Sunday, May 21, 2006

does whatever a spider can...

I found out more about the Eurovision amazing camera cuts- the clue was in the credits. The system is called Spidercam from Creative Complex Systems, an Austrian Company. The Camera is suspended on four cables, each of which goes back to a tower and can be rapidly winched in or out. This enables the camera to be placed practically anywhere within the bounds of the towers and presumably if the camera is radio controlled for pan, tilt, zoom and focus, remarkable things happen.

I do wonder, though, how disorienting it must have been for the turns, who could have come to grief if they had wandered off their marks during the performance.

The other thing we watched (on time shift) was the Princes Trust gig, a sort of mini- Live 8 & Red Nose day rolled into one. Ben Elton hosted the last hour and is as sharp and searing as ever, it took me straight back to the mid 80s, Saturday live and "a little bit of politics". None of your middle of the road Ant & Dec pap, this was in your face and cutting edge.

A lot of the 80's acts were Cak but it held together well and Friday Night Live was even bigger, if short lived. Ben was great live, a real motormouth and whilst you didn't always agree with him, he certainly pointed out the absurd and the funny side.

I still say "hello everybodypeeps" to some people who remember Harry enfield's Stavros.

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