Counterintuitive Spring 2023

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:01 – There is a man. He seems to be snapping his fingers. His eyes are super wide. There’s a table. He’s looking at whatever is under the table. Maybe he’s trying to get his dog’s attention? He looks confused.

:02 – Still the same man. The camera angle barely shows his face. He’s still looking under the table. His eye brows are raised. His face looks as if he’s unsure of what he’s looking at.

:03 – Now there’s a woman. She’s pushing something. There seem to be children’s toys on the handle of what she’s pushing. I’m going to assume she’s pushing a child around in a stroller. She’s looking down, I can’t tell whether she’s looking at the child, or the ground of where she’s walking.

:04 – There is a woman. A man is standing behind her. She’s taking a picture of something. Everything is super blurry. Nothing is in focus. The man is wearing a flannel, it must be fall time.

:05 – Still the same couple. The lady is still trying to take a picture. The man is barely there anymore. You can only see half of the woman’s face. It looks like she doesn’t have a ring on her finger. Maybe they’re not married. There are a lot of shelves in the background. Maybe they’re collectors, or just very nice decorators.

:06 – This is a very nice ceiling.

:07 – There is a woman. There are peas on a spoon. She’s either eating the peas or feeding them to someone. I’m going to assume she’s feeding a baby. It looks like a high chair. A lot is blurred out. I believe there is a person in the background, but I’m unsure. The spoon is the only thing in focus.

:08 – Still a woman, feeding a baby peas.

:09 – Now we’re in a car. There is a person in the passenger’s seat looking into the back seat. I can’t tell if it’s a man or a woman. They’re driving at night time. I can’t see the driver, maybe it’s a ghost driver. The face of the passenger looks very concerned, very confused.

:10 – The passenger is saying something. They’re still looking in the back seat. Maybe they’re yelling at they’re fighting children. Or maybe they have a pet in the back seat. His/her face still looks very concerned. It’s still night time.

:11 – I think the passenger is a woman, judging by her cheek bones. She seems to have a concerned smile on her face, but a smile nonetheless. They’re still in the car, they must be coming home from somewhere since it’s night time. She seems very invested as to whatever is in the back seat.

:12 – Definitely a woman. She’s shopping somewhere, I’m going to guess a grocery store considering she has a shopping cart. She’s for sure engaged, and by the size of her ring her fiancé makes good money. Her nails are done, so she must make good money as well. We can’t se her eyes. Her hands are the only thing in focus, everything else is blurry.

:13 – She’s showing off her ring. She has a smile on her face, so she must be happy. The shopping cart is the only thing in focus.

:14 – It’s a woman. She’s talking. Maybe she’s talking to herself. She’s wearing a sweatshirt, so maybe she’s cold. The camera is at a weird angle, so you can’t really see anything.

:15 – The child is in focus. I think the people in the back are the child’s parents. The word “maybe” is on the screen. I have no idea what it could possibly mean. “maybe” they’re not the child’s parents. “Maybe” the child isn’t a child, but it really an alien.

:16 – “Maybe is all you need” appears on the screen with a white back drop.

:17 – “Maybe is all you need to find out more about autism” appears on the screen with a white back drop. So now I’m assuming this whole commercial has to do with autism awareness. This stays on the screen for the next ten seconds.

:27 – So the commercial is about autism awareness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gZi9Ylb_M0

0:00

The video opens with a closeup of two photographs. One is of a smiling young boy dressed in nice clothes, appearing to be a professionally done picture that parents often have taken of their children. The other picture has a glare on it and is more difficult to make out, but it looks to be of a young boy in another professionally done portrait, possibly a school or sports picture. It is not certain, but perhaps the two pictures are of the same young man.

0:03

The camera pans slowly to the left, revealing two additional photographs. One is of a couple on their wedding day, a black and white shot of a bride and groom dressed in their wedding attire, hands interlocked. They are mid dance. Below them is a picture of a young boy, assumingly the boy who is in the other pictures. So far, we have been shown pictures of what seems to be a family of three: a wife, husband, and their young child.

0:05

The camera, once again, pans slowly to the left. A dark silhouette of a person appears on a black and white staircase. The person’s gender and appearance is unclear.

0:06

The shadow is moving. Something is visible at the top of the staircase, blocked by the railings. Its colors are white, blue, and yellow.

