Second half. Second Semi-Final. Second Rehearsals.
Today nine acts have their second rehearsals and we are here to review them.
Reactions to second rehearsals at Eurovision 2019: Croatia, Malta and Lithuania
Croatia: Roko with “The Dream”
We had no vocal or visuals for the first run.
But the second run clarified one thing: Roko can sing. Croatia also increasingly looks like a qualifier.
Roko starts on the floor, but he know ascends from the depths of hell, casting sparks around himself. The shot sees him elevate to heaven and paradise, with a much slicker wing reveal than in previous rehearsals.
Visually this has elevated alongside the vocal and that makes the product far more polished than in first rehearsals.
Croatia is going to be one to watch next Thursday.
Malta: Michela with “Chameleon”
Malta had to battle production problems today.
Camera shots were off – at several point we saw camera arms – and the first run had to be abandoned because cameras were not where they needed to be.
Wide shots come at all the wrong moments and in too high a volume. Every time you verge on intensity, or impact from a moment of screening, the camera zooms away from Michela.
This feels like production problems as Michela herself has made progress.
Her hair is down, she seems happier and she’s smiling on stage. In short she has remembered to enjoy the experience.
It is a real shame that the camera work around her isn’t doing justice to Malta’s superlative stageshow.
The final run was vastly improved, but Malta needs to make this all tighter.
Lithuania: Jurij Veklenko with “Run With The Lions”
Jurij sells this song.
He emotes, he hits all the right notes and now he walks out from behind the mic stand for the final part of the song.
However he feels very exposed on stage, with only the twinkly light show behind him for support. The lack of colour is really apparent after Malta’s technicolor onslaught.
And that’s the problem with Lithuania. They have a performer that can sing, but a performance that lacks impact.
That’s nothing to do with Jurij. It is all down to the staging. He wears black, there are large parts where the stage is black and that means visually this is underwhelming.
Check out all of our rehearsal news here
Photo Credit: EBU
Came here just to say that
Will wiwibloggs be addressing all these ridiculous wide shots!
I’m quite sure that they don’t want us to see “proper”performance just yet, do they mess up these camera angles. Everything will be allright live
I really really hope so. After all the effort and money hiring folk for your production
Last year all the people who disliked ‘Toy’ were treated the same way as the ones disliking ‘Arcade’ this year.
Now tell me, who made the mistake last year by voting for Israel ? and now have the poor show camera views because of it ?
Even if Cyprus was the host this year I’m pretty sure we would have had a better production this year.
Croatia: unusual decision to show the ending in the snippet. Roko needs to rest his voice. Malta: I hope they can get their screens back, because with the “wide shot curse” they look so small on camera when there’s just a wall of neon color behind them. Anyway, it looks very good, colorful and fun. Michela is doing awesome. We already knew she’s beautiful and talented and now we can see she’s having fun on the stage. She deserves the best. Lithuania: Jurij is very easy on the eyes and a competent vocalist, but sadly there’s nothing much else to… Read more »
And now Malta’s performance looked like a budget MV. Nothing wrong with that (except some comment down below might state why) but seeing the two LED screens on stage, I wonder if there’s any benefit towards having them on stage. I think it was just filling the stage as people might not get the ‘technicolor chameleon clothing color change’ concept as something and just focus on the dance.
save malta, burn the other two
For the first time, Roko’s voice was cracking and pitchy. I am now worried about his actual semi-final performance!
The full blame is on Jacques for giving him a screaming song – which is always a huge risk with so many rehearsals and performances at ESC.
What’s with this article? I’ve seen Michela’s rehearsal and I think it was one of the best, if not the best! By the way, they’re not sure if they ‘re using the staging the used today or last Tuesday, they are keeping it as a surprise! 🙂
Seems like overdoing the wide shots is the big issue the Israeli team’s got. Malta aren’t the first delegation with this problem. It’s like 1993 all over again.
Pure emotion and focus from North Macedonia’s Tamara ??????
Wrong article…
I guess Israelis really like their stage. It’s all they want to show.
so offputting from this years contest, it will be the worst eurovision contest ever, with those disgusting wide camera shots
the stage isn’t even good, so idk why they want to show that off so many unnecessary times
wide shots make the arena look bigger, like in 2014. They are not having the same effect this year, and KAN is trying too hard.
There is a triangle within a triangle, so two triangles. The Star of David is made of two triangles. #mytwoshekels; #ilovethestage
Quick review #9: Croatia – Roko seems a bit tired, as for the staging, we didn’t see that much, but surprisingly the camera angles were quite good Malta – Dear Lord, whoever’s in charge of camera work this year must really get fired, cause that looked abysmally – don’t shoot them from 5 km distance! I don’t understand why they took the house away, now it looks far far less interesting Lithuania – everything works, except for the song. They’re keeping the focus on the singer, the shots look really nice, one of the best looking clip I’ve seen so… Read more »
It seems alot of the acts are really frustrated with the production crew this year, they really need to get their act together all these wide shots especially are spoiling the atmosphere and ruining some of acts and they are running out of rehearsal time.
