Eurovision 2001: A (big) space odyssey (CLOSE ENCOUNTER!) | Super-cut with animated scoreboard

An edited down version of the Eurovision Song Contest 2001 in Copenhagen with a scoreboard using today’s technology. Nothing but a fun lockdown project.

This edit will give a flavour of the evening (12th May) with Terry Wogan’s controversial commentary (if you’re from Danish TV).

Yes, much is said about the size of Parken and the 55 minutes it took for all the 38,000 tickets to be sold (perhaps 35k were sold at first, according to one source). It seems what the Swedes could do, the Danes could do better – and I largely agree. Most of the complaints come from the fact the audience and commentator experience wasn’t great, but having stood on the floor in Lisbon in 2018, I can say it’s still not a great watch for a spectator. Ironically, the smaller conference venues of the past offered the audience a better view, but were probably harder to shoot a TV show from. Although the Danish directors shied away from any ‘trick shots’, they certainly had an impressive stage to show. The atmosphere…aided by a close race involving the home team, made the night. Had Denmark been on the second half of the board, I’m sure DR would be questioning their decision.

Having been annoyed I didn’t/couldn’t go down the betting shop in 2000, I guess the same would have been true for Estonia in 2001, although I doubt I would have bet on them!

‘Everybody’ is far from my favourite winner, in fact, I wonder what the rest of Europe was thinking. The other options all have minor issues though. France had an outstanding song and performance, for 1992. Greece is an ear-worm (it was the one I caught myself humming during the week) but on first listen it’s not that impressive. Denmark is probably my favourite alternative winner and I’ve opted for longer edits of the Olsen Brother’s excellent intro and Rollo & King…which is Denmark’s issue: it breaks the law of modern Eurovision that no two similar ‘types’ of song will win consecutively…I reserve the right to change what I mean by ‘type’ at will lol. Certainly, on this occasion it’s that Western, toe-tapping sound that’s a little too similar to the incumbent trophy holder. Eventually, at about 23.48 CEST, the Contest was going to the first new country since 1990 - it wouldn’t return to a previous host until 2010.

There’s so much to be said for the presentation, and I actually really liked the hosts. I felt the rhyming couplets provided some great moments (the end of the intro) but also shook the personality out of them. Wogan was on form all night, and probably right in his mocking. Rightly or wrongly, this period is where he’s at the peak of his power, his years of experience was outranking nearly everyone involved now the conductors are gone. The complaint that had to be issued from the BBC probably weakened that hold a bit.

*DESIGN AND THE BOARD*
Well I’ve stayed away from recreating logos so far, but I love this one. I’d much prefer this heart to be our permanent logo, but I am a sucker for Scandi design. I love the moments where the logo forms during the opening performances and how they try and tie the voting sequence into the shape too (there’s locations appearing around the rings at one point). The stage nicely reflects the logo as well, something we’ve rarely seen (although we did see the lips on stage a lot in Stockholm).

I might be making a big leap, but do you think the stairs at the back are ‘call-back’ to the 1964 stage? They go somewhere, but don’t look useful.

The board is designed by the DR Design team, so we say goodbye to BBC involvement here. Clearly Avid and IBM are involved, probably with some edit/graphics package software. I love the design, and I went with adding straight lines to the rounded heart shape which I recreated on a flat plane, rather than in 3D space. The points fly on transforming from rounded to square to mark the difference. I’ve hopefully added to the original by speeding up some animation and reordering it! I added outlined boxes and harsher white lines to bring in some other famous Danish designs that I like too (Arne Jacobsen’s Danish bank clock). Typeface: Rotis Semi Serif and not Eras ITC, which a lot of places have as the logo font…I think that might be wrong – hard to tell from the VHS tapes.

*TRANSFER NEWS* (source: Wiki)
I’ll tackle the new system in the comments, but to get to Copenhagen:

REL’D for this year were: BEL, AUT, CYP, FYROM, FIN, ROM, SUI. (The last four having been also relegated in 1998)
BACK automatically (rel’d in 99): SLO, BIH, POR, POL, LIT.
ALSO BACK: GRE.
*INTERVAL ACT*
Aqua, which I think for decency (lol) and rights issues, is best left out. The biggest ‘act’ to perform since The Wombles 74?

*CREDITS*
@Schlagerarkivet for best pictures
@LucasESCArchive for Wogan
Flags: Hopnguyen Mr on iconfinder.com
All Copyright belongs to DR, BBC

00:00 Intro
05:11 Song super-cut
41:52 Intro to interval, voting intro
46:00 The reorder board 2001
1:37:36 Recap, data & reprise

Видео Eurovision 2001: A (big) space odyssey (CLOSE ENCOUNTER!) | Super-cut with animated scoreboard канала thereorderboard : Eurovision