Director Roland Emmerich and cinematographer Anna Foerster used Codex Onboard Recorders on Sony Pictures’ film White House Down, (pictured). The production stars Channing Tatum, Jamie Foxx and Maggie Gyllenhaal, and depicts a paramilitary invasion of the White House in Washington, DC.
“Codex is a fully developed, fantastic way of working,” said Foerster. Emmerich agreed: “The Codex Recorders did what every tool should do: perform so flawlessly that we forget they are there.”
For White House Down, Emmerich and Foerster envisioned a look that differed from that of a standard action film. The story unfolds over the course of a single morning, and was shot almost entirely on stages in Montreal. The physicality involved in the film was a major factor in the decision to shoot with the Alexa/Codex combination, according to Foerster.
The Codex recorded images in ARRIRAW format, and SxS cards simultaneously recorded ProRes 444 images as a backup and to capture metadata for visual effects. There was no colour correction on the set, and a fibre optic link connected the DIT data station with the SAN at the Technicolor offices, cutting down on transfer time and ensuring copies of the data in two separate secure sites.
“The Codex 512Gb Datapacks worked perfectly,” said digital imaging technician Julie Garceau. “We never have any problems. The product is rugged and dependable, and Codex is always improving it.”
