Its Saturday the 15th February 8 days after the Sochi winter olympics opening ceremony which I’ve been working on and were now working towards the closing ceremony. Its feels a bit strange environment as from what i understand there is a different production company in overseeing the closing but the original production team are staying here as consultants. I could be wrong but there are definitely more people onsite now with what currently feels like less to do overall, I’m sure that will change. So we had a show, apart from the the ring which did not open that the sensationalist press seemed to focus on the show was FLAWLESS. Heres a picture below if some of the set pieces hung in the hangar before one of the rehearsals.
Given the time and conniptions out here we shouldn’t really have had as much as we did go right. It was only mid december when we had the storms that blew off the roof in the south hangar which also was unfinished in parts.
This intern allowed the rain to come in and rain down on the automation carriages used for physically animating the scenery and set pieces in the stadium. Allot of time was spent fixing equipment which to wet and during that time i don’t think anyone could have imagined we would have all that we did in the ceremony. Below is a shot of one of the tracks & carriages in a finished dry hangar!
Each carriage can traverse through the stadium along, up, over and down the curved roof of the stadium from one hangar to another and carries a 1000kg winch to lift and animate the scenic pieces.
Below is a hot of South Control where Cam, Davide, Rob and Gethyn have been programming from and then operated some of the show from. Its difficult to tell form the picture but they’re on a temporary platform suspended around 30m above the hangar floor.
Here is central control opted by Dan, Neil, Doug and Paul, although Paul has been kept very busy on night shift going between all 3 operating positions as and when needed! On a side note Neil, over the course of being in Sochi has adopted a stray, one of many which were onsite since we arrived and many have been culled whilst we’ve been here. Given the piss taking amongst the testosterone field environment here its actually quite a noble thing to do and you can read more of the story here: http://www.9news.com/news/world/377034/243/In-Sochi-stray-dog-captures-heart-of-Denver-man
And then here is south control with Robin, Bruce and Brendon, dwarfed by the huge islands, still now, in pictures, you cannot get a scale of things here, all of the scenery was, and still is massive!!
After my visa run to the UK mid January I decided to bring my scooter out to get around site, and I’m so glad I did, (a). It saves a load of time getting round site and (b). Its lots of fun. I think just about everyone has had a go on it even the quite a few local Russian security guards. I did on c a couple occasions get some parking warnings, the first was a ticket off Ben from PRG (which I failed to get a picture of, sorry Ben). And then the second was an incredibly well made wheel clamp, which i later found out was off Rory, once of our riggers, hats off it is a work of art!
Back to work here is a picture of “The Sun” just to try and attempt to show a scale of things, and then when it opens out (iris’s out?) it probably increases by about 1/3 in size.
And so to the rings, given the outstanding engineering, technology and general perseverance of everyone who made the opening ceremony work, runners, riggers, operators, electricians, lx, video, sound, everyone! . A show which shouldn’t have really happened given the circumstances the press focused on the one thing which didn’t go to plan showing a sad ignorance of everything which went into making everything else work. Heres a good quote from ceremony producer Konstantin Ernst was philosophical about the mishap.
“Among five rings, one of them didn’t open. And you know, Zen Buddhists have an idea: if you have an ideally polished ball, you have to leave a scratch, to get an idea of how ideally it was polished,”
Finally, for now, a face which has been right under my nose for weeks, the coffee maker outside the main control room, looks like a relative of Bender of Futurama.
Final Note:
Hats off to you Mr Bromagier, you made it work, AGAIN 😉 …….
