00:00 – 00:01: The opening shot is a woman sitting in her kitchen at a table. The kitchen seems to be small but is clean and tidy. Through the kitchen window to the left of the woman, you see a fire escape latter. It is assumed that based on the title of the video that this apartment is in New York City. The apartment is not on the first floor since we can see the roofs of other building through the window. The bright light from outside signals that it is sometime during the day. The woman seems engrossed in her laptop and has a cup of possibly coffee next to her. She has makeup, jewelry, and clothes on, this indicates she is ready for her day. The angle quickly changes to a bust shot. We can now see the woman up close. To the right of her, a NYC notification graphic appears.
00:01- 00:02: The graphic is still to the right of the woman. Under the NYC notification are different language options. A mouse icon on the screen chooses the English language setting. I think that the commercial includes this visual to show that these notifications can be translated to multiple different languages. The shot quickly changes to show the woman walking down a hallway. It looks as though she is leaving her apartment or has already left because she has a purse on her left shoulder. It appears that she hears or feels a notification on her phone. She reaches down for her phone that was previously out of frame.
00:02-00:03: The video now features a close up of the womans face. We can see the phone is in front of her face but are not able to see the whole phone. A Notify NYC graphic appears on the screen to the right of the woman. A weather warning icon appears in red flashing lights. The notification says “SERVERE WEATHER: Potential heavy rain impacting NYC.
00:03-00:05: The same shot is on the screen, but we can see that the woman is reading the notification that she got on her phone. We are assuming that the notification we are seeing is what the woman is see on her own phone. I think the director chose this angle because he wanted us to see the emotions that the woman was feeling as she read the notification.
00:05-00:07: The woman is seen grabbing an umbrella from an unseen closet. The red umbrella is put into her tote bag. The visual does a spilt screen between the woman putting the umbrella in her bag and a man lying down in bed. The weather notification is still on the screen but is now in the middle of the two people. The man is seen rolling over to pick up his phone, while the woman is reaching for the door of her apartment. The notification starts to fade away and the woman’s half of the screen is ushered out of view to the left. We now only see the man in bed holding his phone.
00:07-00:08: A ring clock symbol appears next to man on the right side of him. The camera moves slightly to the right, giving us more visual to his room. We can see that his nightstand, where his phone previously was, has a glass of water and outlet upon it. The camera starts to move in on the man’s face and he is seen looking at the clock alarm going off on his phone. A look of shock comes across his face. I think the author chose this up-close shot again to show the man’s emotions, like he did with the woman. The man rolls over quickly to get out of bed.
00:08-00:09: The frame moves downward towards the end of the man’s bed. We can see the man’s feet rushing towards the bench at the foot of his bed. The camera stops and focuses on his green backpack. Next to his backpack is papers and folders. It can be assumed that this man was working on something last night, possibly be the reason he is shocked at what time he wakes up. The man is seen quickly putting the papers and folders into his backpack.
00:09-00:10: The man is seen rushing down his front steps. It looks as though he lives in a townhouse or apartment building. A screen with the woman walking down a sidewalk transitions in towards the right.
00:10-00:11: The woman is seen rounding a corner outside. In the next clip, we see walking past a white wall. We see her profile as she walks.
00:11-00:13: The camera angle widens, and we see more of the white wall. On the white wall is a graphic. The graphic says, “EMERGENCY ALERTS”, “LOCAL MASS TRANSIT DISRUPTIONS”, “POLICE ADVISORIES”, and “WEATHER NOTIFICATIONS”. All the points have a check mark box next to them. As the scene continues, the emergency alerts, local mass transit disruptions and weather notification boxes get checked. It can be assumed that this is why the woman got the weather notification from Notify NYC earlier in the video.
00:13-00:14: The shot is angled so that we see her walking forward from behind her. She has headphones and is calmy walking to her destination. The director has the woman walking towards a subway station to reiterate the fact that she is in the big city of NYC.
00:14-00:15: In the same shot, a big exclamation mark appears to the left of a woman. The notification displays a bus transportation symbol along with the words, “MASS TRANSIT DISRUPTION R train service is delayed in both directions. It is clever that the director has the woman receive this news right before she was about to board the subway. It shows that with these notifications, you can be prepared within the city.
00:15-00:16: The camera swings around to the front of the woman so that we can see her face. The woman brings the phone up towards her face, so that she can read the message. It is implied that she read the message as she looks longingly at the subway entrance she had been walking towards.
