Communication Artifact: SWIG

Swig is our campaign and I was involved in directing the commercial. I had the idea of making it more comical and that sometimes you can’t be boring, you have to live a little. The motto for our campaign is “Mix It Up” meaning that a customer can combine a number of flavors to create a lifetime of enjoyment with your taste buds being happy. My acting is not up to par and I do apologize for that but overall, I think the commercial turned out to be great plus it is funny which is what I wanted because it emphasizes the laid back and fun culture that the company produces. Matt (Hansen) helped me edited the video because I’m not that experienced working with Adobe Premiere so I sat down with him and we went through the whole thing together and cut out all of the extra takes.

We recorded the video and audio off two separate phones and matched them up when we sat down to edit it. I was worried about the environmental noise going on around like the bell ringing, the wind, students walking by, etc. To eliminate this problem completely, we decided to put some video game theme music behind it. I think the music adds to the fun humor and attracts a younger audience and yet has references for someone a little older to understand as well.

The psychological contrast that the commercial presents is that you should drink “Swig” because it is unique and you should feel ashamed if you’re drinking anything else (not really, your body needs water). With Darius being so aggressive while shocked that I am drinking water, it shows that drinking “Swig” makes you cool and it really does help because of its popularity here in Utah, especially St. George. The cultural context of the place “Swig” is heavily influenced because it is a place specifically stationed in Utah and nowhere else. I’m from Las Vegas, NV and never heard of “Swig” before I came here but people raved about how great the drinks were and I had to try it out and was not disappointed. Our commercial is great for local publicity because when people here in Utah see that name, they know what it is and generally where it is located.

The figure to ground relationship is our commercial spot is that someone is out enjoying the nice summer weather. When Darius spits out his juice and lowers his glasses and the camera focuses on his eyes, the viewer can really feel the tension in his face and how distraught he seems to be. Also, the close-up of me when I am fishing around looking for something to drink. The camera is right in my face and the background is sandy, which is supposed to give off a desert feel and am needing something to quench my thirst and I see something in the distance. The worry in my face shows that I am dying for something to drink and giving the impression that I am somewhere in the desert shows the exhaustion that can have on someone. The final scene when the logo appears next to the cup shows a figure to ground relationship. The cup is sweating a little bit which is supposed to draw the viewer in and show how hot the temperature is and make them really thirsty as well. Having the volleyball court in the background enhances the impression that it is summer time because volleyball is a popular sport that is played during the summer time. The combination of that with the sweating of the cup is enough to attract some thirsty mouths.

The Gestalt Principles that are used are the law of proximity because there are some tight angles throughout the commercial that make the viewer feel like they are experiencing what the actor is. There are several shots when the camera gets pulled in very tight to emphasize something important. When the camera zooms in on Darius, it is showing that he is in disbelief about what is happening and doesn’t understand why the student (me) isn’t drinking “Swig”. Another zoomed in angle happens when I’m looking for something to drink which shows that I am dying of thirst and need something quickly. The zoom helps to highlight that I am in dire need of some liquid but Darius denies me the water. Law of Continuity is another principle that present throughout the commercial because a lot of the angles follow some sort of line pattern. When the water bottle gets knocked out and flies towards Spencer, the viewer’s eye follows the bottle heading towards him and then Spencer panicking and leaving in an instant. Also when Darius is spitting out his drink, all the camera angles that show him doing it are following a direction as well because the juice is going away from the camera (because we didn’t have a plexiglass shield for the phone) and the juice creates a line of direction which the eye follows, especially when it gets slowed down. Lastly, when I’m stumbling for the water, the camera was going from a side direction and so the viewer could see where I was headed and what my eye was desired on getting and when Darius comes in and kicks the bottle away, the direction is hindered because the momentum of my motion is interrupted.

Overall, it was a blast creating an advertisement spot for “Swig” and experimenting with a different logo and slogan. All of us in our groups put our creative minds together to create something special and other than my horrible acting, I like the commercial that we produced.

Below is our style guide for the color schemes that we used.

Here is a better link to our commercial because because the one above is blurry!

Objective

We hope to appeal to a younger and more daily-oriented crowd ranging from families, high school and college students and athletes. We wanted our design to incorporate a fun and cool (literally and figuratively) style that appeals majority to a younger generation. Our goal was to make our logo inviting for people but yet have 7 different color schemes emphasizing our motto, "Mix It Up:. We chose primary colors for our tones because it creates a positive vibe and adds a fun summer theme appropriate for all ages.

