London, July 28 (IANS) It is titled "Isles of Wonder" and was four years in the making from the moment director Danny Boyle sat down in a room with four collaborators to the moment 15,000 performers stepped into the Olympic Stadium in front of the eyes of the world here Friday night.
Boyle spoke about his experience Friday, making it clear why he is such a gifted communicator in a press conference that lasted for almost an hour and in which he tried to explain what the viewers had seen, reports Xinhua.
First of all, however, he said that he was delighted to be able to follow the incredible opening ceremony to the 2008 Games.
"Beijing was great to follow, you can't get bigger than that, but that liberated us, so we thought we will use our resources in a different way," he explained.
Boyle's opening ceremony for the 2012 Olympic Games is a celebration of Great Britain and of some of the things that have made this island race special.
"Some of the audience will be baffled, they are bound to be," said Boyle. "But you do the show for yourselves, you have to. I try to represent the whole country."
The man who won an Oscar for his film "Slumdog Millionaire" and has directed other successful films such as "28 Days Later", "Trainspotting" and "127 Hours", explained "Isles of Wonder" was divided into three segments named "The Green and Pleasant Land", "Second Star on the Right and Straight on Till morning" and "Frankie and June Say 'Hello Tim'".
Each looks at a different aspect of British life, culture and history, Boyle explained that the "Green and Pleasant Land" represents a rural ideal, "which is still deeply embedded in our consciousness".
The rural ideal gives way to the Industrial Revolution. "It seems to me that the Industrial Revolution changed the world for good and bad. It unleashed tremendous potential and the growth of cities was extraordinary. It led to education, the ability to read and write.. we all began here and look where we ended up," said Boyle.
The director explained that the second segment "Second Star on the Left and Straight on Till morning," which is taken from the famous children's novel 'Peter Pan,' celebrates Britain's National Health Service as well as children's books.
"There is something about it that is so embedded in us that we want to keep it. We tried to find volunteers from the NHS and we have hundreds of them. They turn up after shiftwork and have been amazing," said Boyle, who said there was no political agenda to the segment and insisted no political pressure had been put on him over the question.
"We have no agenda other than values that we believe are honest and true," he promised.
The third segment highlights that London 2012 is: "the first Games where social networking is a major role and we have the chance for instant human communication." Entitled "Frankie and June say 'Hello Tim'," it looks at family life, Saturday night habits and celebrates the huge amount of pop music that has come out of the UK.
"We have produced a lot of popular music from a small country," said Boyle.
Frankie and June's relationship is helped along by the World Wide Web, which was invented by Tim Burns Leigh, who assured the WWW would never be owned by a company, "so we can now all have instant communication and it is a very powerful tool what connects and can liberate people."
Boyle may have been four years working on the ceremony, but he reserved all of his praise for the 15,000 volunteers taking part in the stadium.
"This is the volunteers' show: if you want to judge us as people from an island, they are the best of us. They have turned up in appalling conditions and danced their hearts out. We hope the show is a celebration of generosity.
"This belongs to everyone: not everyone will like it and not everyone will join in. People will criticize it or praise it, but none of that matters because all of the volunteers have felt something special in their lives about the values and the spirit they clearly have," he concluded.
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