00:16-00:18: The womans frame leaves our screen towards the left. We now see the man running down a subway entrances stairway. We can only see his back, but it is inferred that he is in a rush because of his running speed. His speed and backpack might mean that the man is late to school. Since he does not have Notify NYC, he is not aware of the subway delays. He is led to believe that the train station is working fine.
00:19-00:20: The womans frame comes back to the screen. The woman is seated at a table with a pen and paper. It is inferred that she is a student at college and is currently sitting in a classroom. To support this theory, we see a woman and man in the background who appear to be students as well. Also, on the wall is a big whiteboard. This scene shows that because of the notification, the woman was able to change her commute and able to make it to class on time. We assume she made it to class on time because of her calm temper compared the other main character.
00:20-00:21: We see the man running into a room. He has a sense of worry on his face.
00:21-00:22: We see the woman sitting at the desk/table again. The man rushes into the scene and sits next to the woman. Considering how many people were all reading sitting down in the room and writing, it can be assumed that the man was late for class. The woman looks up at the man and smiles. It is possible that the two are friends as well as classmates.
00:22-00:24: We now have a closer look at the man and woman sitting next to each other at the table. We can see that the man’s skin is wet. The man could be wet because of the lack of knowledge about the weather forecast. He could also be wet from the sweat of running to get to class. The woman sees this and leans over to show the man her phone. The man is looking at what the woman is showing him on her phone.
00:24-00:26: We now see a close up of the wet man. We can see that he is looking down at his phone even though his phone is not fully in frame. A Notify NYC graphic appears to the right of the man. The graphic shows possible notifications that can be switched on or off. When the certain category is switch on, Notify NYC will alert the notification on the person’s phone. Possible notifications that one could get are Emergency Alerts (Required), Emergency Parking Suspension, Ferry Disruptions, Local Mass Transit Disruptions, Major Traffic Disruptions, Police advisories, Basement Alerts, Planned Event, Public Health, Regional Mass Transit Disruptions, Significant Events, School Notifications, and Weather Notifications. We can see that the man switches on the Emergency Alerts (Required) and Local Mass Transit Disruptions notifications within Notify NYC.
00:26-00:30: A red and white graphic appears on the screen. In big red letters, Notify NYC is written. Under that in smaller black letters it reads, sign up for free at NYC.gov/Notify or call 311. The screen indicates that the app, Notify NYC, is available for download through the apple store and google play.
Counterintuitive Fall 2024 
I would like feedback on how I can improve my descriptions.
First of all, the draft is quite good, Indigo. But there are some things to improve if you’re up for it.
You haven’t told us in most cases WHY choices were made. Is there a reason the general deportment of the two characters is so different? The disarray in which the man leaves his bed has to be very different from how the woman most likely left hers. These are not complicated arguments the creators are making, but it’s your job to point them out to your readers. You say the filmmakers chose closeups to reveal the characters’ emotions, but you don’t tell us what emotions are revealed. Does the split-screen suggest that the two actions shown are happening simultaneously? so that while she’s headed out the door fully prepared he’s being alarmingly wakened too late to make it to class on time? Etc.
One odd observation I’d like to share from the first second. Maybe you have an explanation. When we first see the woman at her laptop, she “settles down” into her chair. If she were seen in the act of rising from the table, that would mean something. So, what does the opposite mean?
Is that helpful?
Provisionally graded. You know the drill from here.
If you want to hit this out of the park, the “extra credit” opportunity is to add a section at the end with AFTER WATCHING THE VIDEO WITH SOUND section. In it, you can describe whether the soundtrack, sound effects, voiceovers, whatever, added to the rhetorical persuasiveness of the video, or supplemented it, or contradicted it, and how, and why. Does the complete video with sound thoroughly deliver its message? Did the “video only” screening manage most of that messaging without sound?
Random question: I know the ANGEL is just a typo, but where did you learn the terminology “bust shot”?
I took a photography course in high school. A lot of the camera shots were simple ones I had learned in that class.
00:21-00:22: We see the woman sitting at the desk/table again. The man rushes into the scene and sits next to the woman. Considering how many people were all reading sitting down in the room and writing, it can be assumed that the man was late for class. The woman looks up at the man and smiles. It is possible that the two are friends as well as classmates.
Does she tap her pen on the table once or twice? In that split second, do we learn anything?
Also, the two students at the table behind the woman are facing each other, not both looking at an instructor. Does that indicate partner activity? Did she need a partner to get started on an assignment?
See? . . . it’s fun, right?