While watching the Olympics I and the people I was with were trying to figure out where the feed comes from. Obviously there were Chinese cameramen on the ground, and I presume that each station received a feed of the various cameras which they could switch between. How much freedom they had I'm not sure. During the carrying of the flame it looked like they couldn't have more than two options. You could see the camera men passing off to each other and that switch must have been prearranged at the Chinese end- there was a brief mistake during one switch off as the cameraman due to take the final leg wasn't ready. (They edited it out the final version).
At certain points, CBC had a split screen focused on their Olympians, so they probably had their own cameras as well. I think these extra cameras probably made the difference. CBC showed the NBC tent- complete with many air conditioners. CBC was up in a stairwell, presumably filming through glass to get their own shots of the Canadians.
It was not likely due to getting the 'economy' package, but simply due to being a less important film crew. I assume they all received the same choices of official cameras.
All in all, the only difference in angles would be the personalized shots or in the directors choice of the angles. NBC, being outside and further down, would get a clear shot. CBC, behind glass and higher up, had a more difficult shot.
I do agree that CBC was a little wobbly, as Peter Mansbridge or the Sports Person (they sounded the same) did get left behind country-wise and end up talking about a different country than we were seeing on the screen, saying that certain countries got a cheer that was actually intended by the crowd for the country after them. Presumably this was due to their difficulty in seeing and they did seem to rectify this problem later on.
Also: Please note that the NBC broadcast was not done live. They may have done it live to tape but presumably had more editing abilities available to them. CBC was doing it live. That tends to cause more mistakes, because you have to guess what's going to be the best picture ahead of time rather than being able to see it.
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May and Walsh beach volley ball is on Vs. Japan right now. Fun to watch, and they're doing well. The announcers said that (at least) one of the Japanese women played against May and Walsh in her first game at the Athens Olympics and feel "very unlucky" for it. Men's swimming will be on later also
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So if you're in the olympics and you don't win a medal do you get a certificate or something that says "I made it to the olympics at least..."?
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Teshi: Actually, I didn't notice who did editing when, if NBC had more time to do their editing that would be a pretty good explanation. Still, it was especially obvious during the drumming portion of the beginning, CBC either was offered worse camera angles or they just chose poorly. I also wasn't a fan of CBC sound setup, lots of echoes and pretty low quality.
Joldo: The announcers did stretch for remarks, but I think its forgivable and harmless since they pretty much have to say "something" for each country. It did get sad, I remember for one country it was like "Oh, they filmed Gladiator there" and another was "Madonna adopted a child there." I think it is worth pointing out the population thing, when I saw Hong Kong come out I was like "is it really worth a separate team for that?" And then I saw like 30+ teams that were smaller than Hong Kong. When you come from a small country, not just the stadium, but Beijing as a whole must be quite the cultural shock.
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quote:Joldo: The announcers did stretch for remarks, but I think its forgivable and harmless since they pretty much have to say "something" for each country. It did get sad, I remember for one country it was like "Oh, they filmed Gladiator there" and another was "Madonna adopted a child there."
I'm sure most TV stations managed to, oh I don't know, do some research. CBC was saying the country's name, flag bearer and his or her sport and a little story about him or her and relation to Canada, if any. Yeah, it was a little Canada-centric, but clearly they had done some thinking.
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*Shrug* The Gladiator and Madonna thing was off NBC. Maybe they did their research off Wikipedia, "In Popular Culture" Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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I was watching the opening ceremony with my jewish friend and her mom and when palestine came up in the parade of nations they were like "well that's strange... because palestine is not a country." Isn't it a country, though? Isn't that why it's called the "israeli-palestinian conlflict" at times? hrm
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Neither is Hong Kong or Puerto Rico, perhaps they allow for some local leeway in determining what can form a team or not.
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Guam, American Samoa, and the Virgin Islands all have competing teams, as well as a dozen Pacific Island chains that I'd never heard of before.