0:10

As the camera moves up and over the railing, a little boy is revealed to be the thing that was blocked in the last frame. He is sitting on the landing of the stairs, holding a yellow toy truck. He wears pajamas. He is peering between the railings, down at something. This looks to be the boy who was in the photographs from the beginning of the video. He may be looking down at the person whose shadow was cast on the wall at 0:05.

0:12

The angle of the camera has switched to behind the boy now. We see him peering down at something, and we see the shadowy outline of a person’s head between the shadows of the railings on the wall to the right of the boy. Could this be one of his parents? We are now in a similar viewing position as the boy: we are voyeurs at the top of the steps, looking down. While he sees the actual person through the railings, we are only shown the shadows of what he sees.

0:13

The angle switches once again. Now, we are below the boy, looking up into his face. Half of his face is cast in a shadow. The boy seems to be hiding in the shadows, stealthily viewing from above what is going on down below. The boy does not look particularly happy. He looks to be in discomfort. His eyes look glazed, and his mouth is in a frown. From this close and personal vantage point, we can make out what is on the boy’s white pajamas: hockey players in different positions, making a pattern. His innocently youthful, light colored pajamas contrast starkly with his dark, shadowy, and seemingly uncomfortable position.

0:16

He fidgets and moves his gaze from what he was originally looking at to his lap now, presumably at the toy truck he is holding. Evidently, he did not like the actions of the person he was watching.

0:19

The boy convulses in fright as a look of shock appears on his face. He quickly moves his eyes from down at his lap to the source of the action, which is back to between the railings. A loud noise is likely the culprit of the surprise the boy exhibits, since one tends to jump and look shocked when a startling sound is heard.

0:21

The boy looks back and forth below him, his eyes shifting from left to right. He scrunches up his face for a brief instant in obvious disapproval of whatever it is he is seeing.

0:24

The screen fades to black, and white words appear against the black background: “Children have to sit by and watch. What’s your excuse?”

0:28

Different words materialize: “There’s no excuse for domestic violence.” A phone number, 1-800-END ABUSE, is placed below.

The video’s message is that children suffer as they sit by and watch their parents argue, or as one parent afflicts abuse on the other. It is trying to encourage the end of spousal abuse by showing it through the sympathetic eyes of a child who must witness it.
Through the visuals alone, I did not find this ad to be too clear with its intent. I gathered that the boy was the same person as the child in the photographs, and that the married couple were probably his parents. Throughout the video, one shadow only can be seen. I inferred that this was of one of his parents. As he looked down from the stairs, I was confused as to what he was seeing. I knew he was looking at a person, but I didn’t realize two people were down there. The ad could have visually displayed the abuse through silhouettes. The husband’s shadow could have been shown raising his hand to strike his wife. This would have made a striking visual, and the purpose of the ad could be realized through sight alone, rather than solely through the sounds of the pleading woman.

The following is a visual review of a one-minute long anti-texting-and-driving PSA by the Ad Council, titled “Put it Down.”  The video in question can be found here.

At the very beginning of the video, at 0:01, we see the scene of a young boy, perhaps six years old, in what appears to be a park, judging by the shovel, monkey bars, merry-go-round, and slide that are shown in the background.  The entire scene is drawn in the style of an amateur artist, with each black line segment on the white background being rather crude, but clear enough to make an obvious picture.  The boy is playing with a toy car.  Given the context of the PSA, this is an obvious case of foreshadowing.  The audience must immediately question if the young boy will be killed in a texting-while-driving-related accident, or if another character to whom we have not yet been introduced will meet an untimely demise.

Three seconds later, at 0:04, another boy of the same approximate age has joined the original, and is now seated to the right of the first boy.  He has a toy car of his own.  Both boys are smiling, and clearly enjoying themselves and the company of one another.  Again, the context of the PSA must be taken into consideration: which boy will die in an accident?  Or, to be particularly morbid, will both boys be killed?  For that matter, can anyone be certain that either boy will lose his life—what if more characters are brought into the story?

Only a second later, at 0:05, a disembodied arm appears from the left side of the screen, and motions for the first boy to come.  One assumes that it is the hand of a parent, perhaps a mother—the hand looks slightly feminine.  Each boy wears a sad expression upon his face.  At 0:06, the first boy is being dragged away as the boys happily wave goodbye, smiling to one another.  The audience may assume that the boys have formed a friendship, although there is nothing to suggest that they could not have been friends already.

