Eurovision 1985: Yurta-buoyyy! | Super-cut with animated scoreboard

*WINNING SONG REMOVED BY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, (APR 2021) SORRY!*
An edited down version of the spectacular 1985 Eurovision Song Contest in Gothenburg, Sweden with a scoreboard using today’s technology. Nothing but a fun lockdown project.

This edit will give a flavour of the evening (4th May) with Terry Wogan’s UK commentary, although as Terry was full of flu, he didn’t travel to Sweden and commentated from London. Pictures come from Austria’s transmission (see credits). Overall the contest had a high quality, with some interesting parts. The opening number by host Lill Lindfors, Spain’s amazing vocals, Denmark’s child star, the Israeli entry onto the stage and Sweden’s intro all deserved some extra time, as did the interval act.

SVT pulled out all the stops for it’s first contest in ten years with a large stage with all the 80s modcons of neon lighting, white metal scaffolds, back lighting and clear plastic globes! Everything was on stage too...even Frank Naef. It’s worth noting how little French is spoken in this programme, and you’ll have to go down to tenth in the final order of things to find a song in French (although this fact is helped by the Swiss opting to sing in German, and the Belgians singing in the Flemish this year).

*DESIGN AND THE BOARD*
SVT had a new scoreboard but from a familiar country, as the credits list Wige Data as the scoreboard supplier- a company that is still around today, based in Germany. The scoreboard is notable for the first time rankings are shown during the voting process - there was more computational stuff going on in the board than just showing numbers! I’ve replicated this for my graphics, although the full read out by Lil isn’t really required on the re-order board!

The competition logo is prominent in the set but typeface for the smaller logo text (Sweden 1985) isn’t carried elsewhere, but we do have uniformity between lower thirds and the scoreboard! This time they use Memphis, a font designed in Weimar Germany (1929) by the Stempel foundry. It’s had many reworks pre-digitisation, and I picked up a free version online. You’ll notice the few occasions I’ve kept the original song straps in, the country flags seem a little off centre. I’m fairly sure they are a masked off camera shot of the scoreboard - a sign of how little memory the (probably Aston) generator had - no ability to show memory heavy flags!
It was clear that a more human, script typeface should take centre stage with Memphis providing the more rational text, as with the logo layout. I didn’t manage to identify either typeface in the logo, so I picked the wonderful ‘Arkipelago’ by Nasir Udin via FontsArena.com for my display typeface.

I had a bit of a reworking of the way the board re-arranges for this year, mimicking more of what we see in today’s scoreboards and opted for a typographical way of awarding the points. In re-order board style, I’m sticking with Swedish in the hope you might pick something up...I did! In addition, the board now evaluates all points awarded (not just 8, 10s and 12s) - even though this ranking system isn’t in use in the contest yet.

*TRANSFER NEWS* (source: Wiki)
OUT: The Netherlands miss their first contest since 1956, as the show was scheduled for the same day as the Dutch Remembrance of the Dead. Similarly, the anniversary of Tito’s death in Yugoslavia meant they also stayed away.
BACK: Greece came back hoping for a stronger show, and so did Israel as there wasn’t a date clash.

*INTERVAL ACT*
Guitars Unlimited with Swedish Evergreens - I’ve kept some of it in. Two guys on guitars, but I found it quite spell-binding. Best interval act since 1980, I’d say.

*CREDITS*
ESC Stuff for the best vision version, a recording of ORF’s (Austria) transmission.
Lukas ESC Archive for Wogan’s commentary which included a BBC 1 clock!
www.countryflags.com/en/ for all the free to use images of flags
The flashing phone came from www.flaticon.com
All Copyright goes to SVT, BBC.

00:00 | Intro
01:50 | My Joy is Building Bricks and Music - Lill Lindfors
06:28 | Song super-cut
24:02 | Interval act edit
24:31 | Voting intro (Lindfors prank)
26:40 | The reorder board 85
1:17:10 | Top 3 and Winning Song
1:22:19 | Closing Credits

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