Media Coursework - 'Fire Kills' Primary Research

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57XocAzLs34

The muffling of the mixed noises at the beginning makes the audience try and piece together what has happened because of the close-up shot of the man's grey looking face and the muffled sounds. Anyone watching would assume that whatever has happened isn't good. The main suggestions that came to mind that either he had been hit by a car and was coming out of conciousness, or was dead and it was just what was going on around him.
When the camera zooms out, the man gasps deeply, as if he has just came into realisation of what has happened to him and begins to hysterically cry. There is a bandage on his arm, indicating that actually he isn't dead because the hospital wouldn't have just bandaged a mans arm up if he was dead.
As the camera zooms out even more it allows the audience to take note of the setting. The setting is presumed to be the man's house which is brown and worn with crispy wall paper, stained floors and melted toys etc. This suggest that his house has been burned down in a house-fire. As this is happening the voice of what sounds like a young girl saying "daddy" echoes throughout the house and throughout the man's head. It is implied that there was a housefire and the man lost his family due to it.
A voice-over then goes on to say that "a fire doesn't have to kill you to take your life". It offers a help-line for if their are any questions or if you would like a handbook on the matter.

I found this advert very effective as it's not like the usual advert which involves a criminal offence and what that could do to your life - this advert is something that everybody can benefit from in day-to-day life. It's aim to to raise awareness to have your smoke alarm batteries checked regularly to avoid losing your family. The fact that a child is involved injects valnerability into the advert because it makes the audience think 'poor innocent child' because the advert isn't indicating that it was the child's fault. The man looks very distraught and from the beginning when you think back to it - very ill. The whole situation looks as though it has caused the man some psychological damage due to the beginning where it looks as though he doesn't really know what's going on and looks lost. I would assume that the target audience would be anybody who has a family because the advert would make them think that they don't want that situation to apply to them.

From this advert, i would like to take using children into consideration so that it will really tug the heart-strings of the audience. You don't need a family to create a reaction of sympathy for children because people without children can sympathise for others with children. Children are considered vaulnerable so it can make the p/s/a more impacting. Also, the use of the muffling music leaves the advert to the audiences imagination at parts which i think can be very effective if you can't get across the intensity. I would like to consider using this too.