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Want to Know How Those Canadian Film Students Made That Fake Baby-Snatching Eagle Video?

Dec. 20, 2012 4:07pm Mike Opelka

Millions watched the viral video titled “Golden Eagle Snatches Kid.” Many thought it was real, while skeptics lead the charge that ultimately revealed it to be a brilliant and elaborate hoax perpetrated by four students in Canada.

Image: NBC’s Today Show

As we mentioned in our update yesterday, the scam was part of a classroom assignment called “Hoax the Internet” from the film school, Centre NAD in Montreal.

NBC scored the first American interview with the school and the students. Thursday morning they appeared on the Today Show.

Image: NBC’s Today Show

The two-month process involved creating the computerized images that were then digitized and placed into the scene in the park.

Image: NBC’s Today Show

According to one of the hoaxers, students were promised a grade of “100″ if their video managed to generate more than 100 views on the web. Grades should not be a problem for this team. At press time, the overachievers are approaching 20 million views for their entry.

Team member Normand Archimbault explained it all to the Today Show:

We did all the basic steps of creating a 3-D element for a film. We rigged the eagle, the kid, and then we integrated it with the clip.

The full “Today” show segment with further explanation is below:

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Comments (28)

Xplorer
Posted on December 21, 2012 at 1:10pm
the telling sign that this video was fake to me…

filming the video the eagle prior to the pickup. I figured, well, I suppose it was a video cam freak videotaping everything. Usually if you see videos like this, it doesnt have the entire story to tell, just the moment.

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tajloc
Posted on December 21, 2012 at 9:16am
This is why I like the old movies. Have you ever seen a cowboy fall off a horse?

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Bronco II
Posted on December 20, 2012 at 10:42pm
I saw it when I first got home from soneone who share it and I will admit it looked very really and I was hesitant to watch just reading the headline so I say gives those guys an AAA+ job well done.

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Personalforrest
Posted on December 20, 2012 at 6:47pm
I’m coming out of the closet here and admitiing I was fooled and I am a victim. I am now suffering from depression and mental duress and am now going to go quit my job and apply for dissability and go enter a university and be scholarly and talk philosophy and work with other hippies and spend months trying to trick people on the internet so that my life will then have meaning.

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- strawberry411a
  Posted on December 20, 2012 at 8:55pm
  Canada huh? Gee….what a surprise.
  
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Petereit
Posted on December 20, 2012 at 6:42pm
First test to determine fake video: if something amazing WASN’T about to happen, would someone be shooting video of this scene?

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- SFfam
  Posted on December 21, 2012 at 8:38am
  That is always what I think. Why in the world would someone “happen” to be filming that???
  
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AllLost
Posted on December 20, 2012 at 6:15pm
I was fooled. It looked real to me. Now the implications are tremendously scary, but this past elections proves that you don’t need to go to great lengths to fool the people.

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macpappy
Posted on December 20, 2012 at 5:42pm
Stupid story # 1.
The Blaze editors think the readers are stupid.

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- Wisdom7
  Posted on December 20, 2012 at 5:51pm
  So why do you think they would get an assignment like this? Why would they be teaching kids to deceive people? Think about it.
  
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- Eastinfection
  Posted on December 20, 2012 at 6:21pm
  All animation is deception.
  
  I don’t think there were malicious intentions at work here.
  
  No different than magic tricks and illusionists.
  
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- Wisdom7
  Posted on December 21, 2012 at 6:06pm
  Then why does it state it “…was part of a classroom assignment called “Hoax the Internet” from the film school, Centre NAD in Montreal.” The assignment was to hoax the Internet.
  
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GuruMeditation
Posted on December 20, 2012 at 5:31pm
Couldn’t care less really. Didn’t even watch the video.

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Fearnone
Posted on December 20, 2012 at 5:07pm
Never believe anything you hear and only half of what you see.

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Jezreel
Posted on December 20, 2012 at 4:56pm
This really reminds me of how the bible says that people will be deceived by lying signs and wonders. When Israel happens to be attacked by nations and they go to war, don’t be surprised if lying news and pictures are published that say Israel has lost and has been destroyed. Only we who know Him will be able to discern that it is a lie because of what the word of God says. There is truly a lesson in this example.

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Lori
Posted on December 20, 2012 at 4:38pm
It looked fake–the kid’s sitting posture, the run toward the mom with camera filming grass, the eagle’s too easy of a shift to carrying the kid’s weight, but the way they made the “kid’s” legs move as it fell was so realistic, they almost had me.

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nesmond
Posted on December 20, 2012 at 4:30pm
One can only hope the last four years and what is yet to come is only an illusion.

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Platonician
Posted on December 20, 2012 at 4:26pm
And some people believed Obama was actually crying…..

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- mayancalendar2012
  Posted on December 20, 2012 at 5:30pm
  I can guarantee you every one of those pukes sitting on the Today Show set would claw each others eyes out for the honor of wiping Obama’s crocodile tears.
  
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midnightvelvet
Posted on December 20, 2012 at 4:23pm
Good idea having the action take place farther away so it’s hard to see detail.

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momrules
Posted on December 20, 2012 at 4:17pm
That does it. I will never believe anything else like this again unless I have seen it with my own eyes. I really thought that video was real.

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- chips1
  Posted on December 20, 2012 at 4:34pm
  YEA!!!! Obama isn’t real. He is just a zombie film clip. YEA!!!!!!!
  
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- taxpro4u03
  Posted on December 20, 2012 at 7:39pm
  This technology has been around for DECADES – it’s merely ‘enhanced.’ ASSUME it’s fake from the get go — from ‘edited’ propaganda right down to Glenn’s own ‘tears,’ some say are/were MAY have been carefully placed Vick’s vapor rub activated at the right moment in the SCRIPT simply by tilting the head to give the ‘viewer’ the ILLUSION of that which it is not…Authentic — David Copperfield — any ‘evidence’ digital photo/audio/video — even SCRIPT ‘e-mail’ must be ‘assumed’ to be propaganda — :-) The sun also ‘rises…’ Depends on one’s ;evel of consciousness and KNOWLEDGE…. Mmmmmm ‘could be…’ but I doubt it… :-)
  
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cloudsofwar
Posted on December 20, 2012 at 4:16pm
pretty neat. don’t believe anything you see on the net.

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LIBSALWAYSLIE
Posted on December 20, 2012 at 4:12pm
I’ll admit, it looked real. Well done fake, better than most.

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Gary_K
Posted on December 20, 2012 at 4:11pm
No.

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bmfh58
Posted on December 20, 2012 at 4:11pm
Spoof or not the big birds of prey can do as the original film showed

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- Zipit
  Posted on December 20, 2012 at 4:19pm
  No doubt 58!
  
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