You’ve probably heard by now that the fireworks display for the Beijing Opening Ceremony was fake, well at least some of it. While there were indeed real fireworks going on in Beijing, the video that was being fed into the huge monitors inside the stadium itself, not to mention the video that was being broadcast to millions of people around the world, was not showing the same fireworks that were going off in Beijing. The fireworks we saw were a combination of real fireworks and digital fireworks realized inside a computer, the culmination of a year-long project that the Chinese government stated was necessary due to two overriding factors. First, they claimed that due to the haze of Beijing, it would be difficult to capture fireworks on film. Second, they felt that it would be too dangerous for a helicopter pilot to get a good shot. Now, while both of these claims may be true, it still begs the question, was the way they presented the fireworks the ethical thing to do?
After the fireworks, not only was it revealed that they were digitally created, but that the team behind the digital fireworks even added elements such as digital fog and a camera shake to make it look like the fireworks really were being shot by a camera crew in a helicopter. What I find disconcerting is that millions of people were lied to. Broadcasters marveled at how amazing the display was, statistics were put out as to how many fireworks were set off, everything was presented as if the fireworks were the real deal.
What I would like to know is how would it have been different if Beijing came out and openly stated it was using a digital display? I believe it actually could have led to a positive outcome. Think about it, Beijing could have said, “We are going to have the largest digital fireworks display the world has ever seen”. It is certainly a novel idea and one that would have been remembered in the history of the Olympics. Years later people could say, “I remember Beijing, it was the first host to incorporate digital fireworks into its opening ceremony”. Granted, it may not pack the same punch as saying that thousands of fireworks were shot off, but at least it would be honest. Now people will look back and say, “I remember Beijing, it tried to trick us into thinking the fireworks display during the opening ceremony was real, even though it was created digitally”.
Digital imagery is nothing new to the entertainment industry, but there is a major difference between going to see a movie, where we know digital effects will be used and watching the news where we expect to see what happened in real life. What will stop news agencies from “digitally enhancing” other things, such as earthquakes or hurricanes to make a more “compelling” story? We are entering an era where reality is starting to converge with digital reality, but shouldn’t the media be expected to state what is real and what isn’t? Shouldn’t there be ethical guidelines for what can and can’t be presented as “news”? We’re used to seeing such phrases as “Reenactment, not real footage”, so how about “Digital enhancement, not entirely real footage”?
As digital imagery becomes even more prevalent in our lives, I’m sure these issues will start to surface even more and the calls for ethical guidelines will become even louder. The Beijing fireworks were indeed a marvelous display, digital or not, but wouldn’t it be nice to have known that they were digital in the first place, to know that what we were seeing on TV didn’t actually happen in real life? People can do amazing things with computers, but I think it’s time we as viewers have the right to know when we are watching something that is real and is presented as it was seen in our reality, not the reality of someone’s computer.
Filed under: Computers, Technology Tagged: | Beijing Olympics, Fake fireworks, Olympics
