CGI faked-fireworks feature in Olympics opening ceremony footage

Davey Winder
Tuesday, 12 August 2008 05:16

Business IT - Networking

Perhaps that was the problem, the firework feet were a little too perfect. Only the very last footprint visible from inside the Bird's Nest was the real deal.

The Telegraph quotes Gao Xiaolong who was the head of the visual effects team responsible for the footage, as saying it took nearly a year to produce the 55 second sequence.

"Seeing how it worked out, it was still a bit too bright compared to the actual fireworks," he said. "But most of the audience thought it was filmed live - so that was mission accomplished" Xiaolong says.

You would be hard pressed to notice, not least because the CGI team even had an advisor from the Beijing Meteorological Office on hand to ensure that the Beijing night smog was recreated to perfection. Combine this with an artificial camera shake designed to emulate helicopter filming and no wonder they pulled it off.

Almost, that is. With 1 billion people watching, you just had to know there would be one or two obsessive fireworks geeks in the audience who would spot the fakes.

The Beijing Times had the guts to admit what had happened, and know the world knows. Does it really make any difference? No, of course not. If anything it just proves how good the Chinese are at both fireworks and CGI...