The Eurovision Song Contest has introduced each country’s entry using video “Postcards” since 1970. The Postcards typically featured the musicians sharing information about themselves, and they were filmed in locations that either showcased the delegate’s home country or interesting spots around the host country.
This year, the pandemic made it impractical to film all the delegates in The Netherlands before the competition, so the concept was updated a little. The producers chose to highlight the Dutch tiny house movement by filming framed mini-houses in some of the country’s most beautiful locations, and inserted images of the delegates into them.
Kevin Soares, executive producer for idtv and Eurovision Song Contest Postcards 2021, explains the steps used to create the short films, and see below for a video on the process.
1. Motion Control
We used new and special hardware from Edelkrone to have the ability to use Motion-Control, but with the flexibility that we needed for our shoot
2. Drone
We were the first production in The Netherlands to be able to make drone recordings under the new EU Drone Regulations. Therefore, we were able to officially drone on locations that previously weren't allowed, such as Amsterdam Schiphol Airport and Rotterdam Centraal Station.
3."Hologram"/Green Screen
We thought of a concept and workflow to integrate recordings from 39 different countries into the Postcards. For this we used a “hologram” appearance feature.
4. The Artist
For the hologram appearances of each Eurovision artist, we have asked each delegation to shoot its artist in a green screen setting. We asked the artists to do specific poses and sometimes a small activity. All 39 delegations then uploaded their green screen recordings (for which we made a briefing about which cameras to use, angles, lighting, etc) to a server for us to use.
5. Post-Production
During the post-production we used STORM as a VFX-partner company to integrate all green screen recordings into the Tiny House edit that we filmed in The Netherlands. We made a specific VFX design to give each artist that 'hologram' feel.
The Postcards for the 65th Eurovision Song Contest are produced bij idtv. idtv is a Dutch production company owned by All3Media Company. Watch Eurovision head of show, Gerben Bakker, on filming this year's Postcards.