I think Palestine is fair game to have their own team. Who else would they compete for? Israel? I don't see that happening.
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Can I just say when I watched the woman's weight lifting and heard the mainlanders cheering quite loudly for the Taiwanese athlete I almost lost it. I'm really enjoying these Olympics so far.
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The mens 4 X 100M Freestyle just finishe and the USA team beat out the trash talking French. What a beautiful race.
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BB: I'm not entirely surprised by that for a number of reasons. Although I *do* find it quite nice and heartening nonetheless.
I would judge the probability of non-cheering between the mainland and either the French or the Germans to be higher than Taiwan actually, barring any intentional provocations.
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quote:Originally posted by brojack17: The mens 4 X 100M Freestyle just finishe and the USA team beat out the trash talking French. What a beautiful race.
That was an AMAZING race. I can't believe the last few seconds when they were neck and neck, and I can't believe how much they all smashed the record by.
Stunning.
And this was supposed to be the biggest potential hurdle for Phelps in his quest to beat Spitz's record. I think you could see his relief in his intense reaction.
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: BB: I'm not entirely surprised by that for a number of reasons. Although I *do* find it quite nice and heartening nonetheless.
I would judge the probability of non-cheering between the mainland and either the French or the Germans to be higher than Taiwan actually, barring any intentional provocations.
I figured you'd say as much. I wasn't SURPRISED by it, just happy to see the comradery.
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They said this suit would make records fall. I guess it's working. All three teams on the podium broke the old world record that was set by the US relay qualifying team.
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quote:Originally posted by brojack17: The mens 4 X 100M Freestyle just finishe and the USA team beat out the trash talking French. What a beautiful race.
That was an AMAZING race. I can't believe the last few seconds when they were neck and neck, and I can't believe how much they all smashed the record by.
Stunning.
And this was supposed to be the biggest potential hurdle for Phelps in his quest to beat Spitz's record. I think you could see his relief in his intense reaction.
Yea, that was super intense at the end. The reactions of the U.S team after the race were hilarious. They could have easily been actors in 300.
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I do sort of feel sorry for the French team. They were visibly crushed at the end. Buuuut, I'd feel more sorry for them if they hadn't been trash talking before hand.
quote:They said this suit would make records fall. I guess it's working. All three teams on the podium broke the old world record that was set by the US relay qualifying team.
Actually the top five finishing teams all beat the world record. Pretty amazing race when the guy two spots out from the Bronze still beats the world record.
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quote:The reactions of the U.S team after the race were hilarious. They could have easily been actors in 300.
I can't wait to share that observation with my brother. He's a huge 300 fan.
Ah, but I was dying because NBC kept playing their reaction in slow-motion! It just made it that much more dramatic and hilarious.
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I didn't feel sorry for the French team. They were crushed but that is what happens when you get overconfident and run your mouth. Plus, they're French. Posts: 1766 | Registered: Feb 2006
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quote:Originally posted by brojack17: The mens 4 X 100M Freestyle just finishe and the USA team beat out the trash talking French. What a beautiful race.
That was an AMAZING race. I can't believe the last few seconds when they were neck and neck, and I can't believe how much they all smashed the record by.
Stunning.
And this was supposed to be the biggest potential hurdle for Phelps in his quest to beat Spitz's record. I think you could see his relief in his intense reaction.
Yea, that was super intense at the end. The reactions of the U.S team after the race were hilarious. They could have easily been actors in 300.
I didn't think about that. Looking back, that's so true. Posts: 1766 | Registered: Feb 2006
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I don't know why everyone likes to make a big deal that the French said they'd "smash" the Americans. I'd be disappointed if an olympian said something like I'll humbly try to do my best and perhaps I'll swim faster than my competition. It's just not nearly so exciting. It perhaps was worded, or translated, a more more maliciously than he originally intended(if it was translated.. it probably was at least inside his head), but I appreciate the intensity.
That said, that was an amazing race. Absurd.
