Vancouver View -- Producer Confirms Lip-Synching for Opening Ceremony

While lip-synching will be used, David Atkins says there will not be a situationin Vancouverlike the controversy involving Yang Peiyi during the Beijing Games. (AFP/Getty Images)David Atkins says lip-synching at the opening ceremony will ensure there's a quality performance. But Vancouver 2010's executive producer of ceremonies offered few other details about the content of the pageant at B.C. Place Stadium.

"I don't know of a ceremony probably in the last 20 years where there hasn't been pre-recorded and lip-synched performaces done," said Atkins, whose credits include Sydney 2000 and the 2006 Doha Asian Games. "It's a way of ensuring and guaranteeing the audio broadcast actually gets to everybody cleanly and professionally."

Atkins said there is a difference between lip-synching and dubbing. The latter was employed during the Beijing 2008 opening ceremony and caused a global stir.

"I can guarantee you there will be no dubbing in this ceremony," Atkins said. "Synching in general will happen."

What Atkins said on March 3 contradicted the stance taken by British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell last August when he declared at a McDonald's breakfast sponsored by ATR that there would be no lip-synching at Vancouver 2010.

Atkins spoke after a news conference held to announce the online recruitment of 4,500 volunteer performers. Auditions begin in May and rehearsals in November. Applicants do not need to live in Vancouver or even be Canadian citizens, but they must pay their own transport and accommodation expenses if coming from out of town. Minimum age is 17 as of May 1.

"This is not going to be Beijing; our aim from the outset was to develop a different model here, we're looking at much more theatrical ceremony, a smaller ceremony," Atkins said.

He said his production would be "intimate and emotional" and represent Vancouver and Canada to the world. The ceremony will be the first indoor event of its type in Olympic history, which poses a challenge for the lighting of the cauldron.

"The cauldron has to be lit in view of the audience live on the night," he said. "The audience is in the stadium, so the cauldron will need to be in the stadium. There is a custom, but it's not a mandate, that the cauldron has to be seen inside and outside the stadium, obviously in Vancouver that's not going to be possible."

Torch designer Bombardier, a Canadian aerospace and rail giant, is also B.C. Place Stadium will be the site of the opening ceremonies for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. (B.C. Place)the cauldron designer. Atkins said "it's an absolute possibility" that the stadium's air-supported, fabric roof would be used as a screen for projected images. He conceded that the aging, stained roof is "not the most esthetically pleasing aspect of the building."

"What happens on the field of play is what people are going to be looking at. If the audience is sitting there looking at the roof we're going to be in trouble."

He would not comment on any big name performers.

"We're in a position here where Canadian talent is global," Atkins said.

There will, however, be a strong aboriginal component.

"It's part of the mandate from VANOC that indigenous inclusion is a pivotal point of the ceremony and we're going to honor that commitment," he said.

With reporting from Bob Mackin in Vancouver.

For general comments or questions, click here