Analysing White House Down

This is the opening shot of White House Down. We are tracking behind the helicopter as it flies over the water leading up to the Lincoln's memorial. We know that this is a route that you take in order to get to the White House. This is an extreme long shot of the famous building yet it's presence is magnifying and because we are positioned in the centre and when looking directly ahead of us is the lit building it is the main thing we are looking at. Our focus is on the White House and this shot is also known as an Establishing shot (ES). The expensive looking helicopter suggests that maybe the President of the United States is inside and this is his transport for getting home. The reflection of the White House in the water exaggerates it's power and presence. The lights are on also so it looks like it is glowing, symbolising a possible holiness for the arrival of the President or just the power all together. The lighting is low key which suggest that this is either sunrise or sunset.

The president was in the helicopter. He asks his assistant diegetically 'what time does my wife get in?' to which she replies '18:45'. The language used here from using the twenty-four hour clock shows precision and how everything is planned out perfectly. This precision suits the location and scenario. The President is wearing a suit and looks smart which is especially important considering his high status job. The President's skin is coloured and so as an audience member you associate him with Barack Obama the current President of the United States. However, after I researched into the film I found on 'voanews.com' that Jamie Foxx (President) plays James Sawyer, the president of the United States. He said it's not a take on President Obama. “We didn't want to do an impersonation of him because we don't want people to think that's how Obama would react in this situation because we don't know,” Foxx explains. We know this is set in the modern era and this adds a sense of realism. There is a guard stood to the right of the woman's shoulder. This protection of the house highlights it's importance and that there are a great deal of workers here in order to keep the President and his close family safe. The stairs are symmetrical which is fancy and looks expensive. Even though this wouldn't be shot at the White House this is probably a close replica for enhanced realism. This shot is centred again which gives an element of perfection as nothing is canted. The shot is a wide angled medium shot in order to show the elaborate setting. The woman's back is turned to the camera which indicates her lack of importance and how the focus is on the President who is turned to the camera. The lighting is high key because of the all of the surrounding lights which are illuminating brightly.

This is a two shot and a medium close-up which is used to show both characters emotions when engaged in the conversation. The girl has on headphone still plugged in which indicates a lack of interest in the conversation or a lack of respect for the man talking to her. She looks like she is thirteen years old and so compared to his age and attire he is probably her Dad or Guardian. She is not looking at the man which again enhances this lack of interest and how she is more focused on her phone. He is looking at her as well as driving the car which is a risk to their lives as he is not watching the road. This suggests that the conversation is important and worthy of eye contact which adds a serious theme. Diegetically he is apologising for not attending her school talent show and he says 'Look I need you here right now, look at me' and she turns her head for about a second before retracting back. Non-diegetically there is some music which sounds like a piano which is repeatedly hitting three or four keys in a tune which is quite subtly tense. This matches the serious conversation. The mise-en-scene for the background looks like a park from the trees and paved paths. Due to the background being blurred it implies that they are driving and so adds a sense of realism that he is looking onto the road and his hands are on the steering wheel. The man is wearing a smart looking suit which connotes that he has a high status job. The girl is wearing a dark blue cap and a blue hoodie. These clothes are aimed at younger people and so highlights her age of being a young girl, probably aged thirteen. The rim of the hat extends outwards which covers some of her face, this conveys the idea that maybe she doesn't seek attention and maybe this is why she is avoiding eye contact with the man. The lighting is high key and so the audience knows that this is set in the daytime. The bright lighting could symbolise good things and happiness. This matches the next part of their conversation where the man says he has an interview for the Secret Service at the White House. This scene would not have co-ordinated well or worked if there was lightening and he was expressing good news. The below shot is the next one which is a POV and a close up. This shows the White House passes. The date is shown for 2014 so we now know the era and can see this film is set a year into the future.

This is a wide angled long shot which shows a room which is bordered by computers and sitting off centre is a man with his hands up in the air. Some of the code written on the screens has been projected on to the wall in front of the man. The large number of empty chairs suggests that either they have left or they are used to enhance his loneliness in this project which appears to have gone well because of his excitable body language. He is wearing all black which is very stereotypical of an antagonist. The conventions of an Action genred film are chases, fights, explosions and CGI, antagonists and protagonists and possibly a journey or search for something. Especially with the below shot this film conforms to these conventions. The lighting here is low key which is associated with a dark theme and this matches the twisted nature of this plot and the man. The man's back is facing the camera which adds a sense of mystery to his character and because we can't see his face he is unknown which allows the audience's imagination to create his evil character before we even meet him. Blue is associated with calmness, serenity and softness. This is a contrast to the evil plan he is producing but can be a match to how smoothly his plan has gone. The grid work on the ground is similar to prison gates which can symbolise his future. During this shot the man diegetically shouts 'SHOWTIME', this elaborate phrase hints that something enormous is going to happen and perhaps this is the final step to his plan. Also diegetically there is a the sound of the computers buzzing and making data sounds when he loads them. Before this shot he is whistling the tune of the American anthem which implies that he is connected to the American life. Due to the next shot, it can be said that the happy whistling is patronising and fake as he has evidently caused this mass destruction.

