Despite how short commercials may seem, there is actually a lot of different film mechanisms that go behind creating a commercial, specifically in the categories of mise-en-scène, sound, cinematography, and cuts.

I have always viewed commercials as simple thirty-second videos that revolve around a cheesy plot-line, ultimately, with the goal of trying to subconsciously sell the audience on the “experience” a particular product could bring that person. Yet, in today’s mini-seminar, I realized that commercials are deceptively simple from the outside. In actuality, they are very complex.

Here’s an example: My group was given the role of analyzing the background sound in a Subaru commercial. Once the commercial started, I noticed that the background sound had three layers: the narrator’s voice, sound effects (to give contextualization of what’s happening at a given time), and music. When all of these layers are presented together, they harmoniously intertwine and are able to strongly add to the commercial’s goal of promoting the Subaru vehicle. The sound effects all go along with the narrative, and many times add to the emotional aspect of the commercial as well. The chiming of church bells within the commercial allows the audience members to feel joyful, while the whining of ambulance sirens conveys to the audience that something tragic has happened. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed taking a deeper look at the amount of detail that goes behind creating commercials, which is something I never thought about before. This event that HF Zach and GRF Seema led definitely leaves me feeling an immense amount of appreciation for film and commercial-makers.

(And relatively less annoyance when commercials play before my youtube videos.)