30 secs or so – extraordinarily bad. Also the jib-arms weren’t used to their maximum advantage, and their operation wasn’t great either – the tilt of the camera head wasn’t responsive enough a lot of the time, almost cutting off part of the subject on stage as it struggled to keep up with the arm movement.
The use of three peds on the floor as the principal cameras for such a tall stage was bizarre to say the least – very up-the-nostrils as noggin said. Who the heck came up with that idea?! Obviously the stage was so tall to accommodate all of those elevating platforms built into the stage, but the camera operations ought to have been adjusted accordingly. All the same, those ped cameras looked very impressive: brand spanking new with fantastic lenses and hoods – must have been a joy to use
The poor ped shots really came to the fore in Ireland’s performance I think – they were relied on far too much, generating a tight claustrophobic feeling with no movement and not nearly enough jib arms showing wides and generating rhythm. Very poor.
To respond about the railcams etc noggin, I think they’re fantastically effective, especially as you say the cutting from the wide railcam to a tight railcam. However what I think the problem with the whole SVT look is that it isn’t always appropriate for every song, and yet they feel obliged to use it for every performance or else they feel they’re putting the countries without at a disadvantage, even if a different camera style would work equally well. That’s the problem I think. But yes the lack of rails for the likes of the country with the four red swivel chairs was very notable – terrible static peds scattered throughout the performance, even on wides.
The picture quality was second-to-none though. Even previous years when not HD the picture simply blows you away – amazing production values. That’s what I love about Eurovision – it’s a showcase for European television broadcasting production values. Even all of the voting link presentations have improved enormously over the past five years. Interesting to see it’s only really Poland that’s left with it’s stodgy newsreader-like presenter. He’s been cropping up for as long as I can remember
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Only one really annoying thing about the voting presentation – the way a full screen cut is not made to the link countries anymore. This was stopped about 3/5 years ago, possibly when the main Eurovision logo/ident was introduced, so now all we see is the link presenter in a small box. We don’t get to see the presenter properly, their background, nor their broadcaster logos, but especially the backgrounds
. I thought Eurovision was partly a celebration of Europe, yet we can’t even see the various capitals anymore! Moscow as always looks the finest – truly magnificent backdrop. It’s the same beautiful riverscape every year, punctured with fairytale spires ghostily illuminated in white light. By far the best.