Fake Fireworks? No Surprise, Coming From The Land Of Phony Products

During last Friday's opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, viewers watching at home and on giant screens inside the Bird's Nest National Stadium watched as a series of 29 giant footprints outlined in fireworks exploded high above the city beginning at Tiananmen Square and "marching" all the way to the Olympic stadium.

What they did not realize 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.

In reality, those attending the ceremony in person were only able to witness the last two set of pyrotechnic footprints set off within close proximity of the stadium. Ceremony organizers maintain that the entire stunt used 29 sets of actual fireworks, but that live shots of the first 27 fireworks were not used (and replaced by phony ones), because those responsible for filming the extravaganza (including NBC, perhaps?) decided in advance it would be impossible to capture all 29 footprints from the air.

As a result, only the last two fireworks-- visible from the camera stands inside the stadium-- were filmed as they happened. The trick was revealed in a local Chinese newspaper, the Beijing Times, over the weekend.

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 fool the audience into thinking it was filmed from a helicopter.

One advisor to the Beijing Olympic Committee (BOCOG) defended the decision to use make-believe to impress the viewer. "It would have been prohibitive to have tried to film it live," he said. "We could not put the helicopter pilot at risk by making him try to follow the firework route."

A spokeswoman for the Beijing Olympic Committee said the final decision had been made by Beijing Olympic Broadcasting (an IOC venture which provides the main video feeds for worldwide viewers). "As far as we are concerned, we let off the fireworks - that's what's important to us," she said.