The gymnastics was so amazing also, just in general. Other notable things I saw today, a sweet 3 game match of beach volleyball between china and Greece, a crushing match of badminton between china and Taiwan. The olympics are just so interesting. Oh also saw the end of the bronze medal shotgun trap shootout, that was cool.
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That was a simply astonishing relay race. Just... brilliant. My Canadian friend and I were going insane at the end of it.
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My favorite part that I have seen so far was Women's Fencing. All medals went to USA. The French swim team all looked like such jerks to me.
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They actually didn't seem all that bad. They were confident, it's not like the US Olympic team is short on confident atheletes. They were favored to win, they really wanted it, and that much was evident in the looks on their faces when they lost the gold by inches.
But when they got to the podium they were all smiles and all waves. Sometimes I think the measure of a person is more in how they recover from a defeat than in how they achieved a victory. They shook hands afterwards, they sucked it up, they're still Olympic champions and I think they accepted that.
Besides, without them, that race wouldn't have been nearly so exciting, and probably wouldn't have even been as fast. I think we needed that push to really eke out ever hundreth of a second.
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Lezak was amazing!!! He was still behind when he got to the red zone. Cannot believe it, especially after the commentators were talking about how it couldn't be done.
And the French and even the Australians completely smashed the world record, too. Wow.
Everyone's talking about how this makes Michael Phelps' dream of winning 8 golds possible, but Phelps came in second in his leg. It was Lezak who won that gold for him!
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I think there is a profound difference between confidence and trash talking.
I'm perfectly fine with confidence. Look at the following:
"If we swim our best, we can beat anybody in the world. "
"We're going to smash the Americans."
One is an expression of confidence, and is perfectly true - the French WERE the favorites, and there is no doubt that swimming their best, they can beat our team. The second is trash-talking, and it rubs me the wrong way.
It also can come back and bite you, as it appears the US relay team all heard about those comments and were fired up by them.
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quote:Originally posted by Belle: I don't really buy the fear issue - I think it's simply an issue of physicality. It's better if the girls are flat chested and small, and that's more likely to occur in pre-pubescent girls.
A view from the Canadian gymnastics team in the conservative Canadian National Post:
quote: The Canadian women's team has been in a practice group with the Chinese during the Olympic competition. "Those girls I see at the gym look eligible to me," Orchard said. "They are magnificent gymnasts. I could sit there all day and watch them.
"Their physique is even smaller than the typical North American child, so it is [exacerbated] even more. They are the best in the world, especially on bars and beam, but they are just tinier people."
In fact, the minimum age in Olympic gymnastics has been raised from 14 to 15, to 16 over the years, as those outside the sport grew concerned with the work regimen demanded of 12-and 13-year-olds in preparation for the Games.
"It's difficult to understand our sport. The physique is so different," Orchard said. "To my mind, 15 is the perfect age.
"In this sport, we do select very tiny packages. Even in Canada you have girls where you go, 'Oh my God. They look like they're only 10.' They're 15."
To be honest, it comes as no surprise to me that Westerners would underestimate the age of Chinese girls. It works the other way too, we often over estimate ages for people here.
(To make it clear, I have no doubt that some of the girls may be underage, but for other reasons. The incredible ease of individual bribery and the pressure to commit collaborative corruption. But my main point is that it is not easy to tell just by looking especially if the accusation is from a biased competitor)
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I just heard that no one died in the Cross Country horse event! WTG Olympic planners, you made a possible course.
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quote:(To make it clear, I have no doubt that some of the girls may be underage, but for other reasons. The incredible ease of individual bribery and the pressure to commit collaborative corruption. But my main point is that it is not easy to tell just by looking especially if the accusation is from a biased competitor)
It's not just about looking, however - there are reports from Chinese newspapers that state some of these girls are younger than they should be.
There's more to the age controversy than just "Oh, she looks too young to be sixteen!"
People have found articles from two years ago that describe a girl as 12. Then, suddenly she ages four years in two years?
