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Olympic fireworks video fabricated
By siliconindia
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Thursday, 14 August 2008, 00:54 IST
Beijing: All your excitement shot up by the Beijing Olympics inauguration ceremony is now set to be deflated. Some of the fireworks shown in television were created digitally, says a report in The Beijing Times.
Though the twenty-nine fiery footsteps showcased in the air above Bird's Nest National Stadium were created using real fireworks, the event organizers feared they would be unable to capture the pyrotechnics live on camera. So, a digital effects team spent almost a year preparing a computerized version of the 55-second footstep sequence, which was inserted into the live video feed, reports The Telegraph in the U.K.
"It was still a bit too bright compared to the actual fireworks," Gao Xiaolong, head of the visual effects team for the ceremony, told The Beijing Times. "But most of the audience thought it was filmed live - so that was mission accomplished," he added.
Because only one organization was responsible for filming the Olympics - Beijing Olympic Broadcasting -, foreign TV networks had no choice but to accept the altered video, a report in Sky News said.
Jacques Rogge, president of International Olympic Committee (IOC), called the opening ceremony, 'a magnificent tribute to the athletes and the Olympic spirit.' If somebody says Spanish cyclist Maria Isabel Moreno, who was banned from the games on Monday for failing a doping test, exemplified the same Olympic spirit that led to fabricated video, they are not to blame, so goes an analysis in Information Week.
An adviser to the Beijing Olympic Committee defended the decision to spike the opening ceremony video, saying, "It would have been prohibitive to have tried to film it live. We could not put the helicopter pilot at risk by making him try to follow the firework route."
