Last lecture before Spring Break!
Visual Rhetoric
Have you seen these?
This argument has been taking place on the bumpers of vehicles for over a decade. For some reason, the evolution camp was threatened enough by the Christian ichthus to have to make up a “fish” of their own. It has devolved into an insult throwing contest via car art. I’m sure you have seen many more varieties (I downloaded at least four more!) in the ongoing argument.
This is a simple example of visual rhetoric–although how persuasive either side in the argument has become is open for debate! But visuals, usually combined with words or sound, can be extremely compelling.
Last year, Halo released its latest game. Now, I’m a pretty serious gamer (my home away from home is a little spot called jayisgames.com and you can find me there as a regular player and poster just about every day of the week), but I don’t get anything out of the Halo games. Not enough happens to hold my interest–they are far too repetitious for my taste. But every time I see this ad, I want to check out the new release:
There are three versions of this ad. This is far and away the best–it is also the shortest. So what makes it so fabulous? I think it’s genius in many ways. This ad touches gamers on a lot of different levels. Parents (dads, mostly) who are my age or a little older, see something akin to the old Army toys of the 70s. Young gamers automatically recognize Halo imagery. The set up is something like a collector’s battlefield and the music is a Prelude by Chopin.
And amid the plasticized scenes of defeat, one defender, even in the grips of his enemy, is not ready to give up. The only words seen (as none are heard) are “Believe in a Hero.”
The reading from the textbook Beyond Words provides us with the tools we need to analyze why this ad is so outstanding. Read it carefully and then let’s work our way through the five questions it asks.
What do you see?
One of our main theorists in the subject of rhetoric, Richard Lanham, writes and teaches about style. Much of what he says about words can also be applied to images, in particular his ideas about looking at vs. looking through.
When you first see an ad or TV commercial, the literal images that are burned on your retinas answer this first question–and the Lanham idea of “looking at.” What you see can include a great many things: photographic images of people, places and things (most ads include these), drawings and other graphics such as logos, fonts, colors. At its base level, what you see has no immediate symbolic value beyond the words your brain generates for the images themselves.
Look back at my descriptive paragraph about the Halo ad. What I see when I watch that ad is a kind of toy literalism: Army Men-style plastic figures placed in some sort of fantastic battlefield scenario. I see certain colors–the ones they want to appear most clearly: orangy-gold, yellow-red–as almost separate from the rest of the scene.
If we look back at the print rhetoric lecture, I would choose this one for a quick “what do you see” analysis. I see a face–a scary face.
But even with the word “scary” I have made a judgment that has moved me beyond “what I see” into what I perceive about what I see. Stay with me!
What is it about?
Our brains immediately begin making connections. When I watch the Halo commercial, am I really seeing toys? Not even close! They are completely computer-generated images. My mind has supplied a story, it has told me what the content of the ad is. Story, content and topic are elements of rhetoric that we apply to the images we see.
Sociologist Jean Baudrillard says that ads are the proof that we live in a simulated world. Before media bombardment, Baudriallard says, we lived in a very simple place. Words had exact meanings, and content was straightforward. Over time, we have pulled the world over our own eyes (I apologize for the subtitles):
I always invoke The Matrix when I read Baudrillard, because the ideas in this classic approach some of the ideas that you should use when you analyze ads. The mediated world is in front of us all the time–you’re in it right this moment as you read this blog. Analyzing what an image or set of images is about helps to remove that veil.
Analysis (critical thinking) is the red pill.
So this sociologist, Jean Baudrillard, and a whole slew of other theorists, say that words and images we use are just symbols for what we really mean, that they hide our true intentions, or declare those intentions in surprising ways. How true of advertising!
When you first saw the print ad above last week, before you could read the small print, what did you think? The freaky picture and the large wording “Nicco Teen” seems to give clear clues to its intent–but I’ve been in this business for a lot of years! At any rate, I immediately made a connection–this poster advertises a non-smoking campaign aimed at teens. Indeed.
But what about this one:
Even after clicking in to the page to read the copy, I didn’t notice what it was advertising until I had finished (and did you notice their slogan? Morbid!). In this case the story is buried (yes) beneath several layers of symbol. First you have the font, then the actual words (which don’t seem to make any sense), then that parchment background, and finally the logo very small at the bottom with the “punchline.” What you see doesn’t tell an immediate story, but you are still looking at the image itself to discern the content.
To what does it relate?
Now we are beginning to add new layers of perception–we stop looking at the images and begin looking through them. In general, we think of this step as the application of cultural rhetoric. This will begin to bring in issues such as values, judgements and secondary stories. Back to Halo.
I grew up with a cultural rhetoric of model battlefields. I had friends whose fathers built them. My dad loved them, and so we went to such exhibits at museums. That is what I see, that is the story I tell, and that is the rhetorical memory to which I relate those ads. But there’s more. Since I don’t play Halo but I do read a considerable amount of high fantasy (Tolkien) and sci-fi, I watch that ad and label the “creatures” as orcs. I’m certain that is not what they are called inside the game, but it doesn’t matter.
What I’m doing is giving you a glimpse into the workings of my brain in that split instance of recognition. I relate what I see to something I already know. What was your initial thought? How does that differ from how a classmate might see it? Do the men in the class have a different response than the women?
