And we’re wrapping up the last rehearsals of the second semi final!

Norway
The Norwegians have called in some enforcement, and now they have very big arctic animals as part of the backdrop. They can win it now!

Not really.

It is better, though. They changed some of the awkward camera work that made it look very empty and with the smoke and fire effects there’s something to look at all the way through. I still can’t help thinking that they are taking themselves too seriously, considering what this song is.

Netherlands
It’s been an odd rehearsal. They’ve tried different things in each rehearsal in terms of angles, picks of camera shots, and when they used the light. But the underlying principle remained the same: they’ve tried to make him seem like he is in world of his own, but it’s still overly understated. Instead of 41 seconds to the first close up, it’s now 50 seconds. The backdrop is still a never-changing dark blue, there were slightly more close up shots in the first run through, but generally they are sparse and not in places that make sense in terms of the song, more like an afterthought of “oh, we should probably show him once in a while”. The 3 minutes are still made of mostly long or wideshots, and almost nothing happens when reaching the high point of the song. If you muted the audio, you’d never guess that something big happens at this point of the song, because the presentation isn’t reacting to the song.

I always say about good stagings that they make the song feel more than it is, and bad stagings make the song feel less. The Dutch one is the latter.

The main struggle with this is that because I do know (and love) the song, I find it very hard to guess what new audience would do with this. I personally felt it was a struggle to get into it despite loving it still, not being tired of it and having Duncan at his vocal best.

North Macedonia
If this was in any way from the first run throughs, I didn’t notice it. The gimmick at the beginning is still unnecessary, but it doesn’t distract and goes away quickly, and she sounds like a studio version in every take. She’s incredibly charismatic and emotes plenty without going overboard in her expressions. Classy.

Azerbaijan
Still looking strong and sounds strong. Not much changed in terms of presentation although we now have some extra on-screen effects, but with all the tech going on, some shots need more work so they are synced correctly.

That’s it for today! Back tomorrow for the second run throughs of the direct finalists!