Because this year - and I say this with complete sincerity - the production value is off the charts, and no one is talking about it. Which is infuriating. I don’t want to talk about the songs. I’m not here to review the outfits or debate who “got robbed.” I want to talk about the cameras. I want to talk about the lighting, the stage design, and the direction - which, honestly, deserves its own category at the Oscars.
In case you’re a normal person who has never subjected yourself to this wonderful chaos, here’s the quick rundown: Eurovision is happening this year in Switzerland, and every participating country sends what they believe is their top musical act. Then everyone votes - except for their own country - and eventually someone walks away as the winner and national hero. Great. You’re caught up.
Now can we please talk about the sheer cinematic wizardry happening on that stage?
Let’s start with Switzerland’s own entry, a young singer named Zoë Më. Now keep in mind: this is all part of a live show. There’s no “cut and retake,” no clever post-production. This is happening in real-time, in front of a packed stadium and tens of millions of viewers. And yet… look at this shot.
This doesn’t look like a concert. This looks like an intimate music video. The lighting? Gorgeous. The focus? Razor sharp. The entire frame feels like something you’d find in a high-budget art film.
And then there’s this moment.
They pull a full focus shift, blurring Zoë’s face and highlighting her outstretched hand with a buttery shallow depth of field. Again, LIVE. ON STAGE. With a moving subject and a live audience. What are we even doing anymore?!
Oh, and don’t get me started on this next one.
The camera swings around, and boom - she’s perfectly framed within a glowing halo of light. It’s not just good direction, it’s poetic. It continues like this for the entire performance: an elegant dance between performer and camera. And by the time the song swells and the camera pulls back to reveal a sea of lights from the audience, I wasn’t even watching Eurovision anymore - I was watching art.
And that was just Switzerland.
Every act had it's own style, it's own color scheme, it's own flavor. Take the Netherlands for example, whose performance leaned much more into traditional Eurovision territory - costumes, staging, dramatic choreography - but still managed to be framed with the precision of a music video director who is so far ahead of the game I couldn't help but keep watching. Like, have you notices that the entire broadcast switched to a cinematic 21:9 aspect ratio especially for this song?
Even when the song or the costume is a little… Eurovision-y, the craft never wavers. The shots are timed perfectly. The lighting is dynamic. The transitions? Smooth. They didn’t have to go this hard, but they did.
Now, not every act was this visually poetic. Some were still the weird glitter-soaked fever dreams we’ve come to expect. But the direction? The camera work? The production design? Absolutely stunning, across the board. And this was just the first semi-final! This isn't the director's final form yet!
So yeah, Eurovision still isn’t for me. And I’ll probably forget most of the songs by the time you finish reading this sentence. But I won’t forget those shots, those transitions, those moments of cinematic beauty snuck into a kitschy pop spectacle. This year, someone behind the camera showed up and said, what if we made it beautiful? And they did. And even a Eurovision skeptic like me can’t help but say: well done.
Just don’t make me listen to the songs again.
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