Chinese felt ripped off by the CCTV broadcast version of the Opening Ceremonies, particularly after seeing the NBC version which was “1000 times better.” While foreigners around the world rave about this years Olympics opening ceremony being one of the best ever, local Chinese were telling a different story. It has been the most popular topic in the largest forums/BBS (such as Mop, Tianya) since the Opening.
Frustrated Chinese complain that CCTV version failed to capture many of the exciting (and in some cases crucial) camera angles and Chinese announcers only managed to provide vacuous commentary. Meanwhile, the American commentators were able to go into great detail about the numerous traditional Chinese elements and symbols used throughout the intricately planned ceremony, displaying a much more complete knowledge of what was happening than in the Chinese version (granted, the delayed broadcasting of the ceremony by NBC gave the commentators time to do their homework). Some even go as far as to assert that Chinese will have to retract their accusations against foreign media for biased reporting since this time they presented China with such creativity and expertise that “even Americans are unable to find fault.”
Here are some of the more glaring faults (translated from original Chinese here)
- The CCTV version is a confused jumble of close and far shots, but the NBC version captured all the action from every possible angle providing the big picture in a much more complete and exciting way.
- During the reading of the Analects, NBC provides a shot of the top of the bird’s nest where there is both English and Chinese translation, which shows a consideration for visitors from other countries and welcomes them. The version shown in China does not provide any shots of this and you cannot even hear what is being read!
- Later there is a shot of children painting with watercolors and then the sequence is over, but in the NBC version there is a close up shot of the whole canvas, allowing the viewers to see that the black circle is actually the adorable smiling face of the sun, complete with two blushing red cheeks, so cute.
- During the modern China section, the Chinese version jumps straight to the astronauts very suddenly, only after watching the NBC version do we see the picture of the universe and night sky from where the astronauts drop down. And after the Olympic theme song is finished, the 2008 faces are not captured well in the Chinese version, but the NBC version takes it all in and finally in a moving sequence shows close ups of all the different smiling faces of the children from all over the world.
- Chinese people were really confused by the “footage of legs,” only afterwards did we discover that in front of the blank canvas were plates full of pigment so that each time a person walked across it created a rainbow effect. This was captured very well in the foreign version, but wasn’t captured in the CCTV version.
- In the Chinese version, when the athletes entered the stadium you could not see the signs held up for each at all, only after watching the later version did we discover that each sign had 3 languages written on them (French, English, and Chinese) and were written with our traditional Chinese brushwork.
Additional source states: “On August 9th, I spoke with a friend in the television industry and he said that the live broadcast of the opening ceremony was the responsibility of Beijing Olympic Broadcasting (BOB). The BOB live broadcast was global, and many television stations around the world (including TVB) all used the BOB broadcast which was excellent. But CCTV held broadcasting rights in China and brought their own cameras and director, so the final broadcast in China included clips from both CCTV coverage and BOB coverage cut and broadcast simultaneously, ruining the overall effect. The odd collection of closeups on famous people and actors and leaders and the shaky video footage was all thanks to CCTV.” (Original source here)
Who to blame? A source says:”
I am really angry! No wonder I have this weird (disconnected) feeling in watching the opening. The answer is that a Swedish broadcast director ruined our 2008 Olympics Opening Ceremony and Lao Mouzi’s (Yimou Zhang) talent.”
“NBC’s version is 1000 times better than CCTV’s, it shows the grand overview, super! But all our Chinese were watching a discounted gala.”
“So the broadcast director didn’t show us a real and extravagant opening. The director is a Swedish, not Chinese.”
真的很愤怒！！
怪不得看开幕式的时候感觉怪怪的！！！！
原来答案是这个 S B 瑞典导播毁了我们的2008奥运开幕式和老谋子的才华！！！！
美国NBC制作的奥运开幕式确实比垃圾瑞典导播的好千倍,展示的很全面很大气，超赞，而咱们自己中国人却看到的是打折的盛会，飚泪5555555~~~
所以这次导播的垃圾让我们完全没有真实的看到一个美轮美奂举世震惊的开幕式
导播是瑞典人，不是中国的
But so far, there is no official statement about the program director. Search “奥运会 导播” and you will see more stories.
To compare and contrast for yourself, download CCTV TVB version (3.26GB); BBC version (2.5GB); NBC version (4.92GB); CCTV version (Bittorrent)
