Small Screen to Large Screen

 

 

The assignment for this post was to find a video that can be easily converted between two screens. The above YouTube video is a recent advertisement for Apple's newest creation, the iPad Air. The ad reminds me a lot of the Lexus ES commercial shown on our class blog, here. As the video plays from frame to frame, the pencil remains in the center of the screen, illustrating the law of continuity. There's a sense of secrecy as the ad plays out, making the viewer wonder about the relationship between an ordinary pencil and the extraordinary iPad. The narrator's voice is deep and sultry, adding to the suspense. It's not until the last frame that the viewer sees the iPad hidden behind the pencil and knows what significance the pencil has to the iPad. The figure/ground relationship of the pencil is also well-presented, in that the pencil is the figure (element in focus) and the background doesn't draw away from that focus. As the video ends, a person picks up the iPad, but only the person's hands are shown so that the iPad (the new figure) remains in focus. Lastly, the iPad logo is flashed onto the center of the screen before the video goes to black, leaving the viewer's eyes centered continually from start to finish.