Olympic Opening Ceremony Fakery

China dazzled the world with Friday's technically perfect opening ceremonies, but all was not as it seemed to the worldwide audience. It turns out that more than a little fakery was involved, both by the Chinese and the NBC.

Remember the darling little girl who sang the patriotic "Hymm to the Motherland"? Fake.

The girl in the red dress with the pigtails, called Lin Miaoke, 9, and from a Beijing primary school, has become a national sensation since Friday night, giving interviews to all the most popular newspapers.

But the show's musical designer felt forced to set the record straight. He gave an interview to Beijing radio saying the real singer was a seven-year-old girl who had won a gruelling competition to perform the anthem, a patriotic song called "Hymn to the Motherland".

At the last moment a member of the Chinese politburo who was watching a rehearsal pronounced that the winner, a girl called Yang Peiyi, might have a perfect voice but was unsuited to the lead role because of her buck teeth.

So, on the night, while a pre-recording of Yang Peiyi singing was played, Lin Miaoke, who has already featured in television advertisements, was seen but not heard.

"This was a last-minute question, a choice we had to make," the ceremony's musical designer, Chen Qigang, said. "Our rehearsals had already been vetted several times - they were all very strict. When we had the dress rehearsals, there were spectators from various divisions, including above all a member of the politburo who gave us his verdict: we had to make the swap."

It did seem a little too perfect. But that wasn't all that was faked for the worldwide audience. NBC was also complicit during one memorable fireworks sequence in which giant footsteps appeared to march across Beijing:

The glow of NBC's Olympic ratings victory threatens to be sullied this morning by reports that the Beijing Olympic Committee and the network have been less-than-scrupulous in their presentation of the Summer Games.

Organizers are accused of mixing in fake CGI fireworks during Friday night's opening ceremony, while NBC is said to have added a bogus "Live" stamp to tape-delayed West Coast feed of competition coverage this weekend, and edited the "parade of nations" segment of the opening ceremony to delay the entrance of the U.S. Olympic Team.

Let's take a look at each report, along with a response from NBC Sports.


Accusation: That viewers were misled by the use of CGI fireworks during a sweeping helicopter shot leading up to Bird's Nest National Stadium. Organizers note the fireworks were there, but the footage was created in advance due to the danger of shooting live from a nearby helicopter.

NBC Response: An NBC Sports spokesperson says U.S. viewers were informed of the manipulation. Commentators Matt Lauer and Bob Costas said the fireworks were a digital effect. From the opening ceremony transcript during the fireworks in question:

Lauer: "You're looking at a cinematic device employed by Zhang Yimou here. This is actually almost animation. A footstep a second, 29 in all, to signify the 29 Olympiads."

Costas: "We said earlier that aspects of this Opening Ceremony are almost like cinema in real time. Well this is quite literally cinematic."

Analysis: Mixing real and CGI fireworks during an Olympic event is visually misleading, though NBC did try to address the issue. The question is, during a spectacular-looking shot, do the phrases "cinematic device" and "almost animation" really convey that the image wasn't real? It seems more to hint that something about it wasn't quite literal, while coming shy of saying -- in far more clear and simple terms -- "this is a digitally manufactured shot to represent what's happening right now outside the stadium."

When I watched that sequence and heard Costas and Lauer's commentary, I thought it looked like a CGI piece - too perfect, but their commentary did not make it clear that we were watching video that had been manufactured for the TV audience and not live a live broadcast of actual events.

As spectacular as the opening ceremonies were, there was something about it that bugged me and I finally realized what it was. It was a celebration of the socialist ideal that the individual is just a small cog in the communist machine. There were very few individual achievements highlighted in the opening ceremonies - just a couple of entertainers, and one of those was British. The most jarring image was the sight of cute little costumed children handing their national flag off to jackbooted ChiCom soldiers who then goose-stepped it over to the flagpole. I think the ChiComs were sending a message to the world and to their own people that whatever they have is thanks to the state and the military, and not to individual achievement.