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.

Comments

Re:Only a small part looked simulated

[SydShamino]

The NBC announcer said something about " virtual flythrough" or somesuch as it was shown, which made my wife and I discuss why they were showing us simulated film. Those steps looked obviously faked up until the few near the stadium.

I'd get the exact wording, but we've already deleted it from the DVR.

I don't know why this is news. It was said on air and obvious at the time.