Shot by Shot: Gather Your Armies

OK. First of all, we Californians are in no position to mock political loonies residing beyond the Golden State. At least we can't mock 'em too much. After all, we're the proud home of Carly Fiorina, the otherwise implausible candidate whose "Demon Sheep" spot helped secure her party's nomination for the upcoming California senate race.

That's right, voters in my home state met in solemn deliberation last week and concluded that a failed CEO with no legislative experience, a novice who portrayed her opponent as a creepy glowing-red-eyed animal impersonator, represents the GOP's best hope to beat Barbara Boxer this fall. That's why Left Coasties can't get too smug about goofy campaign spots running elsewhere. California is kind of a joke.

But whenever we get too despondent about the state of our politics, all that Mickey Mouse silliness, we can at least thank God for one small favor:

At least there's Alabama.

Shot-by-Shot Analysis: Jared Pandora

We've got a trifecta with this ad for cheesy baubles: consumerist-romance, gadget obsession, and obnoxious kids!

We open with an establishing shot of three girls sitting at home, playing with mobile devices. The camera gently shakes and jitters to convey homemade naturalism.

The youngest girl plays with a handheld game. The slightly older girl taps on a mobile phone. The big sister types on a laptop computer.

Keeping her eyes glued on her laptop screen, the older girl asks her sisters, "Did Dad go to Jared for the Pandora bracelet like we told him?"

The youngest girl, having put down her game, searches for signs of her parents' interaction in the living room:

"I - I can't tell."

We then see a medium close-up of Mom and Dad on the couch. Mom opens a case, revealing a godawful ugly charm bracelet (not that the jewelry's aesthetics are important in this post):

"Oh, honey!"

We return to the girls. The big sister smiles, her eyes still locked on that laptop: "Oh, yeah. He went to Jered."

The second-oldest also continues focusing on her device: "He totally went to Jared."

A voice-over calls on viewers to "Celebrate life's unforgettable moments with Pandora charms and bracelets" One is labeled, "Our 3 daughters."

A brief musical flourish accompanies a return to the living room where Mom launches across the couch to hug Dad.

The daughters trill at the sweet scene, even pulling themselves away from their electronic toys for a moment.

Big sister then marshals the kind of condescension that only a teenager can possess, "They're so cute at that age."

Difficulty seeing the spot? Point your browser here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wAibK4oSL4

The spot is dated September 30, 2009 and attributed to Stern Advertising.

One final thought: Is it just me, or doesn't "Jared Pandora" sound like a Star Wars character?

Shot-by-Shot Analysis: Courtyard's "New Stay"

Difficulty seeing the ad? Point your browser here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46TPR719DO4

While completing an essay on editable landscapes, I banged together some thoughts on the Marriott Courtyard chain's "It's a New Stay" campaign. The free-wifi spot does a fine job of illustrating the omnitopian concept of mutability, especially the implication that office work colonizes the natural world, rendering the outside little more than a stage-set for corporate machinations.

The spot begins with an office-worker typing on a laptop. He is "white collar," literally and professionally. Even so (and though he is clearly gendered "male") the worker does not possess a uniformly recognizable racial or ethnic identity; the privilege of his position does not flow from an easily perceived institutionalized inequity. Marriott's Courtyard concept, while hardly an expansive agora, seeks to enact a sense of place whose demographic contours are less visible than the one expressed (or at least imagined by some critics) in Marriott's signature brand.

The office-worker is viewed from profile, and we adopt his position, occupying a narrow space of possibility. The room is dark, lit only by a vertically shaped lamp. A similarly functional glass of water is the only other prop. The man types on a keyboard that is tethered by a thin data-cable. The rapid strikes of piano keys convey his rhythm of drive and productivity. Then the man removes the cable, his face displaying a brief tight-lipped smile of satisfaction. Simultaneously, the scene switches to a wider angle, revealing that his "office" is actually a hotel room, now lit by several vertical lamps. The white pillows of his bed provide the only other contrast to the black and deep-red color of the scene.

