77

Some action films feature a scene, often at the beginning of the movie, where the acting President of the United States is seen talking about an issue related to the plot of the film. A good example of that is at the beginning of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes at around 2:00, according to Netflix's time-stamp. In this example, Barack Obama can be seen talking about getting "your family ready for evacuation".

How do filmmakers obtain those video sequences? I can imagine that in some cases, at least, they can use real footage of past speeches but I also cannot imagine that this would be a fitting solution all the time.

So what do they do? Does the White House schedule a day where filmmakers submit texts they want the acting president to say and possibly pay for it?

Improve this question
2

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
93

Does the White House schedule a day where film makers submit texts they want the acting president to say and possibly pay for it?

Absolutely not

Pretty much anything the President says in public is recorded on film.

Editing real footage of presidential statement into movies is an old practise.

It's just a matter of finding the right quote which, out of context, fits the plot of the movie in question.

You will usually find this referred to as "archive footage"

For instance that clip is taken from this announcement on Hurricane Irene around the 1.20 mark:

enter image description here

Improve this answer
18
  • 97
    "It's just a matter of finding the right quote which, out of context, fits the plot... in question." Curiously enough, this is also a common practice for the opposition when an election is coming up.
    – Steve-O
    Commented Aug 2, 2017 at 23:20
  • 31
    One thing to note is that anything produced by the US government its in the public domain, so archival footage taken from a source like WH.gov can be used in a film without having to pay any fees or royalties.
    – Ross Ridge
    Commented Aug 3, 2017 at 1:41
  • 8
    @RossRidge: "anything produced by the US government its in the public domain" I know I'm being a pedant here, but that's not true. The military, CIA, NSA are all part of the government and the information they produce is not public at all. You're referring to the government's public statements.
    – Flater
    Commented Aug 3, 2017 at 9:00
  • 28
    @Flater Any work that the military, CIA and NSA produce is in the public domain as far as the US Copyright Act is concerned. Being in the public domain in this sense means that no one owns the copyright on the work. It doesn't mean it can't also be a classified secret or otherwise private information. On the other hand being in the public domain in the sense you're using doesn't mean that it can used for free. For the example the movie Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is out in the public domain in the sense that it's been made available to the public, however the copyright is owned by someone.
    – Ross Ridge
    Commented Aug 3, 2017 at 9:34
  • 9
    @Flater Copyright on a work doesn't "naturally" exist except as far as a particular nation's laws "manufactures" it. U.S. law doesn't create copyright for federal government works; other nations, by default, do. USC 17 sect. 105 merely says, "Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government..." so U.S. law does not afford any exclusive copyright rights to federal works. Another country's laws may do so, which would be relevant when bringing a claim in that country's jurisdiction.
    – apsillers
    Commented Aug 3, 2017 at 13:22
32

In addition to Paulie_D's answer which is the simplest and most prevalent method upto now:

CGI and computer technology has advanced to a point where it is possible to take some footage of a person, dub some new speech and have the footage resync the person's mouth movements to fit the new speech.

While not as advanced, there have also been times where clever editing has allowed new speech to be dubbed over footage of a president or other notable figure - usually by using only a longshot, or an oblique or rear angle to prevent the visual disconnect of bad lip-synchronisation.

Improve this answer
7
  • 12
    Depending on the words, sometimes it's not even necessary to change the video portion at all. Bad Lip Reading videos demonstrate this very simply.
    – Todd Wilcox
    Commented Aug 3, 2017 at 0:55
  • I think Mr Robot did this in season 2.
    – Paul D. Waite
    Commented Aug 3, 2017 at 9:20
  • 4
    @Ooker You don't need to find footage that fits the new dub; you can edit any existing footage: youtube.com/watch?v=MVBe6_o4cMI
    – user28241
    Commented Aug 3, 2017 at 12:16
  • 4
    This was done three times in Forrest Gump.
    – TG01
    Commented Aug 3, 2017 at 12:57
  • 1
    @TG01 And Bill Clinton's "appearance" in Contact (1997) too.
    – Dai
    Commented Aug 4, 2017 at 10:15

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .