Paris Olympics: Unprecedented ceremony, the biggest television production ever made

The opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games, which will take place on the River Seine on July 26, will be the biggest television production "ever made" by the audiovisual branch of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which will this event. This three-hour and 45-minute show, which will take place for the first time outside a stadium and will offer the opportunity for delegations of athletes to parade over 6 km on board 85 boats, "will be the largest production that we have ever achieved in terms of broadcasting equipment and resources," stated Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS). On the banks and bridges of the French capital, around 3,000 dancers and comedians will offer twelve artistic stages, which will celebrate athletes, tell "a story of what France is", a country of "diversity" and celebrate "the whole world united". , according to the creator of the ceremony, Thomas Jolly. A subsidiary of the IOC created in 2001, OBS is responsible for filming the Games and providing images to television channels around the world that have purchased the broadcast rights. In the center of its huge arrangement on the Seine (from the Austerlitz bridge to the Trocadero, where the finale of the parade will take place) and the main nearby monuments (Notre-Dame, Louvre, Musee d'Orsay, etc.), more than 100 systems will be implemented of cameras, including robotic ones and cranes. More than 200 smart phones will also be installed on the boats to provide a "unique" perspective of the ceremony for a billion viewers who expect to watch live the protocol parade in which between 6,000 and 7,000 athletes will participate. "To give you an idea of the scale of the project, it is three times the number of cameras used during the Olympic ceremony in Tokyo 2020 (in 2021 - ed.). In addition, we will have eight drones, three helicopters and four boats stabilized to order, equipped with specially designed camera systems", details OBS. To provide images to televisions around the world, the IOC branch set up its headquarters at the International Broadcasting Center and its gigantic control rooms in the vast Parc des Expositions de la Bourget (Seine-Saint-Denis), north of Paris.