At this point, the room dissolves. The couch and a wall are pulled to the left; the bed and rear wall swing to the right. Outside, a city appears in two halves: a green park below, shafts of office towers above. Another edit depicts still a wider angle shot while horns and woodwinds augment the piano, projecting an ethereal ambiance. The office-worker occupies a center position within a newly open space whose windows resemble stylized arches. Light fills the room, which we now recognize as the Courtyard lobby. As a trio of oval lights descend, other business-types rotate into view. One dyad sits back-to-back; a man reads the paper while a woman picks up a mobile phone. The hotel lobby is their place, too, but not entirely.

The office-worker continues the performance of manipulating his environment. By his design, we see the lobby itself disappear, the front desk spinning to the left. He smiles that curt look of confidence once more. His head down, his eyes focused on the screen, he is somehow reshaping this environment merely by tapping that keyboard. A voice-over explains: "Free wifi: Giving you the freedom to get out and work wherever you want." Voices chant a ditty that transforms the scene also, but not entirely, returning to a softer version of the first tone. The arches sink toward the floor, becoming a low wall covered with flowing green flowers. The worker is free to "get out," though he continues his productive labors.

The nature of this "outside" affirms the omnitopian message of this spot. A fern appears to the man's left and a table topped with a tall drink (and a straw) appears to his right. Other people rest in chairs fit for vacation, their clothes relaxed and informal. But our protagonist blurs those worlds, even as he lifts that tropical-looking drink to his lips. His chair, one of those ergonomic-types in black-plastic, remains firmly rooted in the office. The organic form of the wall hides its disciplinary function, but not much better than the corporate structure evoked by that chair. The voiceover reminds us, "Free wifi at Courtyard: It's a new stay." Indeed it is, a stay defined by fluidity rather than status. But the new stay affirms the old narrative the office-worker who manages this place continues to be managed by unseen bosses. For a moment, he swivels his chair just a tiny bit and looks up from that keyboard toward the clouds. But he doubtlessly is pleased by this editable landscape.

He's going nowhere.

Shot-by-Shot Analysis: Palm Pre

Difficulty seeing the ad? Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Hk8IzdwYEA

Palm recently launched a campaign for its new Prē smart phone that includes this television advertisement. Since I'm working on a paper about the omnitopian practice of mutability in urban life, I thought I'd share a shot-by-shot analysis of the spot.

The commercial begins with a wide establishing shot of a woman wandering through shoulder-high grass. Surrounding her, rocky hills stretch toward the horizon.

The perspective changes and we are behind her. She is wearing a light, flowing dress that reveals her shoulders. We have adopted her point of view, staring over a verdant valley that is broken in three rows: sky, hills, and grass.

She completes the climb atop one of those rocky hills and now stands above the flat green plane, which appears to be marked by linear hedgerows. The scene is reminiscent of Caspar David Friedrich's 1818 painting, "Wanderer above the sea of fog" [wiki entry]. This is no sublime encounter; she is heroic, standing at the apex of the earth, ordering her domain with a godlike gaze.

Ethereal music swells.

Now we adopt a position under her, looking up at her body; her gaze looking downward. A serene, close-lidded facial expression conveys calm and control among the clouds. In her right hand, amid a grip that is both firm and relaxed (evidenced by a curved wrist): a black object. She lifts it up and stares at its features, her grasping-arm now rigid.

We are now her, looking down. The smart phone, an ovoid-rectangle, is gripped in our right hand. The fingers are no longer feminized by the addition of the springtime dress; they could belong to any person. The phone screen depicts orange flowers standing among grass stalks. The field beyond is blurry and undistinguished, a blank canvas. A finger presses a button.

Incidentally, connecting these two shots, minuscule san-serif font announces the fantasy-nature of this scene: "Sequence speed adjusted for dramatization purposes. Actual performance may vary." The white color of the words, combined with the moment in which the background changes, produces a nearly perfect impossibility of reading the message. The first half-disappears into the clouds; the second half disappears into the hand.

Once more we adopt the prone position beneath her, as the camera sweeps above. The woman is now our avatar; we loom above her as she crouches upon a rock, one hardly taller than a person. The hill has disappeared; the other hills have now assumed more clearly pyramidal shapes.

Surrounding the woman, lines of orange-clad people, all with black hair, form concentric circles that stretch outward in straight lines. The martial order of their radiated standing suggests that they are Buddhist monks who gather around the blond-haired woman who stands atop the rock.

They leap to their feet as percussion enters the musical mix. Drums announce the woman's mechanized power over the monks. Their outstretched hands connect each to another, yet the result does not create a prison; the monks have formed a temple to her. She is god on earth.

