NARRATIVE STRUCTURE

Narrative - A chain of events linked by cause and effect and occurring in time and space.

Essentially, narrative is understanding the pattern of events that are happening. Something happened, which caused this to happen, which then made this happen, etc.

Within a narrative you have a story and a plot. A story is what happened  and the plot is how it happened. There are many different stories, and many different plots to many different stories. As an audience, we build the story from the plot by making assumptions and inferences by what's presented to us.

There's even a story and plot in the GED Achievement PSA. The plot shows us these celebrities taking various phone calls and giving these pep talks while also dealing with typical office situations such as Terry Crews stealing Jerry Stiller's sandwich. From this we can construe that the story is about a bunch of celebrities are working in a call center giving pep talks to people interested in getting their GED.

Even though these people are all rich and famous, they're taking the time out of their days to sit around a plain office building taking phone calls. Most people would consider this a boring job, but everyone is extremely happy to be doing this work and helping out. This shows the importance of getting your GED to the audience. If these people would be willing to do something like this, it must important.

FILM AND TELEVISION FORM

Form - The overall system of relationships among the parts of a film.

Form is what draws an audience into a piece of work. One way to achieve that is by the use of patterns. Patterns give form by creating a structured experience. The human mind likes to find patterns, and by having patterns in film the audience is more engaged and involved.

The main pattern in this PSA is a freeze-frame on the celebrities' heads with a brightly covered overlay saying their name, level, and 'technique'. These introductions happen every couple of seconds as different celebrities are introduced. They're also all talking on the telephone in cubicles to people needing motivation for perusing their GED.

This repetition is picked up by the audience, is easier to understand, and easier to remember. We know who these people are, what they're doing, and why they're doing it.

CINEMATOGRAPHY

Cinematography- a general term for all the manipulations of the film strip by the camera in the shooting phase and by the laboratory in the developing phase. In most cases the filmmaker can select from the range of tonalities, manipulate the speed of motion or transform perspectives.

The Range of Tonalities

This is something that deals with how something looks on screen. Is it too bright? Is it too dark? Is the red showing a little too strong are all types of question about tonalities. How strong or weak certain colors look on the screen and what it says about the film itself impact the tonality.

                                      All the different colors and shapes create a range on tonalities.

Speed of Motion

When you watch something a lot of times the action is seen differently than how it originally happened. An example of this is slowing down a sprinter running to the finish line or speeding up film of people constructing a house over multiple days. It’s calculated by frames per second. Today’s 35 mm cameras can do anything from 8-64 frames per second with specialty cameras offering a wider array of options.

                                      This still photo is taken during filming creating a freeze frame

Perspectives

Perspectives can be described as the way in which you see something on screen. If you look straight ahead you may see train tracks recede as they do further and further along the horizon. However you know this isn’t the case so why does it happen? It’s because your eyes shows a perspective view of the scene as a set of special relations organized around a particular viewpoint and that’s the same as what a lens does. It gathers light from the scene and transmits that light onto the flat surface of the video chip to form an image.

Focal length: the distance from the center of the lens to the point where light rays converge to a point of focus on the film. It alters the size, proportions of the things we see as well as the depth.

                                   This particular still from the video is shot from a zoomed in perspective.

1)   Short focal length lens- 35 mm in focal length (wide angle lens) (background stretched apart)

      2)   Medium length lens- (35-50) mm (not stretched apart or squashed together

      3)    Long length lens- 100 mm (magnify action at a distance like in sports)

Depth of field- a range of distances within which objects can be photographed in sharp focus, given a certain exposure setting.

COLOR FUNCTION AND COMPOSITION

Like lighting, color also plays a major role in film and television.  It can indicate the importance of an object or theme, as in the Sixth Sense, or a change in the main character's state of mind or place in the storyline, as in Momento or The Wizard of Oz.

In the GED Achievement PSA, the color really goes hand-in-hand with the lighting.  They used high-key lighting which creates a sense of ease, as the goal of the PSA is to encourage something that could be potentially stressful for the target audience. The PSA appears to have been shot with a white light to make the true colors chosen for set pieces, clothing, and graphics stand out as much as possible.

