Eurovision 2006

At least Tel's tried to make it feel a bit more homely with the addition of one of his Radio 2 TOGs sticker in the window.

Edit: Make that two stickers - just spotted the other one in the bottom right corner!

Agreed. It was Paddy's best perfomance on the ESC undercard. A great to give a nod to those switching back from watching the loosers and freaks going into a pre-fab in Elstree.

Finland are through, so at least we've got on 'leftfield' act tomorrow to give 12 points to. Shame Belgium didn't get in, as I thought that was a good song. Irelands song is bog standard X-Factor fare, and very run of the mill and ordinary. Pity Lithuanina got in though. Having a song claimed they are the winners will polarise the audience. The ones that get the ironic joke will vote them, the others won't.

In power ballad mode, the set looks good. But in uptempo mode, with the massive saturated light grid, LED back drop, flashing spangle cyclorama and under stage lights, even from the mid arena cameras shots the singers are lost in a barrage of lighting.

I counted 4 front of stage peds, 1 mid arena cam, 2 jibs, 1 steadycam, and the skyrail cam.
Didn't spot the spidercam shot, but that could have been one of the whole stage tracking shots that looked to have been done by a low angle ped.

Also, It seems the EBU have woken up to the political vote sillyness. Paddy last night announced that you can vote as many times as you want for a particular act - but only your first vote will count. The rest will be discounted. It is a step in the right direction.

Thinking about it, I think the graphics usually refer to Macedonia as "FYR Macedonia" but the presenters say the whole long name thing.

This year's Eurovision semi-final... again, you could tell the Swedish crew weren't doing it because there seemed to be a step back in my opinion.

The presenters were God awful at filling for time. It seemed as though there links were unscripted or, at best, the lines forgotten. If the semi is anything to go by, it would be a good drinking game listening out for the number of times the bloke says "oh God".

As for the Belgian entry - I am VERY surprised that didn't get through.

And did anyone hear the booing during the Icelandic entry? Not a good way to end the round of songs.

I thought it was a very good SF yesterday. My favourites were Belarus, Russia, Slovenia, Ukraine and Finland. I really hoped that Iceland and Lithuania made it as well though, because it would have made the final one of the craziest ever! Thought the coverage was very good, and I actually prefer Paddy to Terry. Sweden or Russia is my tip for Saturday!

Sky/Spidercam very easy to spot - it was the one with a picture about 100 times worse than the regular cameras, disappearing into white-out flare hell. It looked to be a very small brick-cam which just couldn't cope with the lighting levels on the main stage - even if it did get some potentially effective swooping shots.

To be honest I didn't think the Spidercam gave anything massively more interesting than the 3 jibs and the strange scissor extending thing that the Swedes had in Kyiv last year.

Wasn't that impressed with the coverage - the cut rate was noticably lower, and the whole "feel" was a bit slower and I hate to say it, a bit duller. Compared to this year's Melodifestivalen shows - which had a reduced budget I believe - it suffers.

I think the Spidercam suffered more than most with the lighting - I was pleased with the higher levels of lighting on most of the acts - being able to see the dancers and backing singers faces and costumes was good. Last year they seemed to often be out of the main lighting - it seemed far less "follow-spotty" this year.

Was it just me who felt, Silvia was scary and OTT, she scared me, she was just weird and can't sing, and also the fact she dissed greece as well.

Slovenia and Belgium were robbed. Increasingly it looks like Eurodisco is dead - either novelty, MOR, big dance numbers or ethnic is needed to get through the semi. Both Anjez and Kate delivered cracking performances (though Anjez's backing singers were woeful at points) Was impressed with Turkey - she and the (British) dancers really upped their game - the music track hadn't really done much for me.

I'd have loved to have seen Carola's face if she'd not got through - much as I'd love Sweden to win soon - there is a smug professionalism about Carola that kind of grates.

Still gutted about Slovenia and Belgium though...

At least she revised her lyrics... I think she was a novelty joke that much of Europe just won't have got - irony is a selective thing.

I'd be very interested to see the voting breakdown for the semi final.

I've got the mp3 of the Icelandic entry if anyone wants it. I thought it was a very good song actually, there was just far too many props. Glitter showers and telephones and everything, overloaded my brain.

I agree about the vast lighting grid – think it looks simply stunning. Elegant in fact. Agreed to a certain degree about the stodgy visuals: static peds, and often lingering ones at that, simply do not work with the frenetic pace of the other cameras. Indeed cutting up the still shots tends to jar completely with the broader shooting script and draws attention to itself. It’s a convention from 1996, not 2006.

Not that simple peds don’t work, they just need to be a little shorter in length and have a slight track in them to continue the flow. The SVT railcams really do lose their appeal in a short space of time; they just make the event into a bland MTV-like blurfest of movement and action, arguably a lazy way out of having to construct shooting scripts tailored to each performance, instead just generating generic movement for the sake of it that will paste over every song nicely, regardless of what it is, with only the most obvious references to what's going on with the performances.

The most disappointing thing about Eurovision over the past seven years from a presentation perspective though is the pre-packaged homogenous event it has become. Each year no longer has an identity, even stemming down to the graphics which are now horribly standardised. But mainly the sets.
Rather than each year devising a wholly distinctive look, now its just the case of the host country hiring in the usual truckloads of electronic screens, arranging them in a different formation to the previous year, and building the usual crass, plasticy, high-gloss stage with equally predictable in-built fan grills forming the perimeter. It’s all become so standardised and bland. Estonia in 2002, even considering their hugely limited resources, was a real low point:

http://www.eurovision-fr.net/histoire/images_02/stage_construc.gif


It’s only Latvia’s magnificent 2003 set that really stands out in one’s memory:

http://www.pro-music-news.com/html/tour/30523hes.jpg


Just all of this blatantly electronic synthetic muck has really made Eurovision so predicable every year now. In a way technology has reached its peak for the time being; it was building throughout the 1990s with lighting, display, graphic and set material developments but it’s all kinda reached the summit for the time being. The technology isn’t really wowing anymore like it used to, down in part to the developments in electronic screens in particular. They’ve just taken over everything, acting as the set itself, as a form of lighting, and even performers in their own right on stage.
You used to be able to wow the audience in the past by keeping things relatively muted (not dead now), but ten blow them away with certain camera angles, lighting cues, or vast views of spectucalar sets. Now that we have a constant flashy spectacle for two hours solid, the drama ironically, is just lost.

Wooohhooo, tonights the night then. Prepare for the dodgy fullscreen switchover.

The night that comes but once a year.

ooooh Santy's coming! - oh no, wait...wrong one...