A wider view confirms a human circle of monks on a valley surrounded by green mountains. The woman no longer appears within the human circle.

Along a medium angle of diagonal overhead movement, the monks crouch before her, the subject barely in view. They prostrate themselves to her environmental manifestation, a pyramidal trio of mountains that convey triple-order.

Quick shots follow: a medium close-up of the woman pressing the screen of her phone with monks in mid-motion, then a tight close-up of her finger selecting a calendar event, "Call with B- Office" (afterward, she will pick up dry-cleaning). Her finger depresses and a white halo expands from the event.

Now we adopt a perfect god's-eye view, suspended over the monks who surround the woman.

A voice-over defines this place:

"My life."

The scene is ringed by clouds, establishing our commanding view. Ripples of human motion represent the movement of the digital halo, stretching out and then returning back to the woman in the form of falling bodies. The dance of discipline.

"Like all our lives..."

A lower overhead view, almost parallel with the monks. They stand, only to fall back in a looser ring of circles as the perspective leaps upward once more.

"... is made up of so many other lives."

A rapid succession of shots -- medium close-up, wider shot, zooming overhead -- depict more martial movements of the monks. Their actions resemble calisthenics.

Another close-up shot of a generic finger, which now presses a matrix of photographs. A baby fills the phone's screen, its eyes oversized and black.

"My family's lives..."

The monks leap to their feet, their hands outstretched, their bodies posing in ripples.

The woman swipes a finger over the device, and the monks mutate their forms and relationships accordingly.

"Friends' lives..."

The monks produce an empty row stretching from the woman to the field beyond. A cluster of them form into a spinning ball.

"Work life..."

Her fingers push the phone open to reveal a keyboard. The monks pump their arms outward and drop to the ground in waves.

"Play life..."

Her finger drifts across an arc of icons. She makes her selection and the objects squeeze off the screen, revealing the phone's wallpaper of orange flowers. The screen then fills with a splash image for Pandora internet radio.

The monks leap playfully before dropping again in prone positions.

"My life today and my life next week..."

More finger-flicks and the monks perform intricate and detailed adjustments to parts of the circle, subtle choices that barely affect the whole.

"All of them rearranging themselves. All the time."

More quick-burst motions.

"Isn't it beautiful..."

One more overhead image viewed from the clouds, a human lotus in orange.

"... when life simply..."

Her finger flips through screens, summarizing the symphony.

"...flows together."

We then return to a medium-shot of the woman closing her phone and looking up at the clouds.

"Introducing... the Palm Prē."

In the final image, the phone is alone against a blurred backdrop of clouds and mountains. It is a mediating force in black plastic. A monolith with no people.

Shot-by-Shot Analysis: AT&T Smartphone Bus Spot

Check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S14UYqBZcug

One of the practice exercises I learned in grad school was to analyze media artifacts frame-by-frame, or at least shot-by-shot. Reflecting back on those fun days, I knew this commercial would make a swell site of analysis, especially since it so effectively illustrates the omnitopian components of conflation and mutation.

This Fall, I plan to present a paper about these sorts of ads for the Urban Communication Foundation. So it's nice that I spotted this one a few days ago. Here's my analysis, which doesn't include much commentary. At this point, I'm just trying to figure out how the ad works. You'll notice that I bracket out certain details, particularly the racial dynamic of this spot. I'll consider that item, and others, later. But for now, here's the commercial (as I see it):

A business suit-attired man boards a city bus, with another fellow following behind. The second man pushes a rolling cart. The bus appears to be a "local," which, added to the subtle background of busy street noise, suggests another working class day.

The scene shifts to an interior shot; we're looking down (higher than the passenger level) upon the man who steps up the stairs. His companion follows him; his cart is filled with papers and a shipping tube.

Some days my 8:15 bus is just a bus.

Then the camera position switches, placing the audience behind the businessman; we walk with him, nearly as him. The location is still a bus, but it is not longer "just a bus." Venetian blinds drape over the windows. A phone chime rings. Fluorescent lights are mounted to the roof. One of those ubiquitous round analog clocks hangs on the far back wall. We spot a photocopier in the background, a coat rack and water cooler on one side, and a female staffer addressing the boarding businessman on the entrance-side. Other staffers greet his arrival as well.

