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Olympic Opening Ceremony Fireworks Were (Partly) Faked
A complete newb writes "London's Telegraph newspaper reports that some of the fireworks which appeared over Beijing during the television broadcast of the Olympic Opening Ceremony were actually computer generated. But — hold on — it's not necessarily as bad as you think. The faked fireworks were actually set-off at the stadium, but because of potential dangers in filming the display live from a helicopter, viewers at home were shown a pre-recorded, computer-generated shot." To me, the reasoning behind the faked display is no consolation or excuse — it seems hard to swallow that NBC was unaware of this televised deception. I'm glad that it was good-naturedly "revealed" this weekend (according to that Telegraph article), but it's disheartening that such a large crowd can watch (in person, and around the world) such a display and have no reason to realize they've been duped. What about when weightier events are at issue? There's also a slightly more detailed story at sky.com.
... just switch to a live video feed from South Ossetia?
Have gnu, will travel.
Hey captain obvious, I vividly remember the NBC announcer stating they were computer generated as it was happening.
Off your high horse please.
What's the problem? You want a series of impressive images on your screen. What's the issue with having them in CGI instead of real-life fireworks? The end result is the same. I could get your argument if we were talking about some olympic discipline being duped, with doping, corruption or otherwise, but fireworks are just eye candy. How it gets to your retina is quite irrelevant.
And by the way, doing it in CGI is also more environmentally friendly: compounds used in fireworks are not always of the most benign sort.
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Ok? The idea is for the entire world to be entertained at which should be a truce among the nations of the world bringing its best athletes to the tables. Putting on a good show for the olympics is part of the drill.
I'm always looking for a good shot at China but I think this time around we should cut these people a break. They've done a good job with the Olympics so far.
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An upside-down flag is a distress signal, not a sign of disrespect.
Perfectly appropriate considering the kid's city was jut flattened don't you think?
...and eventually, this kind of deficit spending will bankrupt the media.
I do wonder why they keep pushing the edge of the envelope like this, though. The urge to alter reality doesn't really resonate with me. Just show it how it really happened. People are tuning in to experience a real event, not some imagined account of what the fireworks might have looked like.
If things continue to trend this way, the media will eventually find it far easier to simply fabricate all the news. They'd never have to leave the studio, and could script out events over and over until they got just the right shot. I mean seriously, if they're not going to have 100% journalistic integrity, why have any at all?
Wait. Are we seriously going to complain about this? If this doesn't count as much ado about nothing, I don't know what does. This isn't manipulation of the media - this is simply enhancing the televised broadcast of a ceremony for the opening of the Olympic games. Good gawd, get some perspective.
DoD producing propaganda for foreign (wink) audiences. Good evidence just came out that the White House forged a war-justification document. Stovepiped intelligence. Hush money to truth-tellers. Known-false public WMD claims. "This isn't about intelligence, it's about regime change." "Fuck Saddam, we're taking him out." Facts fixed around the policy. Leaks to "billboard" media to punish truth-tellers' families. Embedded reporters, sent home for publishing actual war photographs. Talking points piped from the White House to the top news corporations, often repeated as directives to the "journalists" who frame each day's news. Seven years of lapdog media pundits laughing along with the right-wingers who call for their assassination while they seriously discuss whether the 60% of Americans who still somehow hold political beliefs at odds with the ruling administration are traitors.
But the fireworks show China is deceptive.
Just as long as the ATHLETES are NOT on steroids, and the COMPETITION ITSELF is real... that's all I care about.
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
Does it really matter if the fireworks were partially faked or not?
The main goal of the ceremony is to entertain millions (perhaps billions?) of people and in my very humble opinion they succeded at that pretty damn well.
Hell, the first 1.5 hrs of the opening was one of the most magnificent shows ever to put on the face of the earth.
And correct me if I'm wrong, but they could have computer generated a lot more parts of the show and they didn't. The people in the boxes for instance?
I don't really care what was real or not.. All I know is that I frequently had to pick up my jaw from the ground. And that was the ultimate goal. Period.
Life starts at the end of your comfort zone.
I definitely saw legs, but I also saw some sort of supports. I imagine that the blocks had some kind of contraption to make it easier for the people to lift them up and down with such fluidity. Not to mention that they would all have to be constrained to move up and down; I didn't see them wobble at all.
But eh, George W. is an idiot and messes up everything American anyway.
Whom do we petition for "Line Item" Flamebait moderation? I was with you as "Informative," till this point.
I could see the hydraulic pistons moving up and down. Especially near the end when the blocks were raised very high and you could see underneath them.
I would ask, "Do they think we're that stupid", but alas, many folks are willing to ignore facts observed by their own eyes if a credible TV person states something different.
Anyone who was paying attention during that part of the show could see that it was people inside the boxes. The only "obviously false" thing is the disinformation you're posting here. I just can't figure out what your purpose is in doing so.