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Below, one moment from the opening ceremony in Beijing.
They nailed it. What an outstanding production.
Any volunteers to follow that act? We need a new show in London in four years.
(Photograph by Adam Pretty/Getty Images - many more great photos of the event at Boston.com.)
"Any volunteers to follow that act? We need a new show in London in four years."
Will that include digitally faking the fireworks? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26139005
The commentators on the broadcast I watched were pretty upfront about it being computer-generated. No biggie, imho... the rest of the production was stunning.
"Will that include digitally faking the fireworks?"
Oh dear. Another internet meme is born. The firework 'footprints' were not 'faked' - they happened live exactly as shown. What were 'faked' were the aerial shots of those fireworks, since it would have been too dangerous for a helicopter to have flown through the fireworks to get those specific angles. As Mark says, no biggie, in what was a truly amazing piece of grand theatre.
Ah, bless the Beijing Olympic Committee for being so mindful of the safety of the helicopter crew.
Likewise, I suppose they were concerned with the self-esteem of the less-visually pleasing child singer when they substituted a more photogenic lip-syncer?
Cheap shot, sure, but at what point does grand theatre become farce?
I do believe that digitally augmenting reality (even with a half-assed "cinematical" disclaimer) is different and more insidious than, say, using pyro charges to ignite the oestensibly-flaming-arrow-lit 1992 Barcelona flame.
If you eliminate risk and uncertainty by substituting a surefire, precreated outcome to gawk at... well, why bother doing anything at all?
They did indeed nail it. It was beautiful and disturbing at the same time. The scale of the event was unlike anything I’d seen. It was powerful enough that I reset my predisposition for human righteous indignation and went with the flow. Besides, which part of our own country’s history should we hold up as a shining example of human rights? Can’t art transcend politics?
Far away, the people did become pixels, yet close up; each individual face glowed with dignity and pride. It may be hard for us to understand, but it wouldn’t surprise me to see the same expression on the face of the little girl behind the curtain.