But other days, like today, it's my office.

The businessman is cheerful, his smile warm. He exudes confidence. He sits down and pulls out his mobile phone. Behind him, a white-collared technician is fixing the photocopier. Clearly this is a real office (though still on a bus).

The boss just emailed me and wants the new proposal ASAP.

An older colleague (working with a pearl-necklaced woman wearing a yellow dress) points toward the primary character in this scene. In context, the man's pointing finger suggests some variation of, "Did you get the message? The boss wants that proposal." The businessman shakes his head diagonally downward and smiles again, expressing more confidence. He's tapping on his mobile device.

No worries though. My smart phone, it's from AT&T. I'm on the nation's fastest 3G network...

The camera adopts his viewpoint. We are now looking down at his phone, revealing a close-up of that most quintessential of business graphics: a set of pie charts. A finger click detaches one pie-piece from the whole. Money is being made, we might presume.

... So that proposal? Delivered.

The scene shifts. First, a quick cut of a finger - not his - pressing the button to open the door.

Then we are outside once more. The businessman exits the rear-entrance, stepping onto the sidewalk. His trusty companion follows behind, lugging his rolling cart. The cart is filled with paper - perhaps an analogy to data. A voiceover affirms that AT&T offers the nation's fastest 3G network, illustrating why the company is so popular with smart phone users.

As consumers and evaluators of this ad, we are left to consider its implications. What does this ad say about office work and public space? I have some ideas, but I'd love to hear yours.

Lexus ad: "The world is not so complex"

The 2010 Lexus RX "City" commercial illustrates another terrific example of omnitopian mutability.

The spot begins with a downtown traffic jam, horns honking amid a canyon of gray towers.

The gray Lexus is stuck.

A male driver (wearing the nondescript uniform of commercials pitching to the upper middle class) lets his head fall back against his seat. He's mildly annoyed but not really frustrated.

His gaze runs over the weather forecast for Houston on a Monday.

His fingers caress a button near the gear shift.

The weather has been replaced by a GPS map depicting downtown. The driver is alerted to an accident on 6th Street.

Then the ad begins to demonstrate the omnitopian practice of mutability.

"Because we can't reinvent traffic..."

From above, claws descend upon the cars, pulling those around him toward the sky. A taxi, an ugly van, all the cars are yanked off the ground.

"...we reinvented how the driver navigates around it."

Even the buildings that surround him are hosted aloft.

"With advanced XF realtime traffic and predictive weather..."

The buildings drop pieces of their foundations as they ascend, but the road ahead is clear, ordered.

The driver scans his dashboard again, itself a panorama of technological efficiency.

"...suddenly, the world is not so complex."

The driver parks next to a "Vinyl Store" in an old building. The scene is horizontal, none of the shifting axes or perspectives of the previous scenes. A few buildings remain in the background, distant.

Thanks to Lexus technology, the complex city mutates into a path for his personal pleasure.

Check out the commercial: Lexus City

Also take a look at a 2010 Palm ad: Life Moves Fast

Exhibiting the 3G Family

Note: This post is inspired by an original essay by Theresa Walsh Giarrusso (cited below). Her piece was published before mine, and I explore a number of themes that she first raised.

Sprint's new "3G Family" ad celebrates the ways in which mobile phones allow us to drift off into our own little enclaves, ignoring places and people around us.

Maybe you've seen it. The ad portrays a nuclear family walking through some sort of natural history museum, you know, with dinosaurs and lions and such. Nothing's real. Everything's a fake.

Perhaps it's a trick of camera framing, but the group appears at first to walk closely together.

Then we see a sideways view, the mother walking backward while aiming her camera phone at the family. They ham it up, waving at her. The little boy twirls for the camera.

"If your family were a 3G family you could post your trip on YouTube before you even get home."

Ah, great. Another unedited, self-absorbed, look-at-me YouTube video.

Then the scene shifts. The mother is pointing out something on display while the father hides around a corner. Is he downloading porn? There's something creepily self-satisfied about his smile.

"Or surprise your wife with tickets to a broadway show."

OK. It's not porn, probably.

The little boy is now peering into a display for a stuffed tiger. He roars at the animal before shifting his gaze onto the phone screen. Spielberg's framing a shot.