Why are they taking so long to upload the rehearsals video on the EV YouTube channel? Malta performed 3/4 hours ago and still no video…
They uploaded Lithuania before Malta now
Why the f are they doing? Never voting for Isreal again hahaha
It’s EBU, not Israel shooting, editing, uploading. Maybe they even negotiate with the delegation which part they include in the snippets.
same
hope they don’t mess with the Maltese song .she’s the best
Malta- amazing, take notes from this how to do quality bop!
Croatia- Liberace’s wet dream is NQ for me
Lithuania- it’s just… there :p
Croatia’s angles are ok, nice surprise. #thereishope, #hopeforeveryact
Malta’s head of delegation just confirmed that they head to ditch the two LED screens on stage due to technical problems. Damn, what’s the production team doing? He also said that they’re not really happy with the camera shots/cuts.
I ‘m really starting thinking of a deliberate sabotaging from the production to not hurt the favorite.
Me too.
It’s hard to believe that however, the head of delegation seemed rather pissed (he’s obv right). It’s a shame that they put a lot of effort into the performance.. for it to be abolished within hours.
Just imagine the frustration. You have paid a bunch of money for something stunning and the producers of the show says sorry we can’t do that for some -really?- technical issue where they had promised in the first place the best technical eurovision ever. Their clothes were supposed to change constantly color but now the effect is completely ruined. I’m so sad for them, they came here for the win they had the whole package and all has been ruined by a poor production team in Israel or was it really technical issue and not deliberate sabotage.
🙁 I know right. But they did not completely abolish plan A with the two LEDs on stage. They tested out Plan B today and will decide on which plan to pick until the dress/jury rehearsal. I’m sure that they will ask for other rehearsal due to the number of technical difficulties just like Cyprus did.
they are not being sabotaged, it’s just production team being unprofessional and incompetent. this whole year is a mess.
poor Michela being sabotaged by KAN
I don’t get it , it was working so well in the first rehearsal though?
Apparently not, it was supposed to be even more stunning that what the people who had the chance to see the first rehearsal TV render saw. And it was already impressive just imagine. This was 100% winning material because of something never seen on Eurovision bringing new technology. And KAN ruined everything.
Jurijus better have his hair cut by now. He can‘t pull off the DiCaprio look 24/7. Be yourself baby!
Guys, it’s all rigged for the Netherlands victory. You will see very few wide shots for the Netherlands. After sabotaging Portugal they are now sabotaging Malta that was a real threat for Duncan. Disgusting.
Please don’t eat sh*t
Don’t put unnecessary hate towards Michela and Malta, please.
Haha seriously?!
It’s common psychology that people want a favourite to fail but you are adding a level of conspiracy theories. You are funny!
Your not even from malta lol
…it’d make more sense if they sabotaged actual favorites, nobody thinks portugal and malta could win
Are you serious? The Netherlands’ performance has an AWFUL lot of wide shots, which destroy the intimacy the song needs. If something’s rigged, then it must be for the Netherlands to fail unfortunately. ??
I see your point Chama-Chameleon
You may be not wrong now that we know the producers finally did not approve the wall panel that would have made the best visual graphics this year.
What does technicolour mean?
A series of colours. Hence, the neon lights and the chameleon as a figure of speech.
It also means this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technicolor
Wide shots are ruining everything. Why Malta ? You had first the staging that could shine and get rid of the wide shots 🙁
Don’t blame Malta. I’m sure they know what they’re doing given that last year their camera shots were amazing and also they’re working with Ambra Succi in particular who excels in this. I bet its the production team given that wide shots are a common feature in all songs.
Production team needs to up their game. You cannot have all these contestants who have been preparing for months, to find that camera work is not as supposed to be. So Michela improved her whole image, attitude and staging and what not, but production is a disaster?
Agree with you, I don’t now what is happening this years
At last the huge/moving camera from the behind was only good for Croatia and angels.
Croatia really surprised me. This look great, at least…
I will vote for this.
luca/marino/una you know you can’t vote for your own country right ?
Well actually they can vote for Roko,many Croatian young people left to work in EU countries on last few months. So I bet you will be surprised with his result in 2 semi.
WDF!!! Seriously think that the local host aren’t overall prepared for this event. I have been in the arena for over 10 years now and I never seen such a mess. Hope that they can sort everything out soon.
Croatia was better then the first time, they changed the end. Good job Croatia!
Malta song is a definite contender for the title this year. Overall production needs to up its game this year, I feel that they aren’t well prepared.
Read the article again – ‘and the first run had to be abandoned because cameras were not where they needed to be’ … seems its not their problem but the production.
I’m still giving my vote to the tiny Island.
they better not sabotage michela with crappy camera work omg. also y’all need to stop convincing yourselves croatia ‘increasingly looks like a qualifier’, not with that song and not with that tacky mess of a staging.
Apparently camera work is terrible for most entries this year? Wide shots in particular.
🙁 I seriously hope not. But I believe the country’s delegation have a say on the camera work and shots right? I’m sure Malta knows how to pick the camera cuts. Christabelle’s camera work last year was perfect.
Croatia is outstanding!!!!! Definitely IN THE FINAL!
Agree, they are better now. Like it.
Run with the lions is the kind of “filler songs” that are needed in Eurovision.
Nothing to do with the rehearsals but Madame Monsieur has just released a new single “comme si j’avais mille ans”
Malta song is my favourite! I hope shes wins.
Am in the arena. THIS MALTA SONG IS JUST LIT!!
Incredible !