By 0:12, the boys have each moved to separate sides of the screen.  The entire background is white, with a black vertical line splitting the center of the screen.  This serves to show that the boys are in separate locations, although they are in reality only a few pixels apart. They both appear to be slightly older than in the beginning of the video, perhaps around the age of twelve.  Each boy is smiling, looking slightly downwards, and each holds a phone in his hand.  Above the first boy, there is a speech bubble coming from the phone in his hand.  Inside the bubble, one sees the words “NEW TEXT MESSAGE” centered at the top.  Beneath this phrase, it says, “Hey, wanna come over and play some video games?”  It is unclear if the boy is sending or receiving the message, but the fact that each boy holds a phone is clear evidence that the two friends are having a conversation via text message.

Two seconds later, at 0:14, a similar speech bubble appears above the second boy, containing the words, “Sure, be over in a bit :)”.  Because of this, the audience can now determine that the first boy was in fact sending his text message, as it would not make contextual sense for the boy on the right to send a question and then the answer to his own question.  For three seconds, the divisive line disappears, and the boys are shown to be in the same location.  They sit on an unremarkable couch, facing the camera, presumably with a screen of some sort in front of them, although this cannot be seen by the audience.  Each boy holds a gaming controller of sorts.  After a brief sequence of the boys demonstrating some very animated facial expressions (excited ones from the left boy, and desperate ones from the right), both boys drop their controllers at 0:18 as the boy on the left throws his hands above his head with a joyous grin—a clear gesture of victory.  Conversely, the right boy is frowns and holds his right arm over his eyes, in an ashamed display of defeat.  After this, at 0:19, the boys stand, and the line appears.  Once again, the two boys appear to have aged, each looking to be around the age of 15 or 16.  It is evident that the friendship developed in the beginning of the story has lasted over the years.

At 0:22, the speech bubbles have returned, and the boys are once again separated on blank backgrounds.  The boys smile at their phones, as the left boy sends a text that asks, “Hey man, what time is practice today??”  The boy on the right responds at 0:24 with, “6:00.  See you then.”  While the text message seems brief and impersonal, the audience can assume that the boy is not angry with his friend, as both are smiling.  Rather, it can be assumed that the second boy is simply choosing to answer his friend’s question briefly.  At 0:25, the boys are shown to be in the same area once again—it appears to be a grassy field, which makes sense when considering the first boy’s earlier question.  From 0:25 to 0:28, both characters are wearing football uniforms and helmets, as the right boy throws a football to the left boy, who catches it.  Interestingly, the separating line in the middle is still present here, suggesting a more permanent divide between the boys.  Why is this?  What is to become of the two characters?

At 0:30, the boys have returned to their white backgrounds, and again seem to be older than in the previous sequence.  They each appear to be approximately 18 years of age.  The boys are both smiling at their phones, while the boy on the right asks via text message, “Wanna catch a movie with me and the guys tonight?”  At 0:32, the left boy replies with, “For sure, be there soon!”  Two seconds later, at 0:34, the boys have moved again.  The boy on the left is shown behind the wheel of a car, evidently on his way to his friend’s location.  The second boy leans against a wall, with his arms folded comfortably, awaiting the arrival of his lifelong friend.  While both are originally smiling, the boy on the right begins to frown at 0:35, slouches lower at 0:36 and by 0:38 has reached into his pocket and texted his friend, asking, “Are you coming??”  Meanwhile, the boy on the left is still in his car.

At 0:39, the driving boy looks down with a mildly interested facial expression, apparently having received his friend’s text message.  He reaches into his pocket, but then looks up in horror, as if seeing something that is not shown to the audience.  What is the matter?  Why is the boy frightened?  This question is soon answered at 0:40, as the boy’s side of the screen is suddenly filled with thick, dark, scribbly lines, and then becomes entirely black.  This is clear evidence of a car accident.  Recalling the original question at the beginning of the video, it now becomes clear that the toy car was foreshadowing the first boy’s own death due to texting while driving.

