The scene opens up with a shot of a red sedan looking head on through the windshield. A young gentleman is getting into the car with three others already inside. He’s wearing a red sports jersey underneath his large blue jacket with white trim and a large yellow football stitched into the right side. Clearly he is interested in sports or his school teams.
Upon entering the vehicle he greets the passenger in the back first, closes the door as the car pulls away from the curb, he puts on his seat belt and greets the other passengers in the car with slightly less enthusiasm. Maybe he doesn’t know the gentlemen in the front as well as the one in the back.
The newcomer talks to the driver for a few seconds, and the camera angle changes to the face of the driver where he looks indifferent to what he said. Switching to the newcomer’s face he seems surprised and then amused at the driver’s response. In the background you can see a stop sign go by on the left side of the car, however the car never stops or even appears to slow down.
Seemingly in response to the driver’s response, the newcomer pulls out a camcorder and points it at the driver, seemingly from nowhere. The driver immediately gets uncomfortable and says something to the newcomer and his look changes to one of annoyance. The passenger in the back does not share the drivers feelings of annoyance when the camcorder is pointed at him. He looks excited and even holds up a peace sign to the camcorder. The camera angle then zooms in on that passengers face where his expression changes from happiness and excitement, to sadness and he looks down. The only person that was talking was the newcomer so he must have said something that was upsetting or something that made him ashamed.
The camera angle changes one last time to a fixed shot from the rear of the car as it drives away. The car is in the middle of the road driving in what seems like a development from the trees and houses on either side of the small road. Words appear in the top left of the screen saying: “If your friend is driving recklessly, Say Something.”
Now that the position of the video is clear, the newcomer’s position in the video becomes clearer. He is an older person who was indicating that the driver was driving recklessly and judging by his surprised expression from the drivers response, the driver didn’t care. When he pulled the camera and began filming the other rear passenger, the passenger eventually got a sad and almost embarrassed look on his face. The newcomer brought up the reckless driving done by the driver and showed that the passenger in the back didn’t do anything, didn’t have the guts or courage to address the danger that the driver was putting them in.
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Counterintuitive Spring 2024 
Feedback was requested.
Feedback Provided. —DSH
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thegreatestpenn, you’ve chosen a 30-second spot that relies very little on the visual component of its argument.
It seems to me a running chronology of what happens and when is not the best approach to discuss the visual rhetoric in this case.
As we watch the video muted, we have no idea what’s going on. Maybe you’re right that the backseat passenger knows the new passenger, but the driver’s apparent disinterest might just as easily be disdain for someone he does know but doesn’t like.
I don’t know how you can tell the car is going too fast; that’s not obvious to me. However, I did notice at 00:13 that the back of a stop sign appears on the passenger’s side. The car didn’t even pause for it.
You never told us that most of the shots are taken from in front of the car. They don’t show us any one passenger’s perspective. There’s a video camera in the car purportedly shooting “viral video.” I wonder why we don’t see the “through-the-lens” shots that would confirm for us what the passengers look like from the POV of the new guy?
Does it occur to you the new passenger is older than the other three? His clothing might indicate that he takes his affiliation with a particular college very seriously. Maybe? Would that contribute to the argument in any way?
One clearly important image is the remorseful face of the original backseat passenger. It’s onscreen for about 10% of the total ad time.
I also noticed that the car in the final shot is driving right down the middle of the street, completely commanding the entire road.
In an argument like this one, the better approach might be to concentrate on the two or three visual components that seem crucial.
What do you think, thegreatestpenn? Is it worth a rewrite?
I await your reply.
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Yes professor it is. I went ahead and did a major overhaul on this piece. This time I exclusively looked at the video with no sound. Let me know what you think. I think the only thing it’s missing is maybe some more analysis throughout.
Feedback Requested.
Feedback provided. —DSH
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This is good all the way to the end, thegreatestpenn. But it shouldn’t end where it does. Now that we have seen the message in text at the end of the visuals, how does the ad’s intention change the way we see what we’ve been watching? You can handle this two ways:
—Continue your analysis by retroactively surmising how we WOULD HAVE understood the visuals while we were watching them . . . OR
—Watch the ad again (again without listening), with your new understanding of the ad’s intention, explaining how or whether the visuals reinforce the message.
One last question. Is there any relevance to the age difference of the new passenger, a detail you did not reference?
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