Ad Council “Now”
0:01- The scene opens up to a family friendly restaurant. The point of view we get is from behind the counter looking as if we were a waiter. In the front, you can see a white man with two young children one black and one white. In the back, you can see a couple as well having dinner together at the restaurant. The man seems to be the white child’s father and with them is a friend of the child such as a teammate. The footage is grainy and the color is not true as if was a homemade movie with a cheap camera or perhaps shot on a cell phone.
0:02-0:05- The camera zooms on another white kid who was not shown in the first seconds but sitting on the opposite of the man. He has a big smile on his face appears to be laughing while his father ruffles the boy’s hair. This sets the mood to be a happy light-hearted environment. Suddenly the white boy face changes from happy smiling to concerned straight mouth as he glances over his shoulder in the direction of the couple behind him.
0:06-0:07- The camera now shifts focus to the women sitting behind the man the boy’s he is with. She has a look of concern or embarrassment on her face as she glances at the white boy and his father.
0:08-0:09- The camera now comes back to the man at the counter. He looks very uncomfortable as he eats a french fry and eventually turns around to observe the couple behind him.
0:10-0:11- The camera now zooms out and shows the man and the first white boy looking behind them at the couple. The man is using his left hand to grab onto the woman’s right wrist. The couple seems to be having a disagreement that is making the man and the children at the counter very uncomfortable.
0:12-0:16- The camera now zooms back onto the white man in front and now his face seems to look more like a face of anger. He looks left as if he is trying to think of the best thing to do in this situation. After he looks left the screen turns black and asks the question “WHEN DO YOU GET INVOLVED.” This indicates that the scene behind the man is violent and might get out of control. The camera zooms back in on the man at the counter and now he is shifting his eyes from left to right, looking down as if he doesn’t know what to do.
0:17-0:19- The camera shows a close up of an arm of a man and then the man grabbing someone’s hair. The hair is long and blonde like the woman who was in the back with her date. The screen goes black and the word “NOW?” appears. Next, we see the man with his hand on her wrist yanking her arm and making her spin around in a painful manner.
0:20-0:21- The man at the counter appears on screen once again. He is clearly angry by the pursing of his lips and the tautness of his eyes. We see the blonde women and she is upset this time. Her hair is in disarray and she is frowning and looking downward at the floor. The man with her is standing up with his back to us. He raises his right arm above his head and swings in a downward motion. The woman’s head jerks back as if the man’s hand struck her in the face.
0:22-0:30- We now zoom back into the second white boy’s face and he is really upset. He looks as if he is about to cry as if he witnessed the man struck his date. The boy is resting his chin on his fisted hand, he is frowning and his eyebrows are droopy. This sets the mood completely different than the last time we saw the young boy. He was happy hanging out with his dad having a good time. Words appear over the sad boy’s face saying “THE BEST TIME TO GET INVOLVED IS NOW.” As the words appear, the young boy seems to turn his head as if he is looking at his father to do something. Another message flashes across the screen “TEACH BOYS THAT VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IS WRONG.”
0:31-0:37- A black screen comes on and says “Teach Early. Call 800-END-ABUSE”. This shows that the video was an ad for abuse and you can teach boys at an early age that it is not ok to hurt women. There is also the telephone number to call in case any woman are getting abused.
Counterintuitive 
D2F, it’s odd that you chose to analyze the same video we used in class to examine in very close detail the first second of a video. It’s even odder that your analysis of the first second of the video you selected is so much less detailed than the example you were provided.
0:01. The ad starts very abruptly in the middle of a scene. What’s more, in the first second, the camera is zooming quickly back so that we have to adjust immediately to a barrage of information. The suggestion the filmmakers are making is that the footage was captured by an amateur camera operator, either for home video or maybe a low-budget documentary. Either way, we are given the impression that the footage is “real,” not staged by a director with hired actors.
The image quality too is low. It’s color photography, but the color is so washed-out we get the further impression of a low-budget production. It’s almost black-and-white.
We are behind the counter of a diner. We can tell this from the “marble” countertop before us and the ketchup bottles and napkin holders on the shelf below it. Attached to the countertop is a familiar menu-holder empty of menus. Even closer to the camera (which suggests the footage was taken from the kitchen, through the service window) is a red-top bottle of Angustora bitters. Another can be seen on the counter where customers could access it, alongside the ketchup bottle and the sugar server. The only common use for bitters is as a cocktail flavor. The implication is that this is a diner where drinks are served; therefore, we have at least the implication that some diners might be drinking.
Facing us at the counter are two young boys (one black, one white) dressed in similar sport jerseys. They are probably teammates. Next to the white boy is a crew-cut man in his 30s with longish sideburns. If he were heavier, he would resemble Kevin James from “King of Queens.” The implication is that he is a robust, perhaps a bit rough-edged, working-class guy here with his team, perhaps their coach, maybe father to one of the kids. He wears a lanyard around his neck; perhaps a whistle hangs from it, and a warmup jacket: coachwear.
On the counter between him and the white boy is a fielder’s glove. They are a baseball team. The kid is not a catcher.
Behind the three at the counter, a man and a woman occupy opposite sides of a booth. They are engaged in conversation. The man resembles Joe Pesci from “Goodfellas,” advancing the impression that we’re in a working-class diner. The bowling pin behind him, part of the decor of the place, further confirms this. The lone framed artwork decorating the space is a black-and-white photo of an urban street scene. Coffee cups are stacked upside-down in the service area behind the woman, whose hand motion before her face indicates she is the one doing the talking.
They have been served. The man is pointing at something large on the white boy’s plate. In fact, he points at it repeatedly and says something about it to the boy. Most likely he is picking up the tab. Maybe he doesn’t want that big dish wasted.
From a filmmaker’s point of view, the composition of the figures is very important. The characters are arranged in a line. Black boy at counter, Man in Booth facing woman in booth, White Boy at counter, Woman in Booth facing man in booth, Coach gesturing with his hand toward White Boy’s plate. His active hand gesture draws our attention. When he stops moving, the woman starts moving her hand in the very same space, keeping our attention on that spot, but shifting our focus to the conversation she’s having with the Man in the Booth. In one second, we have information about two different conversations. Both are clearly important.
End of the first second.
Did you choose this video deliberately? Or were you unaware that we had used it in class as a sample exercise?
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I chose this one for the fact that we did it in class. Since my old one was taken off the internet I decided to rewrite the one we did in class since this exercise was “Visual Rewrite.”
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Since that’s the case, are you sure that’s all you want to say about the first second or so of video? Also, since the job of the assignment is to analyze the rhetorical value of JUST the VISUALS, it’s odd that you’re reporting what the character is the booth shouts at his date, and that his voice gets louder as the ad progresses.
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