Tv Adverts
Introduction: In this task i will be talking about the purpose of TV adverts and explore the strategies and structures they use.
Narrative:
A narrative is a name for the story itself. The structure of the narrative is a reference to the ways the story is told. There are lots of different ways of telling stories and therefore lots of different narrative structures.
Linear or sequential narrative structures - are the most simple to understand. We are presented with a version of the events as they happened with the beginning, middle and the end in the 'correct' order. Soap operas give us an endless linear narrative.
Example:
The advert starts with a boy/man buying a car and pressing the start button which is coincidentally pressed at the start of the advert. He takes a journey through a tunnel where you see shots of TV being passed very fast. He goes through his life's journey of graduating to looking for a job then into a interview. Shots the car are shown with himself and his friends and a very nice shot is shown where it shows the man driving in the rain with his car. This could mean that the car is there for him even on rainy days. Sceneces flash through him and a girl who he fall in loe with and then later moves in with. They get married and their are shots of the car shown. They sit in the car together while the man is in his suit and the woman is in a bride's dress which could suggest that they are sitting in the car on their wedding day. More scenes are shot with them fixing the house they moved into, plus having the usual argument every couple gets into. The argument is shot in the car. Another shot in the car shows the woman pregnant and tehn her being helped by her partner in what looks like a hospital. A little clip of the offer the company is trying to promote is shown and then the advert finsiing with the man and the woman looking at eachother and then behind them to a baby. The shot after captures another car which is bigger then his last one but it is by the same company.
In my opinion the way the director has done this is great because it motivates people who have a similar lifestyle. The narrative is a story that has a beginning, middle and end which could be a progression of a lifestyle or a story and this is a great structure to use because you can add so much into something thats only a minute long.
Non linear or non-sequential narrative structures - therefore refer to productions where the story is presented in any other fashion. They may occur when we see the same events from a number of points of view, or where the ending is shown and the film maker decides to tell us the story of how we got to that destination.
Flashbacks - are a form of non sequential narrative that involve details of the past being revealed before us on the screen.
Example:
The first shot of the advert is an establishing bird's eye view shot of a town. A pan shot is then taken of a messy kitchen, then video cassettes and then a still of a dead fly. A zoomed shot is then shown of a someone putting on some gloves which portrays cleaning and cleanliness. Shots are then shown again of a dirty house which moves onto a scene of someone flushing a toilet. This could represent dirt being taken away , after that someone slams down the toilet scene. A person with cleaning gloves then picks up a plastic bag and then a liquor bottle and then a naked man having a bath with a magazine. a shot is then shown of a ash tray is shown with no ash inside of it but ash outside and around the ash tray. The scene is then shown of the man in the bath yawning and then a person cleaning some more. The man is then brushing his teeth and then shots of a dirty bathroom are shown. The person with the gloves then turns off the flowing water from the bath that the man who was bathing in had forgotten to turn off.
He then pulls a draw to get into his drawers but the front part of it comes off. The person with the gloves then takes the shaving brush and turns off the running water the man again left on. The man then struggles to get into a shirt which then shows a scene of someone throwing clothes into a basket. The man then rushes down his stairs and a black and white scene is shown of a quote by Diana Dors which says 'men and women shouldn't live together. They are totally different animals. The scene after is a zoomed shot of the person with gloves straighten out the mans suit and then the man taking a piece of toast from a plate. He runs out the door with the toast hanging from his mouth and then turns around to another man who is running after the man behind him. The first man turns and points out the toast the other man had made for him and to show a sign of appreciation the first man kisses the other man. He then runs off to his car in a rush and places his mug onto of the car he is about to get into. The man at the door looks at the man rushing off and notices that he leaves his mug onto of his car and goes into the driver seat and closes the door.
The man at the door has a worried look on his face and then shots are shown of the man eating toast and the dripping tea/coffee from the mug on the roof of the car. The man in the car turns to the other man with a mouth full of toast and smiles at the other man to which the scene is cut to the other man smiling back. The guy in the car then drives off and the mug on to of the car slides down the rear of the vehicle. The person with the gloves waves at him which gives us the idea that the person cleaning the house was that man. a quote then is shown saying 'not everything black and white makes sense' to which a spinning Guinness pint is shown to the public.This is shown to promote the product and to induce the audience into buying a pint of Guinness.
Realist or anti realist narratives can also be discussed. Obviously, a realist narrative will draw its power from the portrayal of realistic events. An anti realist narrative will have the freedom to indulge in the inclusion of aliens, vampires and all kinds of beastly CGI nonsense.
The scene starts off with a door being slid open to show Cheryl Cole in a medium shot. She walks around for a while but the main focus is on her head or her hair. The close-up shot focuses on her head which is trying to promote the hair color She opens a draw and then a panned close up of different hair color products are shown in a draw/desk. She flutters through the color with her fingers which emphasizes the amount of choice she has to colour her hair. More shots of her head and hair are shown with a small shot of her stroking her hair trying to emphasize the colour. She dances about and makes it seem she is having fun which could mean that adding colour to your hair is fun. The shot after that ends with the variety of different colours the company has to offer. Cheryl then flicks through a bunch of paper which have different colour which could show the variety of colour the company has to offer and then ends with her smiling and saying "because your worth it"
The use of a celebrity in my opinion is that it a key a way to add endoresment to a product. People see celebrities everyday from magazines to televisions. Plus celebrities are sought to have the perfect lifestyle which everyone wants and craves. So placing a celebrity who is claiming to use this product is encouraging the famous lifestyle that she lives to a audience who is craving that lifestyle.
