This isn’t soooo bad, I suppose, but apparently about 55 seconds of the opening ceremony for the Olympics this year was rendered as computer-generated imagery, or CGI as we like to call it 95% of the time. While I was all set to slam my broken-hearted fist down on my desk, screaming “How could you?!! You bastards!!!”, it turns out that the part that was computer generated actually did happen in real-life, it just had to be CGI’d for safety reasons.
The sequence in question was a series of 28 footprints made of fireworks happily clomping across the sky. Here’s what happened, according to TechRadar UK…
Speaking to The Beijing Times, an advisor to the Beijing Olympic Committee (BOCOG) defended the decision: "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."
To emulate the shot, the visual effects team actually put a slight camera shake on to the image, and even spoke to the Beijing meteorological office to ask them how to recreate the Beijing smog.
Techcrunch eventJoin 10k+ tech and VC leaders for growth and connections at Disrupt 2025
Netflix, Box, a16z, ElevenLabs, Wayve, Hugging Face, Elad Gil, Vinod Khosla — just some of the 250+ heavy hitters leading 200+ sessions designed to deliver the insights that fuel startup growth and sharpen your edge. Don’t miss the 20th anniversary of TechCrunch, and a chance to learn from the top voices in tech. Grab your ticket before doors open to save up to $444.
Join 10k+ tech and VC leaders for growth and connections at Disrupt 2025
Netflix, Box, a16z, ElevenLabs, Wayve, Hugging Face, Elad Gil, Vinod Khosla — just some of the 250+ heavy hitters leading 200+ sessions designed to deliver the insights that fuel startup growth and sharpen your edge. Don’t miss a chance to learn from the top voices in tech. Grab your ticket before doors open to save up to $444.
San Francisco | October 27-29, 2025
So yeah, maybe they should have put a little disclaimer on the TV, but the fact that it actually happened live and just was too dangerous to film makes it sting a bit less.
[via BBG]
