According to recent reports, some of the fireworks seen during the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games were computer generated. Since Beijing Olympic Broadcasting is the only network authorized to film the Olympic Games, foreign services were forced to accept the manipulated images. The 29 steps above the Bird’s Nest scene was the section that was faked, according to The Beijing Times. Computer graphics artists spent an entire year creating the 55-second clip. To make it look realistic, they added a slight smog to the whole scene and forced movement shakily, as if it was being filmed from a helicopter.
The Chinese claim they were forced to generate the fireworks due to the danger the helicopter would face if it were filming the scene. Most viewers were unaware of the fake fireworks due to the NBC announcers refusing to tell the truth. The following is a transcript of the NBC announcers during the faked footage segment.
Matt Lauer: “Here you are looking at a cinematic device used by Zhang Yimou. Actually, this is almost an animation. One step per second, 29 in total, to represent the 29 Olympics.”
Bob Costas: “We said earlier that the aspects of this Opening Ceremony are almost like real-time cinema. Well, this is literally cinematic.”
They hint that the fireworks aren’t real, but they never come out to say so. When Matt Lauer says “This is almost an animation” they come close to mentioning the CGI fireworks, but just ignore the point after this and continue with their comment. This is quite disturbing, especially with other allegations that NBC moved the US entry last to get more viewers early in the show. These scandals have clouded the most spectacular opening ceremonies to date and will cast a shadow over the rest of the Games.
