Musings – The Look
Posted by Andrew “Super Extra Wonder Shop” Bell
You know you are a true blue Eurovision addict when, in the dark watches of the night, you’re Youtube-ing takes you away from the ESC straight and narrow and into the murky demi-monde of the various national selection contests over many decades.
It is televisual paydirt.
You get to see & hear songs that might have been as well as those that should never have been at all.
You also get to see the medium of TV developing in an array of ways across Europe.
And each Melodi Grand Prix, A Dal, National Song Contest & Söngvakeppni Sjónvarpsins also revealed something about the individual countries themselves.
They show the individual broadcasters at the peak of their game … or trying to reach for the stars.
There were triumphs, but there were occasions when even with every bit of televisual hardware thrown at the event some of the efforts resembled a bad night at Revesby Workers Club.
The standard improved, but the feel and the look of these programs remained different from country to country.
Even when efforts were made to be groundbreaking there was still a down home quality about them.
I have a tape somewhere of the 1990 Melodi Grand Prix, the Norwegian decider.
Some Bjorn, Terje or Greta in marketing had the smart idea of staging it in a swanky hotel.
Great shots from the mezzanine, sense of glamour, our very own Hollywood (Fjordywood??)
You can imagine the pitch.
It didn’t quite come off.
What they got was a sense of shambolic theatre restaurant.
You can almost hear the swing door of the kitchen creaking as the waiters and waitresses brink out the coffee and mint chocolates during the performances.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz01bdjMB18]
The highlight was the presenter almost falling head first off the stage and into the laps of Mr and Mrs Hasselgårds down from Tromsø on a Norges Statsbaner Super Awayday Special for their 27th wedding anniversary.
It was a brave but doomed effort and all power to their albuene – elbows in Norwegian – for trying.
22 years on and here’s what NRK served up in 2012.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVDTg9JBVLE]
Slick, contemporary and almost a carbon copy of “Australia’s Got Talent”, “X Factor” and their ilk.
This is the globalisation of not just television content but the way the medium looks & sounds.
That was Oslo, this is Budapest.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSEj7ieDgkg&feature=related]
Circular stage – Check. Swooping crane shots – check. ADI-esque direction – check.
Down Cyprus way, the one size fits all approach was also embraced.
The only sign of local vigour, creativity or, in this case, craziness came with the songs themselves.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQmZpdn2So8]
Back up north and Iceland’s Ríkisútvarpið broke ranks. A bit. There was a semi-circular stage and a runway. Bit radical.
But seriously, the feel is very much the same as elsewhere.
You could be anywhere, except the Icelanders are sticking with their own language.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3INxvhZse3g]
In days of yore the idiosyncratic nature of each country’s selection program were part of their allure.
Nobody expected they would be seen beyond one particular country on one particular night.
They live on through sites like this one and You Tube.
Except now you look from one to the other and onto the next and see precious little to mark them out as individual (& substantial) national events.
The Eurovision brand has overwhelmed the entire process and I think we are all a bit poorer for it.
And if you were wondering about my alter-ego indicated at the head of the blog post, may I take you back to YLE’s 1973 Finnish National Song Contest.
This is negative KPI territory !
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Y8wt0e9SEk]
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