The Game Ending Hunger
0:00
The ad starts by showing 4 kids looking into the same direction. No facial hair and a bunch of babyfaces, which make me assume that they are young teenagers. The kid in the blue is constantly dribbling the ball. He must play for fun because all coaches teach don’t look at the ball. They have to be playing at a local park. You can see a caged fence and a tree with no leaves. Who are they looking at? Are they playing 4 on 4?
0:01
The ad introduces 4 other kids. 2 girls and 2 boys. Why does the first team have only 1 girl and the second one has 2? They must be playing a friendly basketball game because usually, you don’t see girls and boys play together. The kid with the blue shirt and the kid with the curly hair must be the captains of the team. The camera constantly focuses on them. The kid with the curly hair has his hands sticking out. Is the boy with the blue shirt about to pass him the ball? The first group of kids must have the ball first.
0:02
The kid with the curly hair throws the ball back to the kid in the blue shirt. The background shows no houses close by so is it at a school? The courts have nice nets. The two teams are facing eachother near the halfcourt line. Must be a halfcourt only game becuase you will see an inbound when it’s full-court.
0:03-0:10
The first group of kids gets the ball first. The kin in the blue shoots the ball and makes it. Is it make it take it? This court must be old because the coloring looks faded, but the surface still looks smooth. Who will be the first girl to make a shot for their team?
0:08
The kid with the grey shirt performs a no-look pass. He makes it look easy, he has to play basketball.
0:09-0:10
The girl with the white shirt receives the ball and looks like she is ready for the moment. Will she make the shot or will it rim out?
0:11-0:23
The girl with the white shirt must be athletic because after she hit the shot she performed a handstand. This game looks far from over though, they are barely tired. The kid with the black shorts and black shirt performs a layup and makes it. The cameraman must be leaving out clips. The kid does a pull up on the side of the court. Does he lift weights? A lot of people find that hard to do at a young age.
0:24
The boy with the grey shirt and curly hair calls timeout. Why did he stop the game? Is he hurt? Does he have to leave?
0:25-0:28
The boy lips are moving towards the group. What is he saying? Does this mean his mom is strict? Why did the camera zoom in on him? Looks like he really doesn’t want to go home.
0:28-0:30
The kids stop playing and sit down. The white girl with the long hair receives a text and looks at the girl in the grey shirt. Does this mean they are sisters? Why does there mother want them home so early it’s not dark? Is it time for dinner for them too? They must live close by because they aren’t getting picked up or maybe that’s the reason why she told them to come home now so they will make it in before dark.
- This ad didn’t have a 30-second version, but in the end, the boy in the blue shirt is the last one on the court. A caption appears on the screen stating that 1 in 8 Americans struggle with hunger. Does this kid struggle with hunger? All together there were 8 kids and now it’s just him. The ad is trying to inform you of the kids that struggle every day to eat. You can help by donating any type of money, it doesn’t have to be big bills. Feeding America must be a company or organization. The link says “FeedingAmerica.org”, so this must be a way to inform me on where to go when I want to donate.
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Counterintuitivity 
You’ve violated some basics of the assignment mechanics, NUNF. I’m happy to work with you on this, but be careful that your posts conform to the requirements from the first draft. Otherwise, you’ll be wasting time bringing them into compliance during the rewrite cycle.
Videos are to be muted while you watch them, to help you focus ONLY on the visual components of the argument. You’ll need to remove any reference to what the characters say since we’re all supposed to be ignoring the soundtrack.
It’s a shame you didn’t find a 30-second video you liked well enough to select for the assignment. The level of detail needed for the best possible outcome of this assignment would make a 60-second analysis too long (and too much work). But we’ll do what we can with this choice you’ve made.
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The ad starts by showing 4 kids looking into the same direction. No facial hair and a bunch of babyfaces, which make me assume that they are young teenagers. The kid in the blue is constantly dribbling the ball. He must play for fun because all coaches teach don’t look at the ball. They have to be playing at a local park. You can see a caged fence and a tree with no leaves. Who are they looking at? Are they playing 4 on 4?
–Babyfaces is great.
–I love the observation about looking at the ball. If we were meant to be intimidated by his skill, he’d be dribbling expertly while looking straight ahead.
–I think you’re right about the park, but you haven’t first mentioned that they’re outdoors on a basketball court, which seems like a huge omission.
Remember, your reader SEES NOTHING.but what you tell her. Things you might have said in the first second:
The ad begins outdoors on a basketball court, on a warm day in the fall or early spring. The big tree in the background has lost its leaves, or hasn’t started to bud, but the four kids lined up facing our direction are all in short sleeves, so it can’t be winter. The kids, in their early teens to look at them, with their baby faces and lack of facial hair, are a mixed-race, mixed-gender group. The director has cast them deliberately to represent white, black and brown ethnicities, and the one girl represents gender diversity. We can tell by the high chain link fence behind them that they’re in an enclosed outdoor place. The fact that the white boy is bouncing a basketball hints that they’re on a basketball court. Because they are the same age and standing shoulder to shoulder on a basketball court, we assume that they’re a team of four. But the fact that the team has a girl indicates this will be a friendly pickup game. Still, they’re trying to look tough. The girl, possibly Hispanic, is crossing her arms defiantly. The other boys are staring down whatever (whoever?) they’re looking at straight ahead.
Etc.
Much of this you cover tangentially, but so lightly that your reader will not get a good sense of what the scene LOOKS like. You have that responsibility. You’ve already indicated you want to do lots of interpretation (Your observation about the bad dribbling is a good sign). Be sure to ground your RHETORIC observations in clearly described VISUAL observations. That’s how you combine the two halves of the Visual Rhetoric assignment.
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You don’t mention that the two teams are facing one another. You don’t place them at center court. I won’t continue to say what I’m seeing that you aren’t saying, but remember the best version of this writing assignment will make it possible for your reader to accurately visualize the scene YOU’RE watching.
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You don’t mention that the hoops have nets. You don’t mention that this is a really nice court surface. Both details separate this court from many in urban settings that would be bare rims and cracked asphalt. Why?
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You’ll have to lose the Bring It comment unless you’re a REALLY good lip reader. And you don’t hear the squeaks of their shoes (which would never occur on asphalt). The first action sequence is captain on captain. Significant?
So you see where I’m going with this, NUNF. I like your attentiveness and reasoning. Now we need a more detailed narrative that will help us SEE the ad.
As readers, as viewers, we’re never certain what’s important as we receive the author’s message in a time sequence. Early impressions turn out to be wrong. But in the best narratives, spoken, written, or visual, the details add up to a rhetorical argument. We’re not misled (unless for a purpose). We’re guided to follow everything we see, read, or hear to a logical conclusion. Capture that combination of what you’re shown and what it means to uncover the director’s intentions for every frame.
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