Child Car Safety

https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=child+car+safety+i+come+corrected&mid=28CB15C0C8FC74CC49C528CB15C0C8FC74CC49C5&FORM=VIRE

0:00 (opening frame): The ad starts in the middle of a scene with a family (father, mother, daughter, and son) standing on the front porch of their home, we gather they’re leaving because they are facing the street and not their front door. The house is of normal size, brick laid on the front side and a single front door, the family seems to be comfortable but not too wealthy. We use the full, green bushes as information that this family lives in a suburban area and the short-sleeved shirts they are all wearing indicate it must be somewhere mildly warm (at least).

The family is all looking towards the left of the video frame, and we can assume that it is their car because their hands are full of packed-up supplies. The film makers wanted us to believe this scene was real, they do not portray the family as acters for a commercial, it just seems like another ordinary day for a real family.

The father is carrying a folded-up stroller along with children’s toys and a bag that we gather is changing supplies because of the diapers spilling out of the side compartment. We can assume this is for the son since the daughter is walking without assistance and the mother is holding her son. The dad is also holding a thermos mug, so we think he is drinking a hot beverage, coffee, so it must be an earlier time in the day.

The mother is holding her son and other items such as her coffee, squeeze yogurt, and a large shoulder bag on one arm and another bag she is grabbing (not fully in the frame) with the same arm that has her son propped up on her hip. The son is dressed nicer than a causal outfit (in jeans and collard T-shirt) and even though the daughter is hidden by the father’s body, we can think that they are taking the kids to school because of the son’s outfit.

0:02: The bag that the mother was holding comes into full view and we can see it is a child’s school bookbag. The daughter also comes into the frame, and we can see two straps wrapped on either side of her shoulders that gives us enough information that she is also carrying a bookbag.

0:03: Quick zoom in on the mother’s face. She does a minimal hair flip that gives off the sense that she is confident in whatever she is doing/ about to do. By the time this clip hits we can tell that the producers/ film makers put these first couple clips into slow motion to make a dramatic effect. This slow motion is added so we, as viewers, can take in all the details in the clips. Without slow motion, we would miss the mother’s confident facial expression. Slow motion also characterizes the parents, specifically in this clip, as blissful. They come off as very put together regardless of having two young children.

0:04-0:07 The video still in slow motion but has changed reasoning for why it is in slow motion. The daughter tugging on one of the teething toys that is dangling from the diaper bag her father is holding, the father is mouthing something to the daughter, we assume something to tell her not to tug on the toy because his hands are so full of items. The slow motion allows us to catch all these details between the father and daughter and we slowly see how the parents are beginning to struggle.

We get another quick zoom of the daughter still tugging, ignoring her fathers’ orders, zooming back out the father begins stumbling with all the items, the stroller pops itself opened, his breakfast to-go remaining in his mouth by his teeth, we get another zoom up on the mother’s face, she looks concerned in this clip because she notices her husband is about to fall over. The film makers added this clip for the father and mother to get a rise of emotions (pathos) from the audience. Struggling to make it out of their house in the morning, some people might feel bad for them, and some members of the audience may relate to this.

0:08-0:12 : The clip zooms back out to the full family, and the father caught his balance but still stumbling down the walkway because his daughter is still tugging on the toy but multi-tasking while the camera zooms in on him trying to finish his breakfast and keep himself together. All of them are trying to readjust the placement of items they’re holding to get a better grip in an attempt to make it to their car. The film maker added this clip to show that the parents were clearly struggling with all of the items, but they persevered to get their children to school on time.

0:13-0:14: Clip starts by showing the full family, but the father is being left behind in the background from being unbalanced. Quick clip switch to being zoomed in on the fathers’ stumbling feet, he is not far from the car at this point because it is in view in the background. His stumbling leads to dropping the children’s toys and by the time he starts to pick them up his family arrives at the car door.; he is blurred into the background. The filmmakers purposely blur the background so they can emphasize the happy expression she has on her face. We gather important information about her expression and conclude that she is excited for the car ride to school.