Color composition as a whole can be altered on film and video through filters and color correction.  If you want to neutralize a scene that looks yellow in the camera, add a blue filter to change the tone, and vice versa.

All of the titles and graphics throughout the PSA match how you are supposed to feel about the person giving the pep talk.  Terry Crews and Debra Jo Rupp are encouraging and gentle and understanding so they receive green titles.  DMC has the higher level of "enlightening" and gets a blue title.  The color blue is often associated with power and strength.  Danny Trejo, however, is the highest level and won't take "I can't" for an answer.  Don't call Danny if you don't want the truth.

Color can also be found in clothing and set pieces as well.  In the GED Achievement PSA, all of the women are wearing bright, solid colors, but all of the men are wearing black.  I think this leans more toward women needing to be encouraged and coaxed back into a potentially stressful situation, where all of the men giving pep-talks are telling them to MAN UP AND GO BACK TO SCHOOL. No pretty colors for these boys.

Figure 1: Terry Crews is dressed in a black button-up and jeans, making him look more imposing as he slouches in that chair.  However, with the purple and blue folders in the background, the beige and off-white pieces of the cubicle, and the green 'SYMPATHETIC' graphic next to him, he appears to be the tougher nice-guy that knows what you're going through.

Figure 1B: In contrast to Crews, Trejo is a "LEVEL 13: EXTREME" and he is taking no prisoners.  In this image, all we see is Trejo with a black tank-top on, with a red, eye-catching graphic next to his face.  He means business.

Figure 2: In this image, we see the non-threatening Debra Jo Rupp and DMC having a simple, friendly workplace conversation.  However, the colors of Debra's shirt and the pretty pink flowers behind her make her appear soft and patient and encouraging.  Even her graphic, in comparison to Danny Trejo's above, is a non-threatening lime green.  We also see DMC in a black leather jacket, holding what appears to be a tiny water cup.

Figure 3: This image gives us four options to look at: three guys in black/grey colors and a woman in a solid, bright one.  Each subject also has yellow in the frame: Crews - the phone number, DMC - the gold wedding ring, Robinson - the flag, and the post-it in the last frame.  The color yellow is a warm color and is often associated with calming or neutrality.

LIGHTING

Media in the form of film and television can be broken down into mere light shows.  Without light, film and television would be live performances only to be shared as a story told later to friends - not as an experience shared by many worldwide.

Light, and the way figures and objects are lit within a frame, can create different meanings and evoke emotions from viewers.  High-key lighting refers to a lighting design that creates few shadows.  High-key lighting is calming, there is little left in shadow, and the focus is on the dialogue or on the subjects themselves.  Low-key lighting involves stronger contrasts and sharper, noticeable changes between light and dark.  In low-key lighting, the focus could actually be either on the shadows or the subject, depending on the genre it is used in.

In the GED Achievement: Pep-talks PSA, the creators used high-key lighting, involving few shadows. most shots, in fact, probably used 3-point lighting: the use of a key, a fill, and a backlight.  The key is the primary source of light, the fill is a softer light that literally "fills" in the shadows, and the backlight may have been the fluorescent lights from the office itself.

Figure 1: This shot with Danny Trejo is in high-key lighting.  Notice there are no stark shadows.  You aren't curious if the boogeyman is hiding over his shoulder.  There are no murderers lurking in the other cubicles.  You are only focused on his pep-talk.

Another common practice in lighting is the Rembrandt triangle, made famous by the painter.  It is common in "beauty shots" to make the subject appear more attractive.  The triangle is created just under one of the eyes using the bridge of the nose and the cheekbone.  The Rembrandt can usually be achieved with three-point lighting.

Figure 2: Again, Wendy Raquel Robinson is lit with high-key lighting, as there are few shadows, and this time we can see a Rembrandt triangle on the left side of her face, closest to the graphic.

Because the goal of the PSA was to encourage high school dropouts to return to school to get their GED, the creators had to make the ad appear non-threatening.  Even, high-key lighting with few shadows encourages the positive thoughts behind getting a higher education.

ASPECT RATIO

Aspect Ratio and the Shot

The aspect ratio of an image describes the proportional relationship between its width and its height. Basically it’s how big the picture is that you’re watching.

