In Robert Scholes article “On Reading a Video Text”, he explains to his audience that watching a video is more appealing than reading text, for example, an article, or essay. Scholes states, “Slow motion allows us an extraordinary penetration into the mechanics of movement, and combined with music; lends a balletic grade to ordinary forms of locomotion”. In other words, the complexity of videos, with music and slow motion attracts us more than text would. Scholes supports this point by giving an example of a commercial made in 1982 pinpointing on a black man striving to become a baseball umpire. In the commercial, the umpire works very hard to be an umpire in major league baseball. He does so by first going through the minor leagues “where the pace of events is slower and more relaxed than it is at ‘the top’”. Then eventually he makes his way to the majors. Near the end of the commercial, the umpire gets to take a “big break”, share a toast with the manager- and be rewarded with a Budweiser beer. Scholes also informs the reader that video texts are a form of ‘cultural reinforcement’. This means that, when a person views another person behaving like them- they get a sense of ‘belonging’. Scholes states, "By cultural reinforcements, I mean the process through video texts confirm viewers in their ideological positions and reassure them as to their membership in a collective cultural body." This to me means that, commercials in a way ‘manipulate’ humans so we feel a sense of belonging.
On the other hand, I analyzed the commercial Sleepwalker – Coca Cola. This commercial starts off by a man waking up in the middle of the night; in a tent- in the desert may I add. The man then begins to sleep walk. The man sleepwalks through very dangerous settings. Such as, a tree with cheetahs in it, he bumps into a massive elephant, canoes across a river, dodges a hippo, comes face to face with a hissing snake- then finally the commercial concludes with the man finding a refrigerator filled with Coca Cola. I bet you can guess what happens next, he cracks the top and takes a big refreshing gulp. This commercial impacted me in the fact that you don’t know what is going to happen next, he stumbles upon very dangerous things – and you find yourself very relieved when he finally discovers the refrigerator and wakes up. In my perspective, Coca Cola wanted to inform the viewer that their product is both refreshing and fantastic (why the man sleepwalked there).
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