This is a wide angled long shot. This shot is wide to show the location and so can work as an Establishing shot. You can see to the right of the White House, Lincoln's memorial and this links us back to the beginning of the trailer where we flew over the water. This cycle method keeps everything tied in together and again reiterates the location. CGI (computer generated imagery) is used to create an extremely large explosion. This visual creation enhances the realism in the film. Diegetically you can hear a crash of glass as the explosion breaks through. This shot is panning around the White House and is a POV from a helicopter. This high angle also shows how much bigger the White House and surrounding memorials are compared to the city, this enhances its grand presence and status. The lighting is high key and indicates that this is during the day and so the antagonist who caused this is not afraid of much because he obviously wants citizens to see his actions.

Animation Workshop

On Wednesday 26th June we were involved in an Animation workshop by Mark Charlton in order to have a deeper understanding into the animation world. Mark Charlton has worked with many artists including Passenger. After an introduction of how he got to where he is now we had different stations which we could explore in groups of three.

 

In order of the clips from the video below; we started by using stop-motion picture with building blocks. Ours is the one which spells out 'media' at the end (.51-.58). I liked this one as the result was good however, I felt that it took a lot of time and patience.

 

The next one was similar to the flipbook animation where you draw something and then repeat it on other sheets of paper with slight changes in order to create a video of a moving image. Mine was the fish jumping out of the pond at 1.18. I really liked this one as the drawings had to be simple and the end result was really interesting and fun to watch.

 

Followed by us painting. I also really enjoyed this one as we brushed the page with water beforehand so the paint just ran and it created various images and conveyed different moods. We kept ours quite colourful and then incorporated some sharp black lines which created a border and defined our picture which we found to look like a hedgehog at the end (1.45-1.53). This was fascinating as we didn't intend to portray this imagery but our random interpretation ended up producing something.

 

Then we did pixelation animation which again I found needed a lot of patience. We did a couple of experiments with this as we did it wrong to begin with. The whole point is to move with your legs closed as if you're just sliding around, but we started taking shots of us walking properly which defeated the object and we may as well have been videoing.

 

Lastly was another drawing one except this was basically stop-motion as our characters which we made were moving. Our's appeared at 2.57 with the character similar to Humpty Dumpty loses his top hat when he spins. I enjoyed this one too as it was fun to make.

 

Below is a montage of everybody's clips and experiments using Animation.

 

 

After learning different styles of animation I went in a group with Jodie, Lyka and Lucy and we created a music video. After choosing Paloma Faith - New York as our song we started making and creating scenes and props needed. Below is our unfinished beginning of a music video.

Chroma Key

Green Screen Tips, Tricks and Materials

 - Chromakey Tutorial

 

To begin the lesson we watched this tutorial which helped us to understand about the lighting used for chroma key. I learnt that there shouldn't be any crinkles or shadows which will ruin the image when in the editing room. When I was editing I saw that because the green screen was in front of a window so the light was beaming through in two strips. This was not good for achieving a clean finish to the image.
 

Thea and I were being placed onto a sunny beach so as we were imagining we were there we were pretending it was hot and so fanning ourselves. This was a practice and so we weren't prepared for what the chroma key clips would be. For mise-en-scene it would have been ideal to be wearing a swimsuit or light clothing as the weather is hot.This is a long shot and the camera was on it's side to fit us in the shot. I was able to rotate this when editing. You can see the light shining from the windows behind us, in a real circumstance we would block the light from behind. The audience is not seeing this green screen, they will be seeing a white sand beach and so our facial expressions and body language have to match the calming setting.



This is Thea and I dancing. We tried to keep in line in the shot as we were being transported onto some decking stretching out to the ocean and if we moved out of shot we would have fallen off the deck and into the sea. As this was a practise we weren't completely strict on ourselves and we both edged out of shot accidentally a couple of times but this is still a learning process. If this was the real thing then again the lighting would have been high key, eliminating the shadows and we would probably be wearing either wetsuits and maybe for props possibly some jet skiis and water skiis.

This is a screen shot from our finished and edited chroma key clips. This is the third clip out of the short montage and we appear to be in an exotic location. Much like the film 'Hero' where there are similar locations we thought that we should fight as if we were in that. I decreased our size to make us smaller than the fountain and further back. Also, I go out of shot a couple of times so I positioned us to the side of the location so when I fall I go behind the wall so it looks realistic. To fit in with the different culture we would probably be wearing martial art outfits and have our hair tied up off our face.

 This is also a screen shot from our piece, before this Thea and I are seen very small as we're dancing on the bridge and then Lucy and Lyka appear at the front hugging because they're tourists and they're happy to see the view. If they faced the front we could have edited a flash in as if they were posing for a photograph.

 This is our finished piece. We chose to mute the videos as the focus of this workshop was not sound it was about the green screen.

 





Questionnaires

100% of applicants said yes to 'does the trailer have an impact on whether you want to watch the film?' This is important for my research as I am creating a film trailer.



I am happy with the results for the most popular genres. I would like to produce a film trailer which fits into the Action-Drama region and so I am glad that they both received high results.