These questions represent the crux of what makes this ad work in my analysis of its visual rhetoric. The folks who wrote the ad copy were aware of a multiplicity of audiences. The original ad, which is a minute and a half long is great, but whoever made the decisions for the short version–both visual and aural–got it right.
Here’s another visual treat:
This one tickles me. The entire Toyota Yaris campaign is heavy on visual rhetoric. In each, the car acts in its own interest to smash or capture a “critter” of some kind. In each case, the interaction leads to a single point about the car that will make it attractive to a different set (or perhaps different but overlapping sets) of buyers.
My dad likes the one where a “spider” made out of gas tank nozzles approaches the car and gets squished! The Yaris gets 40 mpg. Target market aquired. I like the iPod extra. But I also want to get good gas mileage, so my group overlaps with my dad’s group. Because of our cultural rhetorics, we share some values and not others.
And this ad is a good place to bring in the secondary story. Like the Halo ad, there is no voiceover, so I must tell myself the story. I see a CG ad of an iPod made to look like a fly, and a Yaris made to react like a frog. The content is informing me of a popular feature on this model. My secondary story may come from the image of the car rocking at the end of the spot–I picture myself driving this car, rocking out to my personal tunes.
Good advertising will do that without your notice, unless you have trained your brain to notice. It will put you “in the driver’s seat,” make you imagine biting in to that cheesecake bite or pull you deeply enough in to the world of the game that you are already playing it in your head.
How is it composed?
Why do local ads rarely make it in my analyses? I’m not saying I will never use a local ad as an example, but for the most part they are poorly composed. The writing is usually bad, the acting is bad, the film is bad, the editing is bad, the CG work is bad. For example:
This is creepy! And stupid! And way too busy! And nonsensical! ACK! Who would ever shop there? When I was a kid, one of the local car dealers had a nephew who would dress up as some arbitrary celebrity–for example, at Christmas he might be Abe Lincoln–and screech out every word in a high-pitched voice. He ended each commercial with a sing-song line: “Open Sunday after church!” I can imitate him like a pro…but I can also tell you that an old, family business went under because of these low-quality ads.
Are you sick of Halo yet? I don’t care! Watch it again. Can you identify any production values?
First, high quality film will always look high quality, even at a low-resolution. The colors are richer and more saturated, the dimension is deeper. Second, the art direction on this spot is impeccable. We are looking at video game characters rendered in 3D. Watch the sweep of the camera angles and the movement juxtaposed against the stationary figures.
Now watch this for live-action camera movement:
A good camera crew makes all the difference in the world. But cameras are expensive and good operators are scarce. This is why you find such a disparity in quality between national and local ad production.
Of course there is more to ad composition than film and camera angles. The image has to work with what is being said. And still images (which is what we are working on first) have to be planned for the most impact.
About ten years ago I directed a print ad campaign for a chemical production company in Texas. The art director wanted to take the photographer in to the lab to get a shot of scientists working on research. Yawn. The photographer took the desired shots, then ran everyone out, set up his lights with some colored filters and took closeup shots of beakers, test tubes and jars of chemicals. They were out of this world. One of those shots was in all of my client’s national advertising for a year, as they went head to head with Dow Chemical in their industry publications.
Using good judgment is part of the artistic process. You know what works for you, what might work for your audience. Your final project does not have to be “designed,” but you should be able to articulate what the image in your print ad will be.
What details matter?
Quick, you have 30 seconds! What details of your commercial matter?
If you didn’t say “all of them” then you haven’t been paying attention! We are only halfway through the semester and so far we have covered a wealth of details. But when it comes to your images, even the smallest thing can make or break your picture.
If you are working with people in a photo or video shoot, you often have to stop action to fix garments and hair. Lighting can affect shadow, color, even facial expression. The wrong background can make a product look classy, or completely cheesy.
On a recent product shoot, the client insisted that their oil field products be shot on a clean white background. I thought I was going to die! My photographer was nearly in revolt, and in order to eliminate shadows we had to rig up a special tripod for the camera with lights underneath. The result? None of the shadowless photos were worth a fig. They showed every flaw, oily spot and paint chip. They were washed out and had no dimension at all. The picture we ended up using (shown in a mockup of their brochure here) had shadows and required considerably less light, and it still managed to blend beautifully with a full white background:
This is not a beautiful shot, nor is it an exciting product. But I use it as an example of never taking anything for granted. I am bothered by inconsistencies in ads (we have a doozy coming up when we get to the section on Sound!). I notice attention to detail and, whether you realize it or not, so do you. Something off, something not quite right will give you a bad impression of a product or the company that sells it.
Does that mean that a perfectly detailed ad will always sell you? Not necessarily. All of my girlfriends and I are offended by this spot, which is perfect in every detail:
This has one of the most gorgeous production values of any ad I’ve ever seen. It tells a story, the people are beautiful, they don’t show the product in a way that seems fake or “planted,” and they even have the physical details of arousal right, such as the woman’s extra-pouty lips in one closeup. Sheesh. The last detail–an absolutely perfect detail–is what puts it over the top for every woman I know. It’s like watching porn on network television! Embarrassing.
So, what details matter? What images, fonts, colors, graphics will you need to convey the story you want to tell; to invite your audience in to that story; to provide just the right amount of information and the right quality for your needs?