Mis-en Scene: Now You See Me: Bank Robbery Scene

Who doesn’t love magic and watching magic tricks? I would say that those people are pretty rare but a movie that is full of magic is “Now You See Me” that was released in 2013. The scene that is pretty memorable and took some time to execute is the Bank Robbery scene. From a production designer’s standpoint, this scene is complex with the visual concept of how they pulled it off.

The Production Designer behind this movie is Peter Wenham who is responsible for some other famous work including The Bourne Supremacy and Blood Diamond. Looking back at the trailers for both movies, The Bourne Supremacy shines with the car scenes with Matt Damon and the people that are after him where the camera is constantly changing perspectives and moving quite quickly. In Blood Diamond, Leonardo DiCaprio and Djimon Hounsou are the leading actors in this movie and they are trying to save Hounsou’s son and have to deal with fire fight to battle to him. Those movies don’t use magic or anything but it certainly shows the range and scope of different locations used in a variety of ways. Also, both of those movies have a figure to ground relationship because Matt Damon is the figure and he is on the run and his background is the country of India and the people after him. Blood Diamond on the other hand has Djimon Hounsou as the main figure and the ground relationship of South Africa and the destruction it is taken and on the lookout for his son as well. I enjoyed “Now You See Me” but the movie itself was nothing special although the bank robbery scene specifically was really interesting and always kept me wondering how they pulled the whole thing off specifically when the money was flying around and into the air duct. Wenham’s job is to identify a design style for sets, locations, graphics, props, lighting, camera angles and costumes, while working closely with the director and producer.

Wenham has to deal with the physical context of the bank and the character himself and the stack of money in the middle of the room. The camera angles are pretty tight for this scene because it is just the character and the money so not much else in happening within the vault. The contrast helps the story psychologically through size, texture, orientation, etc. and while dealing with a scene that has a lot of creativity and CGI, the contrast is definitely present. I think it helps the viewer connect with the character in the vault and the money flying up into the vault in the middle of the screen is the focus.

There is a balance because the hole in which the money is flying into is in the center of the screen which seems to pleasure the viewer because there is equal space of the left and the right side. Wenham is in charge of the lighting as well which compliments the harmony quite nicely because of the brightness of lighting in the bank compared to the darkness on the stage in the previous scene. It helps the viewer feel some sense of warmth and by the exciting expression on the character’s face then the bright hue of the bank fits in well.

The figure/ground relationship is present because the character and the money are the figures and the grounds portion is the bank itself with the vault and the whole structure of how it is created. Wenham took the right approach to this because the scene is simple and not much is going on around the character which makes it easier to focus on the magic that is happening with the money.

The Gestalt Principles fit in well, starting with the law of similarity, all the money is similar despite the different color of it being red and blue, and they are all rectangular shaped with the same imprints on them. Next, is the law of proximity which has to do with the objects being near each other and grouped together and when the money is flying into the shoot, they are all in the same general area which gives the viewer a sense of all the individual pieces of money as one. The same aspect applies when it comes to the law of closure, both of these terms are similar and we typically see the money as a whole when it is being shot up through the vacuum. The law of pragnanz is present because that is when reality is reduced to the simplest form and your eye tends to automatically group things together which is what happens with the tornado of money going into the vent. The viewer’s eye sees it as a cluster of money because it is hard to spot every piece of money individually. The last one is the law of continuity because there is a path that the money is following and it is upward towards the top of the vault. The tornado effect creates a cool and easy path for our eyes to decipher which adds to the overall quality of the scene.

How the bank robbery scene was developed was that they filmed it in a vault and had the stack of money in the center of the room (just as it appears on screen) and they put up 3 different cameras. One camera was right over top of the stack of money and the second camera was a shoulder cam that someone was holding and walking around the chaos of the money flying to focus on the actor. The third camera is the camera that the audience sees and it has a handle which the camera man uses to move it up and down while the money is flying around the actor to create a sense of motion that is happening. Also, they strapped down a couple of fans to the ground so they could get the money to swirl around whenever they needed to and unbind some of the money so it was able to fly freely. One more thing, there was a guy out of the shot throwing some more money into the swirling so the effect of all the money just had a constant flow without breaking up any continuity. It is cool to see how the scene was done and it was executed very well. 

This link is for the actual scene

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx9EOI4RyBs

This link is behind the scenes footage of how they pulled it off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXv5262Fclw