"Email grandma a T-Rex one second and a tiger the next."

The family hasn't visited Grandma since last Thanksgiving, or was it the one two years ago? But that's probably for the best. Grandma smells kind of funny and her "candy" is a bowl filled with tooth-shattering peppermint nubbins that have congealed into a sold mass untouched since Reagan announced Morning in America.

Of course, the boy's sister is text-messaging the entire time, keeping her head down, tapping on those tiny keys. Something like, "OMG! IM soooo BORD!" (That's my generic example for all text messages. Sorry).

"All at 3G speed."

The end of the spot shows the family departing the scene. Each member is spaced further apart from each other than we saw in the establishing shot. The girl is still texting her silent frustration at being stuck with these losers and the boy appears to be left behind. He stares at the painted lions on the wall.

The 3G family needs to ditch the phones and go to a park.

Theresa Walsh Giarrusso's original essay: I don't want to be a 3G Family

Shot-by-Shot Analysis - Nextel's What'd you call me? spot

A Nextel advertisement that aired in January 2007 appeals to a desire to travel within a personal enclave, one that permits access to the world on one’s own terms. Within this ad, we see the virtue of this miniature world, particularly when that artificial world is compared with the threats of the real world outside. The ad begins with a man who pulls into a rural filling station. A dog is heard barking in the background. Briefly the frame reveals a couple of raggedy folks residing among a grove of trees ahead. With his white dress shirt the driver appears to be on a business trip. His phone, hooked into the car dashboard, reports in a feminine voice that he is eight miles from his destination. The driver then uses the phone's walkie-talkie feature to tell a colleague that he'll arrive within ten minutes. The phone emits the well-known Nextel chirp. The driver exudes calm.

A station attendant -- slightly unshaven, his hair somewhat disheveled, his shirt stained with grease -- leans into the car and asks: “Where ya headed?” The driver appears to stifle some annoyance; the question is unnecessary: “Uh, the processing plant.” The attendant smiles and asks with the confidence of one fulfilling a well-practiced performance: “Need directions?” The driver’s answer fails to follow the script: “Uh, no thanks. I've got Nextel GPS.” The frame reveals a close-up shot of the phone, its screen displaying a turning arrow indicating the path necessary for the driver to return to the road. The screen’s version of the world is geometrically precise and ordered, distinctly different from the rougher terrain outside. We then see attendant once more, his eyes narrowing. He asks with growing menace: “What’d you call me?” The driver responds nervously, “What? No. This is, uh, turn-by-turn directions.” The attendant drawls through a clenched jaw: “We give the directions around here.” The moment seethes with violence, suggesting a scene from the 1972 film Deliverance. The driver swivels and notices a third person wiping the car window. The second attendant stares at the driver in shock and growing anger, his rag squealing and smudging the glass. The driver says, “I'm OK,” and turns the ignition. He’s done with this place. We hear the sound of an automatic window as our view snaps to a bright and uncluttered yellow background. The scene ends with a slogan extolling the virtues of Nextel.

This advertisement illustrates the personal enclave as an evolved realization of omnitopia: the potential to collapse the entire world into a structural and perceptual singularity that is itself mobile. The personal enclave allows its user to possess a version of the world, one that reflects that individual’s needs and desires, and to navigate through social spaces “outside” that world with little or no need for interaction with its inhabitants. The phone’s GPS technology models the town through which the visitor passes. It is a mobile manifestation, a dynamic map that does not necessarily “replace” the territory so much as it elides the territory, making it irrelevant. The viewer of this advertisement is persuaded, or at least inspired to consider, that such a personal enclave marks a necessary advancement in mobile technology. Thus the mythical gasoline attendant, the one with directions and friendly advice celebrated in nostalgic recollections of early twentieth century road trips is now deemed a threat to be avoided. Of course, readers will recall the well-worn trope of the clueless and parochial gas station attendant who always offered bad directions to outsiders. He (almost always he) is a stock character in the road trip mythology. But this figure has rarely been viewed as so completely unnecessary, even dangerous, as he is now since new technology has appeared to render him superfluous. When we carry a world of voices and places in our phones, passing through supposedly dangerous surroundings -- whether these locales marked as “rural” or “urban” -- within our climate-controlled vehicles, we hardly need to open our windows. We might even learn to fear open windows altogether.