Paris (AFP)
The opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Paris, on the River Seine on July 26, will receive the largest live television coverage “ever” by the International Olympic Committee’s audiovisual company, which is in charge of the production.
The 3-hour, 45-minute show, which will be held outside the main stadium for the first time and will see athletes parade more than 6km on 85 boats, “will be the largest production we have ever produced in terms of equipment and broadcast resources,” said Olympic Broadcast Services (OPS).
For his part, the concert designer, Thomas Joly, explained that “on the banks and bridges of the French capital, about 3,000 dancers and actors present 12 artistic tableaux, celebrating athletes, telling the story of France, the country of diversity, and celebrating the whole world united.”
The Olympic Broadcast Services is a subsidiary of the International Olympic Committee that was created in 2001 and is responsible for filming the Games and providing images to television channels around the world that have purchased broadcast rights.
At the heart of its enormous show on the Seine River “from the Pont de Austerlitz to the Trocadero” and the major nearby monuments “Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Orsay Museum”, more than 100 camera systems, including robotic systems and cranes, will be deployed.
More than 200 smartphones will also be mounted on the boats to provide a “unique” perspective of the ceremony to the billion viewers expected to follow it live through the eyes of the 6,000 to 7,000 athletes who will take part in the protocol procession.
“To give you an idea of the scale of the project, this is three times the number of cameras used during the Tokyo 2020 Olympics (held in 2021 due to Covid),” the company continued. “In addition, we will have eight drones, three helicopters and four fixed boats equipped with specially designed camera systems.”
To provide images to televisions around the world, the IOC subsidiary has set up its headquarters at the International Broadcast Centre and its giant control rooms at the vast Bourget exhibition centre in Seine-Saint-Denis, north of Paris. To route the signal from its many cameras to its operations centre, the company will rely on the communications networks of the historic French operator Orange.
For national television channels, “it is not possible to create a system of this size, so we have no frustration,” said Gilles Saillard, sports production director at the public group France Télévisions, the official broadcaster of the Games and therefore a client of the Olympic company.
“We can’t replace global production, because they know exactly where to put their cameras, like this shot at this time in this place, because this and that is happening,” he added.
“We don’t have the means or resources to film everything that can be filmed,” he continued. “The ‘competition’ location is a full day’s work, so we will have to double our teams by 20 or 30 teams.”
He concluded his speech by saying, “The contribution of France Television is more concrete, meaning that, in each location, we will have commentators and consultants who will analyze and comment on these images.”
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