Sometimes there are things that happen that just make you think to yourself “now that is the exact reason why I am geeky about that.” This happened to me just the other days when a couple of Montreal students fooled the world into thinking that they had captured a massive bird picking up an eagle in a park in Montreal.

Several days ago my wife came running into my office and said “you have got to see this.”  She pulled up the YouTube video and I was amazed at a video that had apparently captured footage of an innocent toddler being snatched away by an eagle in Montreal. Being a fairly new parent thoughts started to rush through my mind about how scary this would be as a parent, and how bad things could have gone if the bird had got any more height than what was shown in the video… then the camera dropped on the video and I suspected it was a fake.

After hitting up “the google” I found many credible news sources posting this video along with claims that is was real; however, after digging a bit deeper I found many people pointing out elements that indicated the video may be fake. After receiving over a million views, the folks behind the video admitted that it was indeed fake and was actually for a project for them at a new media school in Montreal. The assignment was to create a viral video and a hoax where they were promised a  score of 100% if they received 100,000 page views – needless to say, they have passed the task.

I have long been a fan of video work and even briefly did a stint in a Motion Picture Production Program so when I hear about videos like this going viral, it makes me smile inside. I love that we live in a day and age where such a simple video can reach global fame in a matter of hours and better yet – I love that the video’s origin is from Canada. These students should be proud of their work even though there were a few flaws that exposed its authentic y but either way, I suspect the students know where to start their demo reel.

If you’d like to see more about how they did this, take a look at the CNN youtube video below.