Guinness surfer advert

The Idea ItselfThe idea behind the advert

came from this painting aptly named Neptune’s horses by Walter Crane in 1893.

‘The spirit of the wave is physically embodied in enormous white horses which are charging through the water with them.’

Editing/Shots Establishing shotClose up, eye level shot of the main protagonist (15 seconds long)

Cut to long shots of a group of surfers entering the water this is all done on a hand held camera

(giving the impression to the audience of being with them on the beach)The cuts are all straight and are very quick, this helps to build up the

momentum of the piece. There are many different types of shots used for example the birds eye

view shows the sheer size of the wave approaching they also use shots that from many different angles including inside and

outside of the wave

Editing/ShotsConfusion is created here by the speed of cuts Another technique used is the changes between slow motion

and real time

The influential shot of the man on top of the wave, victorious. It sums up the whole moral of this piece, the man has waited maybe his whole life to ride this one wave and he has now achieved it.

The simple shot at the end, after the silent scene, of the poured Guinness is good because it is so simple.

Lighting

Subliminal messaging in the use of black and white filming.

The contrast is set high and it is dark until the very end where there is a white out cut to introduce the conclusion.

SoundThe background music used is by left field the

song is called Phat Planet and was made especially for this advert

The song is simple and can be associated with a very high heart rate

The narrative is an extract from Moby Dick

There is no actual diagetic sound

SilenceThe silent scene is

The Moral(How they convey their message)

The essence of this composition is that sometimes you have to wait to get the best

The campaign that was launched with this advert was to make people in their busy lives to make a little more time towards waiting.

Guinness says it takes 119.5 seconds to pour a Guinness properly

History of the clipand background information

Directed by Jonathan Glazer who apart from this is best known for directing music videos for such artists as Radiohead, Jamiroquai and blur to name a few.

In 1999, when the advert was released, it won best advert for that year and three years later was announced best ‘ad of all time’ by channel 4 and the Sunday times