I have no doubt that it's difficult to estimate the age of people, especially an ethnic group other than your own. Still, there is more than just looks to make people believe some of these girls are underage.
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Sure, and conflicting records are a better guide than looks.
However, I was more referring to this quote in the article:
quote: Bela Karolyi, former coach to Nadia Comaneci and Mary Lou Retton, now coaches the pixies of the United States team. He spoke out last week about the Chinese.
"This is a joke," he said. "We are people who have had children of our own, so we know what a 16-year-old should look like. They should not look like they are seven and maybe still in diapers."
Even if they are 14, thats like Grade 8 or 9 which is a far cry from age 7. Especially the 'diapers' remark smacks of bitterness.
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I just saw the 200m freestyle final - amazing.
The Australian women have been doing really well in the pool. Nice to see.
But I've been enjoying some of the other events - I saw the mens 10m synchronised diving final yesterday. One of the British team is 14! And pretty good. The Chinese team (who won) were pretty incredible - to stay so in synch as you are falling 10m into water. (Mind you, I can't even jump elegantly off a 10m board). I found the 17 year old Chinese guy who won the 56kg weightlifting interesting.
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Very exciting team competition for men's gymnastics just ended. I thought the coverage was pretty good, but I would've liked to have seen routines from a few other teams (NBC showed China, Japan, and US almost exclusively). There was a long enough wait for scores that they could've easily flipped to say, the vaults, without missing any of what they wanted to cover.
I admit that I haven't read the first 2 pages of this thread, so forgive me if I repeat: I just want to complain briefly about the commentators. I'm sure it's very difficult to comment live. But in the 2 years between Olympics I always forget how ANNOYING they are. They latch onto a theme (last night: the fact that the US was putting up 4 routines instead of 5, so EVERY SCORE COUNTS!!!!!!!!) and repeat it and repeat it and repeat it and repeat it...
Maybe that's what sports commentary is like? If so, I can imagine that someone who knew enough about a sport would just mute it.
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The men did well to capture the bronze, considering the hardship they've overcome. The pommel routines were disappointing, and I swear I would have put up Horton for no reason other than the man was HOT tonight and on a roll. But how interesting that Sasha Artemev didn't make the team because they didn't think they could rely on him - and he's the ONLY one who came through in the clutch on pommel.
I was happy for him, but honestly a bit disgusted with the performances of Tan and Bhavsar on pommel. Our men's program really needs to do a better job on that event, it's perennially our weakest and Sasaha showed that good routines ARE possible.
However, it was still a good showing. Now, I hope Horton gets a chance in the all-around finals.
On to the women's competition!
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I was hoping they get the silver, despite the very slim chance, but its still INCREDIBLE that they medaled! I remember being so stunned when I heard both of the Hamm brothers were going to be out of the competition. The alternates must have been so excited and so nervous. But they pulled it out. Some less than stellar performances, but I'm still so proud of them!
And Horton! Wow! He could do no wrong tonight. I hope we'll see more of him this Olympics.
On a random note, I love that the men don't even bother to pretend to dance during their floor routine. They just go out there and throw themselves through the air. I wish the female routines were as straight forward.
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Yeah, that Sasha wossname was fabulous on the pommel. And I forget the name, but there was that one tall-ish blond guy who did the high bar and just went insane. Fantastic fun.
I also feel the need to reiterate - Michael Phelps is a beast. If it weren't for the Morgan Freeman Visa commercials, I would have said Phelps was part dolphin; fortunately, I now know better. Posts: 3932 | Registered: Sep 1999
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quote:They latch onto a theme (last night: the fact that the US was putting up 4 routines instead of 5, so EVERY SCORE COUNTS!!!!!!!!) and repeat it and repeat it and repeat it and repeat it...
I've always thought this was aimed at people, like me, who tend to be in and out just catching a bit here and there.
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quote:On a random note, I love that the men don't even bother to pretend to dance during their floor routine. They just go out there and throw themselves through the air.
