0:00: The first scene shows us a little girl wearing braids with her back facing the camera as she walking into a room towards the bed. It could perhaps be her parent’s room or sibling’s room that she is about to enter in. There’s light coming from the window while the room is slightly dim indicating that it could be early morning.
0:01: The camera is shown facing the girl’s face as her facial expression demonstrate her awaiting for something happen. The camera is very close to the little girl’s face. The director display it like this on purpose to the audience to really show the facial expression from the little girl that is waiting for something or someone.
0:02-0:03: In the next scene, the camera cuts to the view of the bed where a woman and man are sleeping. This woman then abruptly wakes up and sits up from her bed to see the little girl in her room. She has a confused facial expression as she stares at the little girl for a second. In less than a second, the woman face changes to panic one and she quickly turns around. While this is all happening, we see still see the view of the little girl on the left side of the camera but only getting half of the view of her back. The creators of this ad might choose to do this to indicate that the little girl is still in the room waiting for these two people.
0:04-0:05: The camera zooms in on the woman’s face showing a face of horror after she looks at the time on the clock that’s on the side of her bed. She next moves slightly up and extending one of her arm to push the man awake who is still sleeping next to her. The camera then shifts the focus on the man who rolls over off the bed after being pushed by the woman. In the background of this, the woman is getting off the bed.
0:06-0:07: The scene of the room changes and we are in someone’s room. The room seems to belong to boy who is sleeping in bed as the man, who could perhaps be his father, opens the curtains. The room has a lamp on the drawer with posters all over the room. The camera then zooms in on the boy as he squints his eyes from the bright light coming from the window when the man opens his curtain. Since the bright light is coming from the curtain the boy make a sleepy and puzzle facial expression and close the curtain immediately to go back to sleep. The man doesn’t notice until a second later once he turn back around to face the curtain.
0:08-0:09: We then cut to a scene where someone is pouring milk into a bowl of cheerios cereal put only having a little left in the milk carton.
0:10: The camera zooms out into a scene of the man shaking the carton of milk and looking inside the milk carton to see if there is any left. In the background, the little girl is dancing and spinning in the kitchen behind the man holding the milk carton.
0:11: The next scene indicates that the man holding the milk carton is disappointed when he sighs. His facial expression give away how sadden he is that there is no more milk. He still wearing a robe around him with messy hair indicating he still hasn’t gotten ready for the day. The little girl that was spinning around the kitchen starts to leave the frame of this scene as she continues spinning.
0:12: The ad jumps into the scene of the woman searching for something in the pile of shoes of her closet. The scene demonstrate a load of shoes coming from the closet. The woman facial expression indicate that she is in the state of worry or panic as she desperately searches for the item she looking for in this messy pile. The girl that’s on the right side of the frame is leaned over a bit holding one shoe in her hand. With this you can conclude that they are looking for the other pair of shoe that the girl is holding.
0:13 The woman ends up finding the missing pair of shoe they been looking for. When woman finds the shoe, she raises it up in the air in victory. The woman’s face lights up and she has a more relief and happy expression as she looks at the girl standing by the doorway.
0:14:-0:15: The facial expression of girl standing by the doorway seem unimpressed but she takes the shoe from the woman’s hand and leaves in a hurry. The woman is left there baffle that the girl didn’t even thank her and just left immediately. As the woman does this, she extends her arms in “what” expression staring the girl in the distance.
0:16: The camera zooms in on a dryer machine as the man open the machine to take out clean clothes to place in his empty bin.
0:17: As the man is taking out his clothing from the dryer machine the camera zooms out and a figure comes into view in the corner of the frame staring at the man.
0:18-0:19: The scene cuts to a view of a little boy staring at the man. The man is holding a belt or rope of some kind that’s pink. The little boy then says something to the man.
0:20: The focus of the camera is shifted to the man now as the man quickly turns up to face the little kid who called for him. The man has a face of confusion as he returns looking at the clothes that are all pink and stuck together.