By 0:43, the remaining boy looks quite concerned, and he has taken his phone out of his pocket.  “Where are you?” asks the speech bubble above him.  At 0:45, he is standing up straight, no longer slouched against the wall.  He looks distraught, and a new speech bubble is coming from his phone.  “Are you okay?” it says.  He continues to stand, looking quite concerned.  By 0:47, the second boy’s side of the screen is also black.  This is clearly the most effective part of the video, as it shows a lifetime of friendship being destroyed in literally one second of real time, due to the careless acting of texting while driving.

The screen remains black for one second, and at 0:48, a simulated sequence is shown.  It depicts the yellow dotted lines of a road, moving towards the camera.  It is partially lit, as if by headlights.  This is a clear depiction of a first-person view from a car windshield.  In the center of the screen, the words “PUT IT DOWN.” can be seen in white letters.  At 0:51, the words are replaced by “SAVE YOUR LIFE.”  The road sequence continues for the rest of the video, as the url for stoptextsstopwrecks.org replaces the command at 0:54, as well as the logos for the Ad Council, Project Yellow Light, N.O.Y.S.  The video ends at 0:59.

Link to Texting and Driving Video

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0:02

A not too old, black car drives down what it looks to be a quiet and well off neighborhood. The driver is not shown in the shot as the car drives.

0:03

A young blonde girl, maybe a junior or senior in high school is driving the car. She seems happy and is paying attention to the road ahead of her.She has both hands on the wheel. It can be assumed that she knows how to drive well.

0:05

In the next second after the girl is shown, there is a screen that is showing a new text message. The shot is specifically focused on the fact that the girl got a text message. The screen is extremely zoomed in.

0:06

The blonde girl driving is now looking down, her eyes not on the road. She is most likely looking at the phone somewhere nearby in the car. She looks as if she is contemplating on whether to look at the phone or not.

0:07

The girl then looks back up to the road as she continues to drive forward for a few seconds, ignoring the fact that she has a message on her cell phone.

0:10

The young girl is now reaching for the phone, it appears to be in a cup holder. The focus of the shot is on the cell phone and not the girl. It seems as if the cell phone is empowering everything that is happening.

0:13

The girl is now smiling and looking down. Her eyes are not on the road anymore. Her mind seems to be captured by the looking and replying of the text message shown at the beginning.

0:16

The screen not focused, it seems blurry. The girl has the cell phone in her hand, it is on and there is a keyboard showing. It seems as if the picture is in motion.

0:19

The focus of the shot is on an intersection, it seems as if the viewers are seeing the intersection from the inside of the car. This intersection during this moment does not have any cars. There is a stop sign.

0:20

The view is now from an outsider’s perspective. Now at the intersection has the girls car and another new car. The cars are not too far apart from one another. Within another second the cars look like they can easily crash into each other.

0:22 The screen reads in “Stop the texts Stop the Wrecks” in all caps. The girl in the video must have crashed into the car in the intersection because she was distracted by a text message.

All Students please read before posting your own draft.

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Thank you again for being the first to post, haveanelephantasticday! I won’t ask you to always be first because to do so would place an unfair burden on you, but I’m happy that you’ve elected to be first again; you do good work and set the bar high for those who follow you. That said, I will of course have plenty of suggestions for improvement/revision/enlargement that I hope will be helpful to you and to others.

