Creators of viral eagle snatching video admit hoax
TORONTO (AP) — The creators of a video purporting to show an eagle swooping down and snatching a toddler from a Montreal park admitted Thursday that it was all a hoax.
The video entitled "The Golden Eagle Snatches Kid," posted on Youtube earlier this week quickly went viral, earning millions of views and becoming the subject of news reports around the globe.
The video's creators said it was intentionally created as a part of a class project to create a viral video hoax at a new-media training institute in Montreal.
"We had no idea what was coming," a giddy Normand Archambault told The Canadian Press.
Archimbault who created the video along with fellow students Loic Mireault, Antoine Seigle and Felix Marquis-Poulin added: "We were all speechless."
The students were promised a 100 percent score if they received 100,000 page views — and within a few hours, sometime after lunch Wednesday, they had smashed that target 50 times over.
Valerie Boudreau, an admissions assistant at the Centre NAD told The Associated Press the school had not anticipated that the video would receive so much attention.
"We were expecting some reaction but not this big. The students succeeded very well," she said.
Claude Arsenault, a spokesman for the Centre NAD, said the video was done as part of a project in 3D animation and digital design. Both the eagle and the toddler were created in 3D animation and integrated into the film afterward, he said.
An online debate quickly raged about whether or not the video was real, with many people weighing in that it was fake.
The viral video came a week after a story about a monkey decked out in a stylish coat, wandering around an IKEA parking lot in Toronto, made news around the world after a picture of the tiny primate was tweeted by a shopper.
The video entitled "The Golden Eagle Snatches Kid," posted on Youtube earlier this week quickly went viral, earning millions of views and becoming the subject of news reports around the globe.
The video's creators said it was intentionally created as a part of a class project to create a viral video hoax at a new-media training institute in Montreal.
"We had no idea what was coming," a giddy Normand Archambault told The Canadian Press.
Archimbault who created the video along with fellow students Loic Mireault, Antoine Seigle and Felix Marquis-Poulin added: "We were all speechless."
The students were promised a 100 percent score if they received 100,000 page views — and within a few hours, sometime after lunch Wednesday, they had smashed that target 50 times over.
Valerie Boudreau, an admissions assistant at the Centre NAD told The Associated Press the school had not anticipated that the video would receive so much attention.
"We were expecting some reaction but not this big. The students succeeded very well," she said.
Claude Arsenault, a spokesman for the Centre NAD, said the video was done as part of a project in 3D animation and digital design. Both the eagle and the toddler were created in 3D animation and integrated into the film afterward, he said.
An online debate quickly raged about whether or not the video was real, with many people weighing in that it was fake.
The viral video came a week after a story about a monkey decked out in a stylish coat, wandering around an IKEA parking lot in Toronto, made news around the world after a picture of the tiny primate was tweeted by a shopper.
well good job... but watching the wings throughout the video it is not that hard to see the fakery... but still funny none the less... good job students....
Perfect proof why you shouldn't 100% believe anything you see on the net.
Well done students! It's always nice when a project like that is more successful then originally hoped!
Obviously a group of losers trying to get attention for their 15 minutes of fame. Okay, you got it, but is it really the attention you want?
This comment has been deleted
 @commonHuskyfan Nice logical argument. Don't give up your day job.
 @Zoso You didn't even read the article did you...
 @Zoso Losers? They did this for a class project and it appears their 100% on it makes them pretty big winners.
Those students spent over 500 hours producing that video. Â They certainly earned that 100% score. Â
 @Opus8no5 Ehhh...I think that claim is as bogus as the movie!
 @Opus8no5 Hmmmm if so, then I'd say that they have a lot more schoolwork to do. you don't get 500 hours to produce anything in the business world in which they'll be working. It's a start, though.
 @DT  @Opus8no5 I'd bet you get more then 500 hours to produce something, say like a movie? 500 hrs is 12.5 weeks on an average 40 hour work week. Beyond that is the 500 hours their combined work time (Student 1 worked 100 hours, student 2 worked 200 hours, and student 3 worked 300 hours) or the total time that EACH worked?