Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle said he had felt liberated rather than daunted by Beijing 2008's spectacular opening ceremony as his quirky but impressive show opened the London Games in style.
In front of 80,000 spectators and VIPs, women in smocks and bonnets shepherded sheep, geese and cows on landscaped grass in the "Isles of Wonder" vision dreamed up by Boyle as the ceremony got under way in a party atmosphere.
It featured jaw-dropping moments of drama and comic interludes, celebrating Britain's musical and cultural heritage and the cherished National Health Service.
The "Slumdog Millionaire" director said it was impossible to do anything bigger than the show in Beijing, which stunned the world with its sheer scale.
"Beijing, in a way, was something that was great to follow," he said.
"Up to Beijing you could look back and there's clearly an escalation. The shows get bigger and bigger and bigger, and you can't get bigger than Beijing.
"So that, in a way, kind of liberated us. We thought: 'Great. OK. Good. We'll try to do something different then'."
Boyle said he hoped there was an "innate modesty" about the London's ceremony but added: "It is not unspectacular and unambitious -- quite the reverse.
"But there is a sense of modesty about it. You have to learn your place in the world and that's a good thing. You have to sit among the other people of the world and where best to express that than athletics, as a warm-up for athletics?"
