Assignment 5. TV commercial

The images of commercial and advertisement could be analyzes in a different number of ways. Marchin in the book Introduction to multimodal analysis (2007) shows few levels of the analysis which could tell about agency and ability “to act upon the world” (Marchin, 2007, p. 109).

The main focus of Marchin’s analysis is on positioning viewers in relations with people inside the image. This includes three main levels which are gaze, angle of interaction and distance. Each of them shows how the image was constructed and for which purpose.

The first step of the analysis is studying of the gaze. Gaze is about contact or interaction between person on image with a viewer. There are number of ways how interaction could be depicted. One of the most famous examples is a poster “I want you for the U.S. army”. The same principle is used on poster from USSR which asks a viewer “Did you volunteer?”

 

This type of poster is useful because it makes a connection with a viewer. Person inside an image look at the viewer and hand which points towards the viewer makes this connection stronger. It could be said that this pointing finger create an illusion of responsibility which is upon the viewer since he was that image.

Also. there are images when there is no such gaze to the viewer and people inside the image look on each other or just to another direction. This way is about not creating the connection and could serve other aims.

Next level of analysis is about angle of interaction. Marchin points that ” the angle from which we view a person can suggest different relations between the people represented and the viewer” (2007, p. 113). There are different angles from which we could see the people on an image. The horizontal angle suggests that viewer is in the same position with the person on image and should feel the same. There is also a vertical angle. The person who looks down has a dominant position and a person who looks up seems more vulnerable.

 

There are two posters from the commercial of Breaking Bad series, On a first poster which is for season 2 of this series the viewer is on the same level as characters or, at least, really close to this level. There is an impression that the viewer is sitting with these people and his eye level confirms that. In my point of view, this shows that characters are just like the viewers. They are ordinary people but they are just trying to deal with extraordinary situation. Nevertheless, poster for season 3 is changed. Now viewer is looking up to see the figures of the characters. They look dominant and even dangerous.

Finally, distance between viewer and people on the image works for establishing the close connection if distance is short and the absence of relations if distance is big. Here is another poster for Breaking Bad commercial. The faces of people on the image are close to the viewer which makes a link or a connection to them. Moreover, the angry gazes to the viewer make this connection even stronger.

Also, Marchin mentions the kinds of participants on the image. This is important for the commercial of many products because it could show the main audience. There are three ways to analyse kinds of participants. It could be studied is there an individual on the image or a group. Secondly, the categorization could be examined and, finally, the non-representation is important for this analysis.

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