Beijing Olympics Extravaganza Featured Bogus Fireworks

August 11, 2008 1:40 p.m. EST

Beijing, China (AHN) - The nation that gave the world counterfeit toys, fake toothpaste and poisoned pet food also gave 3 billion television viewers a bogus fireworks show of Olympic proportions Friday night, according to media reports Monday.

The spectacular fireworks telecast to billions of viewers around the world at the end of the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics Friday night were largely faked using computer animation and the audience wasn't told, the Beijing Times newspaper revealed.

The man responsible for creating the computer-animated fireworks display months before the Olympics told the newspaper he was pleased with the result. Gao Xiaolong heads a local production company, Crystal Stone, which spent a year working on the computer animated project.

Xiaolong told the Beijing Times that "most of the audience thought it was being shown live, so that was mission accomplished."

Although there were some real fireworks outside the Bird's Nest stadium, the fireworks show that was broadcast to 3 billion viewers around the world, as well as viewed on giant television screens inside the stadium by 90,000 people there -- was mostly fake.

The most spectacular portion of the fireworks show, the footprints of fire that "stepped" from Tiananmen Square to the Bird's Nest stadium were all fake except for the last 29 steps, which were actually filmed live during the event on Friday. Most of the rest of the footage had been shot months before.

Olympic organizers reportedly said they chose to fake the fireworks because it was deemed to dangerous to do the kind of show they wanted to do live with people in the stadium. However, there was no explanation for why officials decided not to settle for a less spectacular real show instead of staging a fraudulent show without warning the audience that what they were viewing was only a computer animation and wasn't real.

Chinese Olympic organizers, known for their attention to detail didn't overlook a thing in creating the computer animated fake fireworks show either. They added a thoughtfully realistic detail of faking how a camera would shake in a helicopter if the fireworks were real.

The man who created the computer animated fireworks show said that he faked the camera shake to cover for any differences in air quality and visibility that might have tipped viewers to the fact that what they were watching wasn't really happening.