by Mary Hardesty

"I would never go into an event like this without a first-rate DGA team," veteran director Don Mischer said, whose company, Don Mischer Productions, produced and directed the ceremonies.

The multiple Emmy– and DGA Award–winning Mischer, along with DGA member Kenny Ortega and producers David Goldberg and Geoff Bennett, spent more than a year putting the concept for the two shows together.

"We initially began meeting with a lot of community leaders, educational institutions and local groups," Mischer said, including to the five Native American tribes in Utah to ask them to participate in the Opening Ceremonies."

Mischer is no stranger to covering the Olympics and said that producing and directing an Olympics Ceremony is far different from working on TV specials.

"Instead of three months of work, a few dozen cast and crew members, it's several years of work, a cast of thousands and organizing coverage from multiple directors and dozens of cameras."

In addition, this year's event had the added burden of additional security. "We definitely didn't have that last-minute flexibility," Mischer said. "That had to be factored in. It takes hours just to feed and costume the 5,000 volunteers, much like feeding and clothing an army."

"At the Atlanta Olympics, I directed the world feed," recalled Mischer, who took an executive producer credit this time. "While it was memorable, I didn't get much chance to enjoy the ceremony. This time around Ron de Moraes did that job."

Directing the world feed meant de Moraes had control over the two dozen cameras in the stadium that went to every outlet (including NBC), which had the rights to air the Olympics in the United States.

Workdays started early and ran late. Due to a heavy concentration of volunteer students in the show, much of the rehearsal time couldn't begin until after 4 p.m., which further lengthened the days.

Director and supervising choreographer Kenny Ortega's team had to coordinate not only the movements of the volunteers but also the timing of video, prop, pyrotechnic and grip personnel. "In some ways, the choreography backstage was as extraordinary as the show up front," Ortega said

"All of us worked very hard with Don to make sure our vision was shared with everyone," said Ortega, who relied on four associate land choreographers, and four associate ice choreographers to execute this massive undertaking. "Not only logistics, but safety measures, timing, and placement had to be communicated to everyone involved. We also had to be ready for harsh weather, which might occur at any time, cast rescheduling, and last-minute delays of the performing artists — many of whom arrived only a day or two before the show for rehearsals and sound checks."

Stage manager Gary Natoli explained, "The biggest thing for the stage managers to figure out was what Kenny and Don wanted creatively and to make it happen. Everything had to be in just the right place at just the right time or it would all come to a screeching halt — especially with the Opening Ceremony with its wagon trains, horses, and thousands of Native Americans parading onto the field. One horse out of place, and it would be like a house of cards falling down."

To help prevent any mishaps, Natoli relied on traditional segment rundowns and drew tunnel maps with stickers showing the order of the different elements.

While directors Tanker and Mischer oversaw operations from the booth in a tower above the field, de Moraes sat in the world-feed truck, and Ortega sat in the room next to Mischer cueing the sections where music and choreography drove the show.

"I was fortunate to have with me some of the same members I worked with in Atlanta for the 1996 Olympic Games," explained Mischer, who won the DGA Award for Musical Variety for directing the Opening Ceremonies in Atlanta. "One of the secrets to our success in staging an event like this is to be completely unflappable. To help them, I storyboarded the entire script — 150 pages with three storyboards on each page and a description next to each picture."

Because the spoken word in a large stadium that is broadcast to so many individual countries doesn't have a lot of impact, the team relied heavily on capturing visuals, the feelings and emotions on display from the participants.

"Because it was broadcast in 95 different languages, we concentrated on creating warm, haunting and/or upbeat moments," explained Mischer. "For every 10 things we tried to capture, two or three would create special moments."

One of those moments was President Bush on a cell-phone call from two unbelieving parents while sitting with the U.S. athletes. Others included figure skater Kurt Browning dancing across both ice and land on skates; the Native American nations welcoming everyone in their native languages; the Mormon Tabernacle Choir joining with the stadium audience and breaking into "the wave" during the parade of nations, and two members of the three-generation Olympian Shea family helping carry the torch through Rice-Eccles Stadium.

