Greetings children, it's me, Captain Disillusion. You know, looking in the world in an objective and empirical way is key to a healthy and well balanced life. Don't get me wrong, dreaming, wishing, and hoping are basic and vital to human nature; and suspension of disbelief is super fun, but only as long as you can clearly tell the difference between belief and reality. Reality is real; your beliefs are in your head.
If you spend any amount of time on the Internet you have probably come across this hilarious little video of a penguin bitch slapping another penguin. Penguins, is there anything they can't do? Well, actually there is this exact thing you just saw; boys and girls, when you watch that you do realize that the video is fake, right? I ask because the footage is posted dozens of times over on YouTube and on many other sites, people use it as profile picture and yet I have never, not once seen a single comment propose that the video might be an artificial, special effect, and that worries me.
So I am going to break it down for you. The video is actually of one penguin walking across a thin patch of ice and falling though it. The other penguin is artificially inserted into the scene with compositing. You can easily tell he is fake; if you look at the shadows of the two penguins as they intersect. One is darker than the other. In reality, they would merge into a single solid shape; a technique called Motion Tracking can make it look like the fake penguin is standing in a specific spot even as the camera is moving. As a last step, an animation of a slapping wing is created and the whole thing is rotoscoped or traced to appear behind the falling penguin.
You know, something children, I thought that the original video of one penguin falling through the ice was pretty funny on its own, but I guess someone very clever thought that they could knock it up a notch, which usually means adding an element of humiliation or hostile behavior. Oh well, but now I must go kids there is a girl in Wisconsin who is considering writing a letter to Santa Claus, this could take a while, remember love with your heart, but use your head for everything else. Captain Disillusion.
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