Commercial Visual Review

Personally, I think that the commercial, The Force: Volkswagen is really cool and funny.

It starts from the black floor and then the camera zooms out with a dolly out and a tilt up shot, which soon we can see the main character the Darth Vader’s walking twoard us. When we can see the Dark Vader in the whole picture, the Dark Vader turns out to be a child instead of an adult which is hilarious. It is also interesting that the color of the floor matches the clothes of Darth Vader and the color of the wall contrasts the floor and the Dark Vader. Then the camera changes the shooting to the backside of the Dark Vader. In this scene, the whole hallway is highly contrasted with the next door, which seems to have more light. It looks like the Dark Vader is on walking out of the back stage to the front stage to perform. But this Dark Vader turns out to have no magic powers like the real one.

He tries to make a treadmill to run, a dog to move, washing machines to start, a doll to be alive, and a plate to move. But it all failed. By shooting the treadmill scene, the camera first uses two shoots to show the kid and the treadmill. Then it turns to be a high angle two shots that we can see the treadmill screen is not working while still seeing the child. High angle can also emphasis how small the children is, which makes the scene awkward and funny. In the dog scene, it continues to use two shots, but adds a individual shot for the dog that gives a confusing looking to the Dark Vader that present the awkwardness to us. For the washing machine shot, it is very short because it wants to connect with the doll shot that the hand motion of the two shots matches the rhythm of the music. In addition, in the doll shot, the camera gives us a symmetric shot while zooming in the camera. I think the director wants to show that the doll is not moving while the kid is performing his magic, but zooming in to the doll also gives me a creepy feeling. After this the camera moved to a scene that the kid is sitting in the dinning table he is performing magic to drag something. Then the camera switches to him and his mom that gave him a weird look and slides the dish to him.

After failures and failures, we finally see the product of this commercial, the Passat car, came into scene. After being noticed that the kid’s dad is back home from the dog bark, the little Dark Vader jumps out of the chair and runs out to the car, instead of his father. The Dark Vader still does not give up his hope of magic powers. But this time when he performs his magic, the car actually started that shocked the Dark Vader. It turns out to be his father pressing the engine start button. It shows the love of the father that makes his boy dream to come true, and how awesome the remote control is for the new Passat. The camera move for these series of scenes is outstanding. When the new Passat comes into scene, the picture has several curves, and the car drives in curves too, which makes the scene harmonious. Following the scene that the dad goes out of the car, the camera is panning to the left. This move is more like exhibiting the whole car because the panning center is on the car, which makes sure that the audience catches the whole side view of the new Passat. Then the little kid comes out with a relatively low angle. The purpose of this is to have more emphasis the body language of the kid waving to his dad and eagerly running to the car. I also think it is cool that the camera then has a shot inside the car which reminds me the shot over the shoulder, while this shot also has a purpose of demonstrating the inside design of the car. While the small Dark Vader is performing his magic again, the camera uses two shots again with unequal spacing, following up with a close up shot of the mask and hand of the child. When the car actually responded him, the camera switched to the back of the kid and facing the Passat so we can see the lights are flashing which shocks the Dark Vader. The next scene has an extreme close up of the remote control that we saw there is a button that can start the engine. After that scene, the camera shifts from a middle close up to a wide shot of the Dark Vader confused, looking at the new Passat and home. This camera move makes the audience see the car again and make them remember the car more clearly.

Overall, I think the commercial is smart and cool. It is full with humor that the story plot and the camera angle that the director chooses which makes the audience remember the commercial more clearly. I think the actors and the director did a good job to present the new Passat without just telling the story to us.

Visual Review for a Music Video

I think the music video Transcendence by Lindsey Stirling is really awesome, although the storyline of this music video is a little bit weird. It is about Lindsey wearing a white dress, and a fashion designer changing clothes on his computer and the computer connects to a projector that is on Lindsey. But what makes it weird is that both of them are not in the same place, so they cannot see, touch, feel each other: they are disconnected. What is interesting is that the emotion of the two characters are somehow are connected, but in an opposite way. For instance, at one place when Lindsey is smiling after she noticed that the fashion designer no longer controls her; however, the fashion designer acted to be shocked and scared and went to check the computer immediately. There are also other scenes in the video that the two character’s expression is linked together that makes the whole video interesting.

In the beginning of this music video, the fashion designer is controlling the clothes that Lindsey is wearing. But as Lindsey picked up a violin on the ground, the whole situation changed. The clothes that are displayed on the dress changes when she is playing the violin (instead of when the fashion designer is clicking on different clothes that changes the display of the clothes). After knowing that her clothes will not change anymore, which is when other people’s clothes are flashing and the clothes on herself is not, Lindsey begin to play her violin which make her dominate the selection of clothes that eventually drives the fashion designer crazy. On the other hand, when the fashion designer is crazy pulling out cords of the computer, the video uses low angle to make the fashion designer to look bigger and fierce. At the time when the fashion designer is totally crazy, the camera moves while he is smashing the keyboard, and pulling out the mouse cable, which makes the whole scene wild. The scenes also have some crazy camera switches between what is happening to the designer and the spotlight, which eventually turn out to be a flash, and the whole scene comes back to Lindsey.

To emphasize both character’s expression, the video uses lots of middle close ups to close ups with zoom ins and zoom outs on the character. For Lindsey, it is mostly middle close ups because we want to see how joyful she is when she is playing the violin; but for the fashion designer, it is mostly close ups to express his frustration and craziness. In the video, Lindsey is also interacting with the people and object that are displayed on the background. She gets a beer when somebody is handing her one, copied the clothes that someone else is wearing when she is touching it, and she wonders around the crowd people are passing by her. It is also interesting that in the end, the whole scene changed all into white, except the violin that she has on her hand. I think the director did this purposely because the director wants to emphasize the violin as an important role of her to be free in the music video, which also the violin is the main melody in the whole music.

 

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiyPRqP5glY