BA 1039 is full to the gunnels and packed with adrenaline as it eases away from the gate at Terminal 5. Rarely can any flight from London to Beijing be so adorned with Team GB and Olympic kit bags. At last we’re on our way. After so many months of meetings, workshops and planning, the Handover Team is starting to assemble in China.
Beijing 2008's Opening Ceremony is only days away and the Handover to London 2012 takes place mid-way through the Closing Ceremony on 24 August. Three weeks later we’ll be marking the Paralympic Handover. Our technical team are already setting up London's production base. Our set, after a long road and sea journey which started in Yorkshire many weeks ago, is being reassembled ready for the cast and the creative team to arrive and start rehearsals in a week's time.
The Handover Segment – an eight minute 'calling card' inviting the world to reconvene in London in four years time – is an unique creative opportunity; a three dimensional performance in one of the world's largest and most spectacular theatres in the round. It represents a tiny sequence flown half way around the world to take its place in the middle of someone else's show – and some show that will be. The Chinese are world leaders in creating spectacle on an epic scale, and don’t expect understatement in Beijing's ceremonies.
We have a modest patch of the stadium floor on which to perform, and we’ll be lucky to have any on-site rehearsals at all. If this sounds tough, it's merely the form for all 'Handover' segments. Our Chinese colleagues are working really hard to support us, but the same stadium houses the conclusion of the men’s Marathon at around ten in the morning and they have less than six hours to completely transform the Bird's Nest from a sports venue into a theatrical arena for the closing ceremony.
There's no opportunity to install our own equipment or scenery into the space and we have little more than 30 seconds to get on stage and to get off later. So the brief for our brilliant Creative Director, Stephen Powell, was blunt and to the point – keep it simple and resilient, make it very London and very UK - loud and proud, and don't be afraid to be different from the rest of the ceremony – remember London 2012's vision to inspire the youth of the world, and let's have some fun.
Unlike some Olympic and Paralympic cities we don't need to make a travelogue which introduces London for the first time to the rest of the world, but we do have a great opportunity to kick off with an iconic image of the London you know then introduce aspects of the London you’ve yet to discover.
Our Head of Ceremonies, Martin Green, was another great find – having been part of the team who brilliantly re-opened what was The Dome. He and Stephen have assembled a great cast including dancers from the Royal Opera House, the triumphant West End Show dance group Zoo Nation, and Europe's leading mixed ability contemporary dance company, CandoCo. They've built a technical and production team with vast experience of previous ceremonies, world class shows and brim-full of ideas.
But there are some things even they can't do...they can't recreate the whole of our own Opening Ceremony in just eight minutes. They can't represent every aspect of our Games, let alone our city and our nations in this short segment – and I'm sure they shouldn' t challenge the Chinese in terms of scale and spectacle. Our ambition, however, for these two modest eight minute shows (one for the Olympic Games and the other for the Paralympic Games) is that, alongside the formal protocol of the flag handover from the Mayor of Beijing to the Mayor of London, we can be the catalyst for a network of community celebrations throughout London and the rest of the UK. Don't wait for us to lead the celebrations – the Games in 2012 belong to everyone in the UK so mark the moment in your own style. Be part of the four year journey by celebrating...And look for ways to share your celebrations with everyone.
And with that big thought in mind I'm not sure I can concentrate on the in-flight movies any more...
There's no opportunity to install our own equipment or scenery into the space and we have little more than 30 seconds to get on stage and to get off later. So the brief for our brilliant Creative Director, Stephen Powell, was blunt and to the point – keep it simple and resilient, make it very London and very UK - loud and proud, and don't be afraid to be different from the rest of the ceremony – remember London 2012's vision to inspire the youth of the world, and let's have some fun.
Unlike some Olympic and Paralympic cities we don't need to make a travelogue which introduces London for the first time to the rest of the world, but we do have a great opportunity to kick off with an iconic image of the London you know then introduce aspects of the London you’ve yet to discover.