0:21-0:24: The next scene leads into all of the children and couple in the car as the camera zooms out. From this we can conclude they are a family ready to start the day. Each of them as is wearing a seatbelt. As the camera zooms out you can see the father quickly glance to check that all his children are wearing seatbelts and then are shown that the mother is putting on her seatbelt before looking at her husband to check if he has his seatbelt.
0:25-0:30: The ad ends with a blue screen and drawing images of seatbelts and children seat. This indicating that it’s an ad for children car safety.
Logos: In this part of the video, it appears to the audience reasoning since the parents or anyone know children must be placed in the back and be ensure that they are wearing seatbelts.
Pathos: We can feel that the characters in the scene of them in the car are at ease once everyone has their seatbelts on.
Ethnos: This an awareness video on child car safety. The author sends a message about the safety of child riding in vehicle.
The Argument’s Purpose
The argument’s purpose was to bring aware of child car safety especially when you are in a rush of time to get to a certain location.
I’ve read the first four entries, InspireAngels, and I get no sense of the tone of the piece you’re watching. I should have a strong impression that I know what I’m watching, but I’m not getting it. What’s the tone of the “ad”? It’s really hard to explain WHY we get a sense of tone or mood from visual details alone, but that’s what makes the assignment so special.
Is the pace, the lighting, the girl’s facial expression, the state of the house, the condition of the furniture, walls, fixtures, in any way communicating whether we should anticipate danger, joy, excitement? Do the parents take good care of their kids? How’s their marriage? I know it’s almost impossible to say HOW we would know these things, but we do get a sense, don’t we, from just a few seconds of video, what to expect thematically?
The difference between the Visual and the Rhetorical halves of the assignment, IA, is that we can accurately describe what we’re seeing, but we HAVE TO GUESS about WHY the directors made the choices they made.
Is this an apartment or a house? Do they own or rent? How about outside the windows: any indication of where house is located? A generally comforting atmosphere in the first scenes, or dark with danger and menace? Are we hopeful for the characters? Amused by them? Afraid what might happen? Sympathetic?
Fortunately, our brains help us jump to conclusions about all these questions and countless others. Filmmakers manipulate what they know will be our reactions. If the “ad” is successful, WHAT WE FEEL is what THEY WANT US TO FEEL.
Our brains recognize people, objects, and settings in enough detail for us to tell our readers WHAT WE SEE. At the same time, our brains ALWAYS DRAW JUDGMENTS from what they see, based on context. Whatever our brains GUESS about WHY the filmmakers are using a visual is what we want to communicate in the Rhetoric portion of the assignment.
Every character, whatever their other purposes, is cast for their age, body type, race, gender, social status, and attractiveness. You’ve identified the rough age of the girl, and you’ve named a woman and a man, but not much else. Is this a family? Are there others?
Whether your conclusions are TRUE or NOT does not make them right or wrong. You’re sharing the IMPRESSION created in you, the viewer, from the VISUALS that the Authors (filmmakers in this case) have shown you. You’ve identified what is probably a bedroom. All other questions about the environment remain to be answered. If it later turns out that your Subject is just a kid who wandered into some strangers’ home and is standing in their bedroom, you’ll have to explain either WHY the filmmakers were justified in “tricking you” at first, or THAT they simply failed to communicate clearly.
What else can we see? The windows? Doors leading elsewhere? Fixtures that indicate age or quality of fittings? Decor? Cheerfulness/Drabness/Neglect?
Is the camera in motion. You say we see the back of her head. So, are we getting the scene from the girl’s point of view? Or do we follow her into the room like another family member? How come? Does our view feel invited? Clandestine? Are we eavesdropping? Was it staged? Is this a casual moment that could have been caught by anyone in the hallway outside the bedroom? Is that where we’re standing?
Not EVERYTHING matters, IA, but ALMOST EVERYTHING does, and we don’t know for sure in the first few seconds what DOES and what DOESN’T. So the best review of the opening moments describes EVERYTHING that occurs to us from the details we’re shown.
Later, we can start to mention patterns. But for now, everything MIGHT BE the beginning of an argument.
Is that helpful?
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