Endings - are also an important part of narrative structure and warrant much analysis. They can be open, where we are left with a sense that the story is unfinished or may continue after the section of the narrative we have seen. Alternatively, they are closed and present a definite end to the story being told.
Example:
he scene starts off with a man reaching over for his deodorant which is the product the company is trying to promote. He sprays a little on himself and then puts the deodorant back onto the self. A close up is shown of the product. all of a sudden the man turns into a man made of chocolate. The man of chocolate is walking down the street with the "cool walk" when she see a women take a sniff of him then the man rips off his nose and sprinkles the crumbs onto a ice cream that these two girls are having There is then a scene of the man relaxing in the park wile a woman is trying to dig a strawberry into his belly button trying to get chocolate onto it. The scene after that is two girls licking and eating the chocolate mans face while they are at the cinema. He then offers woman in the hospital a box with his hand in it which represents a box of chocolate The scene after shows a medium shot of the man standing on the train when a women suddenly bites a bit of chocolate from his bum. He walks past a gym filled with woman and they rush to the window and try to grab a hold of the chocolate man but they can't because of the window. He looks at them and just to tease them he waves a "hello" when a car drives past and a women yanks his arm off.
I like the use of a Anti-realist adverts because you can go mad on them. You can take dreams and desires and implement them into a small video that could encourage an audience into buying a product. This is because of the fact that dreams and desires are all imaginations and are always kept inside the mind. So playing with those thoughts and desires.
An animation advertisement is a presentation of an advert that has been computerized or animated to create a cartoon or animation.
Example:
As the advert starts off there is an establishing shot of a house that doesn't seem to look like a normal house. A shot is then taken of three animated people who seem to look like toothpaste. Two of them seem to look like parents and the other seems to look like a child. They seem to talk to each other and the male toothpaste points out to the female toothpaste that its time to brush their teeth.
Now a quote like this has been used because Aquafresh is brand of a company that sells toothpaste and they have been renown for having many different advertisements that are related some sort into brushing your teeth or having a clean mouth. Anyway the advert then shows us the small toothpaste pulling down a lever that shouldn't be pulled down and then the grown up male toothpaste seems to shout at the smaller one. A scene of humor is portrayed here so that it it keeps the viewer interested in the advert and keep their attention. The female toothpaste then turns of the lever and asks the male if they do the 'shmurdle'. The male responds yes and then tells us that we should do the 'shmurdle' to remind of us to brush our teeth for bedtime.
A large screen descends from the left hand side of the screen which then pops out with a video of small children dancing. The female and small toothpaste begin to sing a song while the children in the video begin to dance with it. The male toothpaste then slides into the scene and begins to sing and dance. A scene is then changed to show a factory or a time belt moving boxes along that have the Aquafresh logos on them. A machinery is then shown pumping toothpaste in through a huge tube and then it squirts a little toothpaste onto the brush the female is holding. A zoom shot is shown of the toothpaste and then the scene is cut back onto the video of the children still dancing. The female and male spin back into the scene and carry on singing.
A medium shot is then shown of the male toothpaste who looks like he's trying to listen to something and then vibrates while there is a non-Diegetic sound of gargling. A medium shot is then shown of what looks like a family of toothpaste people each holding a toothpaste and getting ready to brush their teeth. Shots are then cut through the video of the children dancing and the family dancing together. The dance then finishes with the children and the family doing a small jump and then the family run off into a sort of elevator which then zooms down into the floor. Two beds and a baby cot seem to pop out of nowhere and through two holes in the room seem to drop down on to the bed. The parents seem to get into bed and look tired. A medium shot is then shown of the little toothpaste gone to sleep and then a long shot is shown of the family all in bed. The light then dims and a small box of text appears at the bottom of the screen showing the website to go onto to promote the brand.
A documentary advert is a advertisement which takes place in a real life situation with real life people. Things are not scripted and trained actors are not used. Everything is linked with real life.
Example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI_ulVR4Sao
The adverts start's off with a scene of two people who are supposedly brothers walking through a hall filled with chairs. The use of the music used ( Usher - Dj got us fallin in love ) is a very popular song and at the moment when the advert came out the song was among one of the popular and top selling songs in the charts so it would ideal to use in this advert. The scenes are then flashed through their life with constant fade transitions giving the effect they are looking back at what they have done.
Narration is in the background. This helps the audience understand what the series could be about. There is also speech from the main characters and i think this has been recorded through the camera whereas the voice over was probably pre-recorded in a studio.
The difference between a talking head style advert and a documentary advert is that the documentary is based in a real life situation, whereas a talking head advertisement is staged and is presented by a worker/customer in their working environment. It also contains the feature that the presenter is directly addressing/communicating to the viewer.
Example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0cbBNgXmLI
This advert is about a company that deals with accident and claims. It starts off with a women who asks the audience a rhetorical question. She later goes onto to answers the questions and how you could deal with them if you phoned the company she is talking about. The sound sounds like it has been pre-recorded and dubbed over the women's acting. Scenes are flashed through the women and person who has had a accident and is talking to a mechanic. There are loads of long shots and mid shots to to show the whole body or from the waist up.
A stand alone advertisement is a form of advert that is a one off, there will not be another advert by the same company that is related in terms of the story. A stand alone advertisement as a beginning and an end, no other advertisement from the same company will start the ad where the last one finished
Example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Z4BlpFk0lU&feature=player_embedded
Animation is used in this advertisement. The advert starts off with the phone number of the company popping up while someone is on the cloud on a computer. The song in the background is reflected through the images/animations that are used in the advert. The advert is joyful and cheery and they have created a soundtrack which is catchy and causes you to remember the lyrics to it.
