August 11, 2008
Some Olympic Opening Ceremony fireworks were “faked.”
What is fake or real in this digital age anyway? We all were watching traces of the ceremony itself (or my case it was a recording–an image of a trace of the thing) unless, of course, you were in Beijing. Point is, a Beijing newspaper revealed that some of the fireworks were digitally created so only those who watch through television saw them:
What they did not realise was that what they were watching was in fact computer graphics, meticulously created over a period of months and inserted into the coverage electronically at exactly the right moment.
The fireworks were there for real, outside the stadium. But those responsible for filming the extravaganza decided in advance it would be impossible to capture all 29 footprints from the air.
As a result, only the last, visible from the camera stands inside the Bird’s Nest was captured on film.
And,
Gao Xiaolong, head of the visual effects team for the ceremony, said it had taken almost a year to create the 55-second sequence. Meticulous efforts were made to ensure the sequence was as unnoticeable as possible: they sought advice from the Beijing meteorological office as to how to recreate the hazy effects of Beijing’s smog at night, and inserted a slight camera shake effect to simulate the idea that it was filmed from a helicopter.
But can we say, as the Telegraph did that they were “faked,” since most of the world saw the ceremony that way? The privileged few, by contrast, tell a different story, it’s enough to make a guy wonder.
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5 Responses to “Some Olympic Opening Ceremony fireworks were “faked.””
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The only thing that matters is whether the audience cums.
unless the audience is faking it
There were kids under those moving boxes!
what the hell are you guys talking about?! If you where watching NBC’s US coverage of the event, they clearly said *several times* while they where playing the little 55 second bit of the foot prints across the city that it was computer generated.
I, for one, was too busy being wowed to listen to the color commentary to notice.