Indeed. Though I like the dancy moves from the women when they're well done. Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Yeah I feel like the women are clearly not synchronized for most of the time and therefore the music is sort of an annoying distraction from the real event, the person dancing or gymnasticking around.
Yeah, the second pommel routine was just embarrassing for America. Artemev did really well though. I don't know what's really judged in pommel, but I like his routine best of anybody, there's lots of flashy-looking leg flailing up high. eh, it impresses me. I think the most impressive thing of the night was: Chinese parallel bars, and American high bar, specifically the triple flip, and the triple twist dismounts from two of them. They are just so impressive.
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I couldn't believe how they fell apart on the pommel, and the scores the first two got. But wow Artemev was awesome! I couldn't believe some of the twists and turns he did on that routine.
Horton was just on FIRE in every single event. He was getting crazy air and sticking landings like velcro.
I think he and Justin Spring were just totally robbed on the high bar. They were doing AMAZING stuff, just amazing. And while they were getting low 15s, the Chinese were getting high 16s over on the vault, and then 16s on the high bar themselves. That didn't seem right to me. Spring and Horton had stunning high bar routines and they both nailed them with almost mechanical precision.
I'm really proud of them. Does anyone know which of the Americans qualified for which events in the individual gymnastics portion? I thought every event had a competition to see who is best, and then that there is an all around title (that Horton I know is competing for).
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Nevermind, I found it. Only two atheletes from each country may compete regardless of scores. The top eight finishers get to compete for their aparatus, except for the Individual All Around which I think uses the top 24 finishers.
Jonathon Horton and Alexander Artemev have qualified for the Individial All Around title. They'll compete against 22 others. No American men qualified for the Floor, Valut, Parallel Bars or Rings.
Alexander Artemev will compete for the Pommel Horse against seven others, and Jonathon Horton will compete in the Horizontal Bar against seven others.
Horton came in sixth in the Qualifiers in Horizontal Bar, and Justin Spring and Joey Haggerty just barely missed qualifying by a couple tenths of a point. No other American even came close in Pommel.
On the women's side:
Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin finished first and second in Individual All Around, the only event the Chinese women didn't finish first. The two of them finished third and fourth on the Floor Exercise.
Alicia Sacramore finished third on Vault. Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson finished second and third on Balance Beam, and Nastia Liukin finished fifth on Uneven Bars. Even though she finished fifth, Liukin is a gold medal favorite on the Bars, though China considers the event their specialty and will compete heavily for placement on the podium.
The women could have done a lot better in qualifying for the individual events, but they took a lot of spills during the quals that knocked a few of them out, like Memmel on the Uneven Bars and Sacramore on the Floor.
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I was yelling at my husband when Horton was doing the floor routine, "You've got to see this! You've got to see this! Look at him stick these landings!!!"
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The way mens gymnastics team after they won bronze was horrible. Hamming it up for the cammera saying "What, what!" and "That's how we roll". I really hate middle to upperclass white kids acting like gangsters. Well, I hate anyone acting like gangsters.
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I thought it was pretty funny. Horton is so stereotypically Texan that I was dying of laughter, particularly the "swimmin' in the river" comment along with the "glory to God part". He could have been a UT football player. It was amusing to watch the rest of the team eyeroll on that bit. I wonder in particular what Rav thought.
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Uh-oh; it appears that one of the Chinese girls in the opening ceremony was lip-synching her song.
I don't think this matters much; people lip-synch all the time, and it's just a little embarrassing when they're caught.
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The lip-synching doesn't bother if the same girl were singing the song. In other words, if it were her singing, just pre-recorded I wouldn't have a problem with it. But, to use on girls' voice and substitute another one just because she's prettier does bug me.
And the faked fireworks? That does take away some of my admiration for that opening ceremony. I mean, anybody can put together an amazing show with special effects and the ability to pre-record and edit footage. What makes the opening ceremonies so impressive is that they're live.
So yeah, color me disappointed.
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