Our Head of Ceremonies, Martin Green, was another great find – having been part of the team who brilliantly re-opened what was The Dome. He and Stephen have assembled a great cast including dancers from the Royal Opera House, the triumphant West End Show dance group Zoo Nation, and Europe's leading mixed ability contemporary dance company, CandoCo. They've built a technical and production team with vast experience of previous ceremonies, world class shows and brim-full of ideas.
But there are some things even they can't do...they can't recreate the whole of our own Opening Ceremony in just eight minutes. They can't represent every aspect of our Games, let alone our city and our nations in this short segment – and I'm sure they shouldn' t challenge the Chinese in terms of scale and spectacle. Our ambition, however, for these two modest eight minute shows (one for the Olympic Games and the other for the Paralympic Games) is that, alongside the formal protocol of the flag handover from the Mayor of Beijing to the Mayor of London, we can be the catalyst for a network of community celebrations throughout London and the rest of the UK. Don't wait for us to lead the celebrations – the Games in 2012 belong to everyone in the UK so mark the moment in your own style. Be part of the four year journey by celebrating...And look for ways to share your celebrations with everyone.
And with that big thought in mind I'm not sure I can concentrate on the in-flight movies any more...
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Comments for this post:
24 Aug 2008, 03:04PM, Gerrards said:
Oh dear. I so wanted London's 8 minute slot to be an example of the best the UK can produce. Instead it merely tried to be cool ( a bit like the illegible logo), thereby cutting out the majority of people in the country who are not cool, and I suspect failing to move at all most of the rest of the world to anything but embarrassment and perhaps in some cases derision. Has nobody told the organising committee that Cool Britannia was old hat even before Tony Blair left?British athletes gave the best possible opener to London 2012, so we have to hope that people didn't notice the 8 minute slot too much.London can't and shouldn't try to imitate the Chinese spectacular, but it should try to imitate the quality and attention to detail. The bus looked good until it opened up, but sadly not much else. Tortured dancing, inaudible singing, an ageing rocker, a footballer who won't be taking part, and a hedgerow whose intended effect simply didn't come off because it was so small made London look merely weird.I do hope London 2012 remembers that most of the country, and certainly most of the world, does not inhabit the inbred world of design warehouses in Soho. Please try and be inclusive. Above all, please try and be good, not just different.
25 Aug 2008, 07:30PM, Bond2012 said:
Aha, so you're one of the culprits. The 8 minute London slot and Boris were totally cringeworthy. London is one of the best, most vibrant cities in the world, but was totally sold short...As for the inaudible Led Zep classic 'Whole lotta Love" it should've been "London Calling" by the Clash without a doubt!
Maybe the design team needed some input from outside the UK as to what iconically represents London and the UK to the rest of the world, especially the non-English speaking world. The London Bus idea sounded great but the morphing into something else unrecognisable just didn't work on the screen. Some iconic images of the UK and London that might work include Stonehenge, Wembly Stadium, Edinburgh Castle, Saint Paul's Cathedral, Liverpool Waterfront, Regent's Park Mosque, Ann Hathaway's Cottage, the brownfield Olympic site in Stratford in its undeveloped/developing state, Free Derry, the Opening of Parliament, the Highlands of Scotland, Brick Lane, the Bank of England, the National Eisteddfod of Wales, Weymouth Harbour and Portland Bill, an Orange Parade, the Angel of the North, an English village cricket match, Caernarfon Castle, Chariots of Fire .. the list is endless.
That would show the world the kind of rich multi-cultural society that is the UK and London today, not a pathetic panorama of chavness and cheap pop culture.
25 Aug 2008, 09:29PM, AMcHarg said:
I was disappointed with the 8 minute window. The cast chosen were not necessarily bad but I don’t think they were used in the correct way. Leona Lewis was completely drowned out by the guitar and the choice of song was bad anyway. David Beckham was okay in my opinion, he is loved and recognised throughout the world, as long as he doesn’t speak, which he didn’t.
...We need promotional material that expresses our vast culture, combining traditional Britain with modern Britain. Being different to China doesn’t mean contradicting their brilliance with stupidity, it means expressing ourselves in the way we want the world to understand what it means to be British.