0:15-0:17 : At the start of this clip, we see the whole family from a lower right angle at their car door that seems to be a minivan (another indication they are not wealthy, just comfortable). The film makers picked a middle-class family who seems to be juggling everything at once with their hands full to reach a large target audience. If the family was getting into a brand-new Cadillac Escalade empty handed because their butler was carrying their baggage, less viewers would feel connected to the family because it is not an average life experience.

The mother and father still have no available hands to open the car door. The mother places her coffee and the squeezy yogurt pouch on the hood of the car to make one of her hands available while still holding her son in the other and the clip changes to the father who laid the bags and stroller on the pavement to assist his daughter with getting in the car.

0:18- 0:22: This clip starts back at the mother who is being recorded from a lower angle to show the car door has been opened and she is about to put her son in the car. Recording another clip through the opposite side car door, the father is on the other side of the car leaning through the door frame to fasten his daughter’s seatbelt around her forward-facing car seat. The video is zoomed in on his hands as he clicks the buckle together. The daughter is happy while eating her cheerios and the father is also happy, we assume his emotions come from the car seat keeping his daughter safe in the car. The film makers added this scene to persuade the audience that the father is a credible parent who cares about his children’s safety.

Words appear on the screen that say, “like making sure your kids are in the right seat for their age and size.” These words strongly persuade us that this is a car seat commercial that focuses on children car safety because the father is more worried about the seat belt/car seat rather than his daughter throwing her cheerios in the air and making a mess in the back seat of the car.

0:23-0:24 The film makers switched perspective back to the mother by using the same frame the did with the father (through the opposing side of the car door the mother was on). The daughter is in the front of the frame, blurred, but we can see she is safely buckled into her car seat. The back of the frame shows the mother buckling the seatbelt around her son’s rear-facing car seat, a car seat that is built specifically for infants to keep them safe while traveling. This car seat we notice is different than his sisters; we can conclude that she outgrew the car seat that her brother uses but is still not big enough to travel without extra safety precautions. The filmmakers purposely used two children of different sizes in the ad to echo their goal for people to use the correct car seat for different sized children.

They zoom in on the mother’s hands when she is fastening the buckle of the car seat to reassure us that she buckled her son in properly.

0:25: A quick clip switch from the mother’s hands to a blue screen that says, “get it right at NHTSA.gov/TheRightSeat.” In the background of this text there is a variety of four different car seats that change from left to right. When they put the car seats in the frame, they emphasize each individual one from right to left, implying that the left is what you use for a newborn then progressing to the right is just a seat belt alone, which an adult would use. This blue screen with the different car seats and the website stays on the screen

Afterthoughts:

The outstanding argument that the filmmakers provide throughout the ad is that the little things are still important even in the midst of chaos. The parents having their hands full in every second of the ad, besides the part where they are buckling the seatbelts that keep their children safe, speaks volumes about paying attention to what really matters. In the moment of the absolute mess the little girl made with her breakfast, the father prioritizes her safety over cleanliness by buckling her in the car seat before acknowledging anything else. The visuals that the filmmakers chose and executed, I believe, were spot on. They made certain that the audience could relate to the family whether it was the way they were juggling everything at once or showing they just live an average lifestyle with two children in the suburbs.

When I took on this assignment, I left the volume on mute to ensure I would provide enough detail about the ad without any influence from the volume. The beginning music sounding like something you would hear at a football game makes me believe they used it to “hype up the parents” to work through the chaos. I do think the ad could go without the music or just add something softer in the background, so people are focused on what awareness the ad is bringing without distractions.

 A man speaks in the background around 0:15 and says, “You’re not gonna get it all right, just make sure you nail the big stuff — Like making sure your kids are in the right seat for their age and size.” I think that the volume obviously adds to the overall argument but reading into the visuals without it was just as effective for me, the sound just confirmed what I had already learned.

The sound of clicking seatbelts when the camera is zoomed up on each of the parents’ hands buckling the seatbelts adds to the emphasis of “paying attention to the big stuff.” The man in the background continues to say, “get it right at NHTSA,gov/TheRightSeat,” which is helpful because the audience is told where to look for help.

Overall, great execution was done by the producers and filmmakers making an overall lasting effectiveness. I think anyone who views this will understand that it is important to be knowledgeable about children’s car safety and will look more into it.