Task 3 - Analysing a television advertisement in detail.

This is the McDonald's advert that involves two type of target audience. The director of this advert as successfully used four elements of Film Language to give this advert the everyday life feeling. The characters used in this adverts are the typical characters we see in real life.

For example the boys in a group are of several colours, in most cases nowadays boys of the age 16 to 18 usually hang around interracial group of friends (Black, Asian, White) also the boys were

This advert can be seen as a comparison of the life of young adults to the ones of elderly people but the only thing they would do the same is eat a McDonald’s burger. At the beginning of the advert the young boys are shown sitting on a pavement and listening to hip hop music and rapping to it, this is typical for boys of that age. The elderly man is shown listening to music but in an old fashioned way, the music player he uses is old school.

The second comparison is where one of the boys is getting a haircut from one of his friends and we can see them laughing and arguing, the old man on the other hand went into the barbers shop and has a serious face which is an opposite to the situation of the boys.

The third comparison is shown when the boys were walking down the street, one of the boys had his trousers underneath his backside which is popularly known as “sagging pants” which most young people see as cool. On the other hand the old man is shown pulling his trouser to the top of his belly which most mature people would see as appropriate.

The last comparison was when the boys played the Xbox and the elderly man played pool, again we see that the old man is a lot more focused on his game and the young boys were shouting during the whole period they played the Xbox.

Finally both the elderly man and the young boys got into McDonald, one of the boys and the man both produced the same kind of behaviour. They both poured the fries into the cover of the burger box at the same time, they both dipped the fries into the sauce at the same time, and when they realised they were doing the same thing they looked at each other and smiled and carried on eating.

At the end of the advert there was a short quote that said “We all have McDonald’s in common”. This was very useful because it referred back to the video where everything the young boys and the elderly man did were opposite but the only time there behaviour we alike was when they ate McDonald’s.

The Cinematography the shots used to follow the boys and the man were mostly long shots. Close ups and medium shots were also involved for example in the scene of the boys and the Man in McDonald. There was a close up of the vintage music player when the man put the song on. More medium shot were used in the studio room when the boys played Xbox and when the Elderly man played pool.

The advert is a good example of the realist narrative advert and it also uses a bit of humour in the scenes that involved the young boys.

The sound involved the music from the elderly man’s room while he sipped from his cup and from the boys when they sat on the pavement and the song that was played from the phone. Diegetic sounds of footsteps makes us know they a in a group and Non-diegetic background noises makes it sound like the everyday life.

Most of the time, the lightning were bright which added a happy theme to it. It is also a typical for young boys to be seen at that time of the day on the other hand it is not typical to find elderly people in McDonald's. They are mostly seen in cafes. This advert succeeded in breaking the stereotype usually stuck to elderly people about them being boring, miserable and not wanting to have fun.