Eurovision 1998: Drama International (MUST SEE!) | Super-cut with animated scoreboard

Описание: An edited down version of the 1998 Eurovision Song Contest à Beurre-min-am with a scoreboard using today’s technology. Nothing but a fun lockdown project.

This edit will give a flavour of the evening (9th May) with Terry Wogan’s commentary and, for the only time, his presenting too.

The theory goes that everyone’s favourite Bond film is the first one they watched. I wonder if the theory holds with Eurovision? I lucked out of course – 98 is a classic! This was the first time I heard another language spoken on television…and by Terry Wogan. I assume the theory must be true though, as why else would you keep coming back?

After four gruelling landslides, this Contest delivered a thriller, and with plenty of publicity around it too. The publicity helps of course, because for the first time, most countries would be televoting…and in general the televoters did good - they sifted out the best handful of songs and set them on a dizzying race to the finish line.

Most of you will know about the press coverage of course, but before editing this programme I didn’t have any idea about what I was doing on New Year’s Eve 1998 (22 years ago exactly at time of posting). Now I know…I was watching ‘Naked Eurovision’ – and that programme, together with what I watched in May, sealed the deal. I was in. Luckily it’s on YouTube, and I’ve taken the relevant bits from it and put them at the beginning (and for hardy fans, at the end too) to give a complete picture of this amazing week in the second city.

Birmingham 1998 saw a massive boost for LGBT+ visibility with Dana International taking the prize (sorry for the spoiler) and we had great black representation at the top half of the board too. Although English (and internationalese from Dana) seemed to dominate, I think this year squashed the idea that good pop songs have to be in English. The Dutch, Belgian, Croatian and Swedish songs were all great. We also said goodbye to the orchestra of course, and I’ve included plenty of Geoff Posner’s sweeping shots of it in all it’s glory.

DESIGN AND THE BOARD
Full disclosure: I know someone who operated the map section of this board and I know how much fun she had that week! I could title this section ‘in defence of the maps’…I like the visual difference the maps provide…it was great as a new viewer – like watching a video game, but I understand it’s less helpful in a close race. Mike Afford and Jerry Clark’s board was a revolution in what had come before it of course. Flying points for the first time! An elegant solution to the odd number of entrants…take out the voting country from the pack to even it up. The ‘Top 5’ that had been around since 1985 was out, with a quicker ‘all board re-ordering’ whenever it felt necessary. Waving flags, which identify the leader instantaneously help clarify the race. A sense of depth in the reordering too and really clever parts, such as the Macedonian vote bar shrinking right at the end (caught me out a bit, that).

What we needed of course, was dynamic reordering – and this is where I come in (although I think the technology was there, I wonder if production didn’t want it). I’ve tried to faithfully recreate the board, with some of my usual tools included. My stars animation is quicker to allow for the board to rearrange in a more pronounced style this year. I couldn’t take the voting country out of the pack of course, as the board would be giving the wrong impression of the race.

Otherwise, the stage design was great but a little out there…what is the whale fin about? There’s also a clear lack of theme between the graphic elements, the stage and the logo – which has gone very corporate again – and using a different typeface. I’ve kept Century Gothic, and the house style font (Aktiv Grotesk) as they matched perfectly what we saw on screen.

TRANSFER NEWS (source: Wiki)
Big-hitter Germany was relegated again at the end of 97 but because Italy had got their paperwork sorted this year (thanks for the info on that by the way), Germany scraped through again. And good for them, they provided a definite highlight.
RELEGATED for 97: DEN, RUS, AUT, ICE, BIH. Naughty Russia didn’t broadcast this feast, and therefore under the rules, stay out of 99 too.
BACK automatically (rel’d in 96): SLO, ROM, FIN, BEL
DEBUT (finally): FYI, Macedonia. Otherwise know as: l’Ex-République yougoslave de Macédoine.

This year’s relegation had a massive 7 slots to avoid – because the EBU wanted to squeeze Latvia in next year. Watch Edsilia and Mélanie successfully bring their countries back!

INTERVAL ACT
Pandemonium with Lesley Garrett, Vanessa-Mae et. al.

CREDITS
@ESC Stuff for Terry
@Schlagerarkivet for HD-ness
Flags: countryflags.com (Cyprus altered).
All Copyright belongs to BBC

00:00 Naked Eurovision
07:19 Intro
15:41 Song super-cut
48:37 Interval act
51:14 Voting intro
52:47 The reorder board 98
1:37:01 Recap, corrections, data & reprise