00:01
There is a guy that is sitting in a room with glass windows with the sun peaking through. He seems to be looking out the window.
00:03
The guy is still sitting in the room but there is a narrator and he says “I wonder if know that I want the best for you”.
00:05
There seems to be a boys soccer team sitting on the ground looking up what seems to be their coach. The camera is focused on one boy sitting on the ground. There is soccer equipment surrounding the boys.
00:07
The camera focusses more on the soccer boy in the middle and he seems to have a confused face.
00:09
There is a man and kid. They have bandages on their hands seeming to be boxing. The narrator says “But how long will you fight solo?”
00:10
The man is in the background and the kid in the foreground are facing the camera sweating throwing a punch in the air with the sun shining on them.
00:12
The camera cuts to a young man and a middle-aged man in what seems to be a warehouse lifting boxes. The younger man passes the box to the older man. The narrator says “I wonder if you know that you can get help.”
00:14
It cuts to a scene were there is a black male with the back of his head facing the camera explaining something. He is talking to a guy in a chair in a room. The guy sitting down seems to be an psychologist.
00:17
The camera cuts to a man holding a little girl which could be his daughter with a blue sky in the background looking to the right. The narrator says “Not wondering anymore.”
00:20
There are words on the screen that says “Love, your mind” while the narrator reads it. Then a website says LoveYourMind.org
00:24
The website is still presented on the screen with a sentence above it that says “Find Mental Health Resources”
The remaining of the video displays the website and sentence with soft music in the background
Original Video:
Counterintuitive Fall 2024 
JReggie, I watched the first couple seconds of the video, and these are my observations:
0:00-0:02
A middle-aged African American man sits alone in a house in the opening scene. We guess it’s a house from the way the windows are arranged. He looks out the lower pane of one window, which is one of a pair. A third window is mounted at a right angle to the pair, making a “glass corner” of the room he’s in. Such windows are features of more expensive homes. The man’s hair is close-cropped, and his beard is well trimmed. He looks groomed. We see him from the waist up only, but his position in the window, and the fact that he’s looking out the bottom pane, tells us he’s sitting, perhaps on the edge of a bed. No chair is visible. Outside the windows we can’t see very far. Trees all around the property deeply shade the yard, although we can see bright blue sky through the treetops. It is daytime, but the man’s room is very dark, so dark we can barely see what he’s wearing, except that his shirt is a solid dark color and appears to be buttoned to his neck. It gives him a neat look. He could be dressed for work or leisure but not sport.
He’s mostly motionless for the first two seconds, but his head moves enough so we know it’s video, not a still photo. And he moves his folded hands a bit, which we can see he holds before him. We get a slight indication that he might be praying. But his eyes are open and he does appear to be looking out the window, at what we have no idea. The mood is somber. He’s alone in a dark room contemplating a dark yard on a bright day. We sense isolation and perhaps aloneness. The creators want to establish that he has something on his mind. If they wanted to make him active, or engaged, they would have given him something to do or shown us what he’s looking at, if anything. Maybe he’s just looking inward.
By the end of just 2 seconds, we’re pretty certain this is not a car commercial. It could be the opening scene of a drama. If it does promote a product, the most likely candidate would be a medication. Perhaps counseling.
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I hope that will give you an indication how much information we’re given (and how many judgments we make) during every second of a video designed to persuade us of something. Please watch these videos as if they’re trying to sell you something. Be aware of all the messages you receive, how you respond to them, and whether they convince you of anything.
Provisionally graded. Revisions are strenuously encouraged (Required, in fact, for short arguments in your Portfolio), and Regrades are always available following substantial improvements.
One more thing.
I think I was really clear about this.
NO SOUND.
Watch the video muted. DO NOT REPORT on the soundtrack, the voiceover, the background noises, off-screen voices, NOTHING but what you can SEE on the screen.
OPTIONAL, FOLLOWING THE PRIMARY ASSIGNMENT:
When you finish describing the Visuals and you analyze the Rhetorical value of all that you have seen, you can play the video again with the sound ON and report whether the sound enhanced, improved, contradicted, supported, added nuance to the visuals. And, of course, WHY it did any or all of those things.