2 Responses to Visual Argument-777sunflower777

1. davidbdale says:

   December 20, 2023 at 8:18 pm

   A fair start, Sunflower, but it violates the primary requirement for the assignment: to analyze exclusively the VISUAL components of the video. It’s a violation to mention ANYTHING from the audio portion: no dialog, no sound effects, no background music, nothing.

   Here are some things I noticed about the first second of the video as a model of what you should be noting:

   0:01

   The camera’s Point of View is from inside a room looking through a doorway at the bottom of a staircase. The wooden handrail and banister gives the impression that we’re inside a home, not an apartment since it has at least two floors, not an office because of the wooden railings, the potted plant at the bottom of the stairs, the baseball glove and ball on a low table. The wood-and-glass interior door is found in older homes, usually occupied by middle or upper-middle class families. The overall impression is of a comfortable, prosperous home.

   A man is already headed up the stairs when the video begins. He’s middle-aged, perhaps Hispanic or Latin, and fit. His head is shaved and his full beard is well shaped. He is groomed. The long sleeves of his close-fitting tee shirt are pulled halfway up his forearms, which gives him a casual, at-home look. He’s climbing the stairs without effort: a man at home, probably the homeowner, headed upstairs.

   We don’t know any of this for certain, but we make these judgements because they seem the most reasonable interpretation of what we’re shown.

   Still within the first second, a young boy, probably a pre-teen, also perhaps Hispanic, wearing dark-rimmed eyeglasses (not cool, just a kid in glasses) enters the frame. He’s in the downstairs hallway of the home and will enter the room we’re in if he keeps walking. The room we’re in is dark. We see the actions in the hallway because the hallway is well-lit.

   There’s no visible source of light, but the light pattern on the wall at the bottom of the stairs is very bright and consistent with what would come through a glass front door offscreen. It is daytime, but the room we’re in either has no windows or is darkly curtained.

   Still within the first second, a shadow even darker than the room we’re in moves into the frame from within the room and begins to obscure what we can see of the doorway. The shadow very quickly coalesces into the outline of a girl, which we judge from her general shape and the length of her hair, all in deep shadow but silhouetted against the bright hallway. The girl, if we’re right about that conjecture, is moving toward the doorway. We see her from behind. Since the boy is headed into the room, he would certainly see her emerging. By the end of the first second, she has moved near the center of the doorway and completely obscures our view of the boy.

   But, still within the first second, the “dad” has turned toward “us,” which is also toward “the girl.” So, within one second, we have what looks like a family unit (but without a mother so far) at home. Both Dad and Brother are focused on the Daughter, who is emerging from a dark downstairs room in their direction.

   There’s nothing particularly foreboding about the scene, but it is a little mysterious. What’s the daughter doing in the room in the dark? How will she react to being “spotted” by her dad and brother?

   I haven’t watched the video, Sunflower, just the first second. I’m starting to make judgments and draw conclusions already. Get the idea?

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2. davidbdale says:

   December 20, 2023 at 8:24 pm

   Also, you made your own job harder by choosing a one-minute ad instead of a 30-second ad, which was another important assignment requirement.

   You can proceed with this one if you like, but a strong feature of the 30-second spots is that they pack SOOOO much content into every frame, by necessity.

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