Posted Sep 21, 2007, 12:30 AM
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Vancouver Moderator
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Join Date: Mar 2007
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Australian chosen to produce 2010 Winter Games ceremonies
Global Noon News Hour Report:
http://video.canada.com/Video.aspx?30431
Quote:
Jeff Lee, Vancouver Sun
The man who produced one of the most memorable opening and closing ceremonies in Olympic history has been given the job of crafting the ceremonies for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics.
David Atkins, whose production of the 2000 Sydney Summer Games ceremonies are regarded as one of four top Olympic performances, was named Thursday as the executive producer of a team heavy with Canadian talent, including impresarios Sam Feldman, Bruce Allen, Nettwerk Records' Dan Fraser and Jacques Lemay, the co-founder of the Canadian College of Performing Arts.
Atkins beat out a field of 15 other contenders to head the $40 million production, including such competitors as Scott Givens and Don Mischer, who produced the 2002 Salt Lake Games events, and Austrialian colleague Andrew Walsh, who also worked on the Sydney ceremonies.
But his proposal was not accepted unchanged by the Vancouver Organizing Committee. Instead, in a pattern moulded after the Beijing 2008 Summer Games, Vanoc cherry-picked elements from a number of the other proposals. In fact, one of the largest combinations came from Feldman and Allen, who had submitted a proposal of their own but were asked to form a team with Atkins.
Atkins and his crew will be responsible for producing both the opening and closing ceremony shows as well as the nightly victory ceremonies at BC Place.
It will be the first time in Olympic history that such events have been held indoors, something Atkins said later won't pose a challenge. Instead, creating a performance with 10,000 performers inside a venue where weather isn't a factor will be a joy, he said.
"The greatest impediment to any ceremonies is the weather," he said. "In this case, that has been sensibly removed."
The opening ceremony show, which Vanoc says will last about two-and-a-half hours, will be performed before a live audience of 50,000. The closing ceremonies will last about two hours and fifteen minutes. But Atkins said that by the end of the Olympics, the events will have been viewed by six billion people.
The International Olympic Committee estimates that up to three billion people watch each opening or closing ceremonies.
It will certainly be, by Atkins' estimation, the most-watched television production in Canadian history.
Atkins and Terry Wright, Vanoc's executive vice-president of ceremonies, said the events will be an unprecedented opportunity to showcase Canadian talent. They said they will begin a search later this year to identify national, regional and local talent.
The ceremonies will pay tribute to all of Canada's cultural communities, including First Nations and the country's linguistic duality, Wright said.
Atkins' list of credits include the 2000 Sydney Games, including the Sydney Harbour closing ceremony fireworks show that included the world's longest fireworks show.
Atkins said he won't use such fireworks for the BC Place show, but will look for other opportunities, including using the Teflon dome as a projection screen.
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