• 0:01 There are two hands, each are holding very full glasses of wine.
  Imagine please that you are the reader, not the writer, of this line. What would you understand, and what would you not understand? Describe the image well enough so the reader can visualize it accurately. Are they hands of the same person? Hands of two people? Male hands or female? Holding glasses before their bodies? The glasses: are they wine glasses? (Sounds silly, I know, but just because they contain wine, they don’t have to be wine glasses. And just because they’re wine glasses, they don’t have to contain wine.) The arms: do they indicate that the hands hold wine above their owners’ heads? In front of them? If there are two people, one hand each, are the people facing one another? How much of them do we see?
  GRAMMAR: Each is singular; both is plural. Each IS holding a glass. Both ARE holding glasses.
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• 0:03 The hands are coming together in slow motion, possibly for a “cheers”. Presumably a momentous occasion that inspired a celebration?
  You write well, haveanelephantasticday. I love your “presumably a momentous occasion that inspired a celebration.” If you could tell us, either at 0:01, or here, that the hands (and glasses) are approaching the middle of the screen from opposite sides, one left, one right, we’ll have a better chance of seeing the scene correctly. You are entirely correct to say that the glasses approach in slow motion, but for what purpose, do you suppose? Why does the director make this choice? Is it to insure that we will not miss the collision? Is it to give us time to anticipate the collision? Is it to trick us into thinking that the meeting will be a slow and soft one? You may not even have these questions in mind when looking at the first three seconds, but at some point in the viewing, you’ll start to subconsciously react to the repeated slow collisions. Is it possible (this is REALLY thinking ahead) that the director wants to emphasize how our perceptions are altered by wine, beer, whiskey? We think we’re driving at a safe speed, but in reality the collisions we cause are MUCH more violent than we would have predicted?
  PUNCTUATION: the period ALWAYS goes inside the quotation marks. ALWAYS. Even when the quotation is a single word. SO: “cheers.” NOT: “cheers”.
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• 0:06 The glasses are clinking for their cheers.
  It’s good to isolate this moment because it is the last moment of the “expected.” The first time we see this video, we believe the action to be a simple clinking of glasses. To this frame, we are comfortable with that interpretation.
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• 0:07 The glasses came together for a cheers but when they touched, they shattered. There are pieces of glass flying all over. Its hard to tell why they crashed because they seemed to be coming at each other slowly.
  Precisely right. Our expectations are shattered. The slowness of the approach fooled us. We are not prepared for the violence of the impact. There is wine everywhere too, don’t forget. The contents of those vehicles are spilled as well. Maybe here is the right place to make observations about the questions I asked back at 0:03.
  PUNCTUATION: Its is a possessive like his and hers; that’s why it doesn’t need an apostrophe. It’s is a contraction for it is. Use it’s, with the apostrophe, wherever you mean it is. SO: It’s hard. NOT: Its hard.
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• 0:15 There are now two glass mugs full of beer that are coming together for “cheers”. These glasses are also coming in at slow motion. Are they being clinked with the same force as the first set of glasses?
  That’s one good question. Another is: are these the same hands? Are the same people drinking both wine and beer? And what about those mugs (not glasses)? You neglect to mention the logos they sport. Is there significance to them? Why repeat the same sequence of images with a second alcoholic beverage? Is any point being made by using two intoxicants in a row? The shattering point has been made. What’s new about the repetition?
  STYLE: Consider streamlining your language by eliminating needless words. There are now two glass mugs full of beer that are coming together for “cheers.” EQUALS: Now two glass mugs full of beer are coming together for “cheers.”
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• 0:16 When these mugs clink, they also shatter everywhere.
  Why? This could be a 15-second spot without the repetitions. What makes it worth 30 seconds?
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• 0:22 There is a third set of glasses, these are full glasses of brandy that are coming in the “cheers again”. Will the people monitor their cheers so that a shattering of glasses may be avoided?
  I like this question very much, haveanelephantasticday. Having seen the collisions twice result in catastrophe, we’re right to wonder if the “hands” have learned anything. Same hands? Are we expecting the same two people to have learned? Or is it possible others can learn from watching the first examples without having to experience crashes themselves? In other words, analyze the visual not just in terms of what it shows; analyze also your (our) reactions to it as we watch. You’ve begun to do just that with your rhetorical question: Will people monitor?
  BARTENDER TIP: Brandy? On ice in a rocks glass? You think so?
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• 0:23 A hand appears and intercepts the collision of the two glasses. On the top of the screen, the words “Drinking and driving can kill a friendship”. The glasses may represent car collisions that may occur if drinking continues.
  I love the brevity and clarity of “intercepts the collision.” How do your readers visualize this? Do they get a clear picture? Explain briefly your logic following from “drinking and driving can kill” to “the glasses represent car collisions.” I know it seems obvious, but the claim is big and important. Can you reconstruct the steps your mind took on first viewing?
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• 0:28 The glasses do not collide and there is no shattered glass.
  Offer a final thought on the effectiveness of the spot. Did the visual sufficiently deliver its intended message(s)? Did it make avoidable mistakes? Could it have been done better? Was it as satisfying/dissatisfying/effective/ineffective on successive viewings?
  

A fine first draft of a first draft, haveanelephantasticday! Thank you again for posting early and giving me a chance to respond long before the deadline. I hope you find these notes helpful.

—David Hodges