Technology can be a great enabler of human talent and a way to advance the quality of life for human-kind. It also can be used to deceive or make things look just a little better then they may otherwise be on their own.
I still believe that the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Games was one of the most impressive shows ever executed. However, in the days since the games there is a trend of daily surprises in how technology or slight of hand were used to make things “look better”.
It reminds me of Milli Vanilli, the one-hit wonder band of the late 80s and early 90s who in the end turned out to be the better looking front men of the actual voices singing the songs. Fab and Rob could dance and had the right look, so there was no harm in giving the people a better image by hiding the real voices in the back ground.
Fast forward to 2008 and now the Beijing Olympic committee has done much the same in several ways that have been exposed, but in how many ways that are not known. For example:
- On TV there was an impressive string of 29 footprints created by fireworks. This was computer generated digital imagery only seen by the TV audience and not “real”. This was defended as a cinematic effect since the smog present in Beijing was expected to make the footprints impossible to view for the home audience.
- The Chinese and Olympic flags in the stadium blew perfectly even though there was no wind on the evening of the opening ceremony. It has been reported that “special flag poles” were used that created artificial wind so that there would be the right wind blown flags for the event.
- And the latest too good to be true part of the Opening Ceremony is the amazing singing by one young girl. Little Yang Peiy has an amazing voice for a 7 year old, but she evidently is not cute enough according to some decision makers in Beijing. 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 been featured in television advertisements, was seen but not heard.
It is fine to want to put on the best event and the best face of China, but there also are grey areas and lines that need to be respected in order for people to truly understand what they are observing. People want to know when special enhancements are being used or when it comes out later they will naturally question everything that was shown.
A parallel to bring this home is that doping and steroid use are universally illegal for athletes though people can and do make the argument that it just helps the athlete reach their true potential. Whether this is the case or not does not matter and at the games testing is used to try to ensure the athletic performances given are real. We can only hope that the same will be the case for the closing ceremonies or that a “viewer beware what you are watching may be artificially enhanced” banner is used by NBC during the broadcast
Posted by shanepearson 