It is commonly expressed as two numbers separated by a colon, as in 16:9. For example, consider a group of images, all with an aspect ratio of 16:9. One image is 16 inches wide and 9 inches high. Another image could also be 16 centimeters wide and 9 centimeters high or 8 yards wide and 4.5 yards high.

The most common aspect ratios used today in the presentation of films in movie theaters are 1.85:1 and 2.39:1. Two common videographic aspect ratios are 4:3 (1.33:1), the universal video format of the 20th century, and 16:9 (1.77:1), universal for high-definition televisions and European digital television. Other cinema and video aspect ratios exist, but are used infrequently.

In still camera photography, the most common aspect ratios are 4:3, 3:2, and more recently being found in consumer cameras 16:9. Other aspect ratios, such as 5:3, 5:4, and 1:1 (square format), are used in photography as well, particularly in medium format and large format.

                                               This is a 16:9 format picture of the PSA Video

Some common aspect ratios are:

·         1.33:1 (4:3)
Traditional television & computer monitor standard.

·         1.41:1
Lichtenberg ratio √2:1 ~1.4142:1

·         1.5:1 (3:2)
Classic 35 mm film

·         1.6:1 (8:5)
(Credit cards are 85.6 × 54 mm which is ~1.59:1)

·         1.618:1  
The golden ratio

·         1.66:1 (5:3)
A common European widescreen standard; native Super 16 mm film.

·         1.77:1 or 1.78:1 (16:9)
HD video standard

·         1.85:1
A common US widescreen cinema standard

·         2.39:1 or 2.40:1
A current widescreen cinema standard

                                                     A picture demonstrating the different sizes.

AREA AND SCREEN FORCES

Area and Screen Forces:

We can define area and screen forces as, highly specified field forces or vectors that operate within the frame to create, direction, magnetism and asymmetry.

I will talk about some of these examples as they appear on the GED, PSA.

Horizontal Direction- At the beginning of the commercial fig.1, we se the pep-talk poster that is demonstrating horizontal direction, it becomes stronger when we zoom into the poster. We also se Danny Trejo and Henry Ian giving us a strong Motion vector as they walk out the frame to the left. A lot of horizontal objects in this PSA giving it a calm and eased feel to it. Making the targeted audience feel safe and confidante that they too can obtain their GED.

Figure 1

            

Headroom- In the shots with; Wendy Raquel, DMC fig.2, Terry Crews, Danny Trejo, etc. We are able to see very little or no head room at all. We keep the viewer’s attention right where we want it. The viewer is not distracted by something that is above the character. The viewer is also not wondering around staring at the white sealing. The complete attention is at the person giving the pep-talk, making the viewer feel like if he was receiving the pep-talk.  

Figure 2

Graphic Vector- The text on scree appears on graphic vectors that have a horizontal direction fig.2. The vectors naturally split the screen, the colors used for the vectors are soft and pleasing to our eyes. The graphic vectors also add a balance to the shot as a whole. The simplicity of the graphics works really well because you do not blast the senses of the viewer, nor do you cause them to be overwhelmed by so much information. The graphics make obtaining your GED easy.

Figure/Ground- Figure ground is very beautifully present in this PSA fig.3. We are able to tell that, they are in cubical like offices. We see phones, folders, pencils, and computers. Everything in the shot is easy to distinguish. We know that our brain will do, psychological closure, but with the figure ground in all of these shots the brain has a really easy time absorbing the information. The target audience will be amazed and motivated by what they see. Most of the people that do not have a GED wish they did so they could work in offices, with nice seats and computers. Seeing that the people who give them pep talks work in offices will inspire and motivate the viewer.

Figure 3

Placement of actress/tor: Every time we see the shot change we also se the actress/tor on the opposite side of the frame. For example in the shot with Wendy Raquel fig.3 she is on the right side of the shot. Then in the following shot fig.2 we see that DMC was placed on the left side of the shot. They could have done linear editing to keep the viewers eye hooked on one spot but they decided no to. This was a good idea because the point of the commercial is to promote the completion of GEDs. Having the viewers eyes move keeps them entertained and attentive, making it more probable they will take in the message.