Despite some close calls, the only real accident occurred during the dress rehearsal for the Closing Ceremony. Figure skater Dorothy Hammel tripped and hit her head because liquid nitrogen created fog had momentarily obscured a platform from her view.

That's one of many instances that demonstrated the true professionalism of both the performers and the volunteers to Ortega. "Dorothy had a slight concussion, but called us from the hospital to say she would be there, no matter what."

"Because of that, we knew we had to be prepared for anything from 10 to 60 degrees above Fahrenheit," Mischer said.

Rehearsals took place in the wind, rain and snow. Just before the Opening Ceremonies, severe winds swept through the stadium, destroying two camera cranes and several props. By 6:30 a.m. the next morning, one crane was repaired and the other camera was moved to a high platform position, but the aerial balloonists and some of the large puppets were grounded.

Fortunately, the weather cooperated for the Closing Ceremony, balloons were deployed, and the crowd enjoyed a celebration of music from some of America's best-known musicians.

"Just before the Closing Ceremony we had snow, hail and winds," Ortega said. "Miraculously, it cleared just moments before the show started and we were able to send up the balloons. Then, just moments after it was over, we had 30 mile-per-hour winds."

The team also had to deal with weather turning too warm. "During two days, the ice turned to slush and we couldn't put the 300 'Children of Light' skaters on to practice because they could twist an ankle," said Gary Natoli.

Working an Olympics Ceremony necessitates a different hierarchy of responsibility from most musical variety shows. Three weeks before the opening, the ADs were brought in to learn the creative plans Ortega and Mischer had devised.

"Kenny was the show director and we took most of our cues from him during rehearsals as he tweaked the show. But it was usually Don talking in our headsets during the actual ceremony," said Natoli, one of six stage managers, whose primary responsibility was what happened on the field.

To accomplish such a huge task, the field was divided into sections, with a stage manager assigned to each tunnel, one positioned at the north end of the field, and another at the performance platforms and flag pole area.

From a stage manager's point of view, Natoli believes the Opening Ceremonies were the most difficult. "Because we were dealing with thousands of volunteers and not professional actors, we had to take a little more time to explain what needed to be done."

Part of the stage managers' job during the Opening Ceremonies was also to keep the volunteers in their correct positioning. Assistants worked under the stage managers, keeping track of the volunteers from the warming tents across the street into the tunnels.

"We called these volunteers tunnel managers," Natoli said. "They could see 100 yards down the line to tell us if people or horses were coming, and if the athletes were in the right country order. It was up to the DGA team to cue them out onto the field, and cue the stage performers, as well as the operators who were driving the moving stages. The assistant choreographers took care of the athletes, who were the only ones from the show seated in the stands."

The Closing Ceremony was tricky because of the number of celebrities involved.

"I would get the talent on the drum platform and Kenny would start working with them while we miked and did sound checks for the next talent, and described to them what they had to do," explained Natoli. "When Kenny had a chance, he'd come over and make sure the performers were comfortable and ask if they had any questions. During the actual ceremony we put Lauren Schneider in the green room to deploy people to their places, make sure they were miked, and get them to wardrobe."

Tradition has it that the athletes storm the field at the end of the ceremony, which meant additional planning and security precautions.

"The athletes know they will eventually be asked down on the field, but they usually can't wait, so we created a plan to totally protect the stage during the final acts," Natoli said. He also coordinated 75 volunteers who spread buckets of sand onto the ice to make it safe for the athletes to walk on. "The one thing we didn't count on was the florescent paint on the ice getting on the 200 cascading balls and then on the athletes, but nobody seemed to mind — although I heard after the fact that the balls knocked out a few cameras!"

According to Natoli, one thing that made it possible for the ceremonies to go off so smoothly was a new intercom system with multiple isolated channels that allowed the stage managers to speak just to each other, or just to the director, as well as the sound and pyrotechnic crews, or even the whole stadium.

By the time the Games came to a close on Sunday night, the entire DGA team knew they had successfully pulled off another event. Everyone paused to enjoy the thunderous explosion of the remotely controlled massive fireworks display that lit up the snow-capped Wasatch Mountains, signaling the end of the Salt Lake City Winter Olympic Games.

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