This commercial has numerous jump-cuts, I will break it down within one second intervals, describing any and each shots that occur within those one second intervals.
The music that plays throughout the spot is a low dublike, funky electronic beat, modern and sparse. Unless otherwise noted the music is playing in each scene.
1. (LS, static camera) Establishing shot showing the “Male Engineer (mE) and Female Engineer (fE) in some type of factory or hangar setting, with white coated individuals moving perpendicular to the camera in the far background. The mE wears a lab coat, gloves and a turtleneck, all are white, he is apparently in his fifties and has close cropped gray hair. The fE wears a very short lab(skirt?), and a neck scarf, also all white, she is significantly younger, with a very severe high fashion coiffure. Both the mE and the fE are caucasian. The mE is to the right in the foreground, the fE is slightly left in the mid-ground and a gaudy neon green sports car (tuner style) is in behind both. In the far background other workers, dressed entirely in white, wearing hard hats and boots move around. This dialoge initial dialog is delivered to the the viewer.
mE: “Yooooooo”
As the mE says this, one hand is in his lab coat, suggestively on his genital region, while the other is raised in front of his neck with four fingers showing. His posture and hand motion is reminiscent of a gang sign. Behind him. fE stands pouting and motionless, one hand high up on her left thigh and her left leg turned out slightly.
2. (CU, static camera) Shot of mE showing another “gang sign”, one that resembles the Volkswagon logo. His hands are placed in front of his face, one eye looking out through the “V” in the sign.
mE: “Veeeee”
3. (CU, static camera) Another shot of mE, slightly closer then the last shot, flashing another “gang sign”. Again the right hand is making a “V” and the left a “W”, however this time he is holding them in front of this face, fingers pointing towards each other while moving his hands apart.
mE: “Duuuuub”
4. (MS, static camera) Shot is centered on fE in the foreground, the gaudy green sports car behind her. At this point we get a better look at both the sports car and fE. Her outfit combined with her scarf make her appear disproportionate, her neck seems impossibly long. As mE says “got” fE begins to gesture, with an outstretched arm, to her right while her gaze stays fixed on a point in the distance to the right and behind the camera.
VO(mE): “Got”
5. (CU, static camera) Cut to tight shot of fE. It becomes apparent that she has heavy eye make-up on, she looks very dismissively to her right. As mE says the word “Mike” her head nods as if laughing to herself.
VO(mE): “Mike”
6. (MS, static camera) Cut to shot of Mike, young (twenty-something) caucasian male, with black hair. He is wearing a yellow sports jersey a gold chain and earrings. As he heres his name, Mike brings his hands up to his chest, pats himself and looks around confidently. As he raises his hands it becomes apparent that Mike is wearing more gold jewelry on his hands and writsts. As the first full sentence from mE is finished, it becomes clear that his english is heavily accented.
VO(mE): “in daaa house”
7. (CU, static camera) Cut to tight shot of mE, a portion of the car is visible in the background he talks. While saying the line mE raises his right hand an lowers it, in a stylized greeting gesture.
mE: “Whats up!”
8. (MS, static camera) Shot of mE and fE moving backwards in unison to either side of the sports car. The shot is centered on the car, fE moves to the left of the car, and mE moves to the right. While moving backwards mE gestures to the disproportionately large air scoop on the hood of the car, his hand stopping when he gets to the word “vip”
mE: “und his tricked out vip”
9. (MS, static camera) Cut to shot centered on mE. The camera for this shot seems to be lowered ever so slightly, the result being that the viewer is looking up towards mE, and more of the ceiling of the warehouse building can be seen. As mE says the word “dis” he gestures to something off the screen, presumably in the direction of the car, simultaneously moving his head back and to his right in a look of suspicion.
ME: “Vat does dis do?”
10.(CU, static camera) Cut to tight shot of the oversized yellow air scoop on the sports car. Within the shot we can also see the hood and windshield of the car, as well as the lab coat of mE to the right of the car and the hand of fE on the air scoop.
VO Mike: “It sucks in air.”
11.(MS, static camera) Camera is now centered on car again. To the left of the car fE suggestively leans on the hood and strokes the air scoop. To the right of the car mE stands slightly back gesturing towards the vehicle. While fE is saying here line she leans more into the car and puts extra emphasis on the word “sucking”. It becomes clear that her english is also heavily accented. As fE begins her line mE begins to move into the foreground, as she utters the word “sucking” mE points to Mike. As mE delivers her line the music stops for maximum impact.
fE: “It's definitely sucking.”
12. (MS, static camera) Cut to a medium shot of mE as he is pointing to Mike. The fact that this gesture is continued in this shot give continuity. As he speaks, mE moves towards the camera in the shot. He speaks quickly, his words almost impossible to understand due to his heavy accent, and the structure of his sentence. The car can still be seen in the background. The music begins again when mE gestures and says “Yo”.
mE: “Yo Mikey wan us to unpimp dis”
13. (MS, static camera) Cut to shot of Mike looking to his left with a confused look on his face. As he looks off screen to the right he leans back to the left. Meanwhile, fE gazes at Mike and saunters towards both him and the camera. The car can be seen in the lower right of the shot.
VO mE: “ting let me hear you say”
14. (CU, static camera) Tight shot of mE's face as he says his line. His mouthing of the word, as well as his body language is extremely exaggerated. The dialog from scene 12 – 14 is continuous switching back and forth from spoken to voice-over.
mE: “vaat?”
15. (CU, static camera) Close shot of a confused Mike, staring off to the right of the camera. The music again stops when Mike says his line.
Mike: “What?”
16. (CU, static camera) Close shot of mE over time his eyes move from the left side of the screen to looking down and away from the camera. His look is at once confused and contemplative. Though he seems slightly surprised, Mike's answer was the one he was apparently waiting for.
17. (LS, static camera) Shot of all three characters, the car has been moved noticeably into the background. Mike looks at mE, hands by his side. FE stands, one hand on her him and one leg slightly turned so that her feet are at 90 degree angles, staring out into the camera. ME stares off into the distance his hand placed on some type of industrial looking control panel on a wheeled cart. As he presses a button on the panel the sound of machinery can be heard.
18. (CU, static camera) Tight shot of mE, his eyes begin off camera to the lower right of the screen (presumably on the panel) and they move over to the left of the screen towards Mike. The sound of the machinery gets considerably louder.
19.(LS, static camera) Full shot of all three, the positions of the characters is virtually identical to those in shot 17, however likely due to post-production effects work the specific frames that make up this shot are somewhat distorted particularly around the green sports car. The mechanical noise gets increasingly louder and the wrecking ball comes in from the right of the sports car, impacting it on the passenger side door. As it impacts it makes considerable noise, and Mike turns around to see the car, crushed, being swept off screen.
20.(MS, static camera) At the beginning of the shot the green sports car is framed so that the right quarter panel is centered. This shot shows the impact of the wrecking ball again from a different, closer angle. The noise of the impact is heard again. The green car is again swept off the screen to the right. As the car is moved, behind it appears another car, presumably the Volkswagon.
21.(MS, static camera) Again we see yet another angle of the green car being struck by the wrecking ball. This time the shot is taken from directly in front of the car. The shot begins with the wrecking ball having already contacted the passenger side door, the green car is swept of the screen in the first tenth of a second. Again, behind it, appears the Volkswagon, on the floor in front of it appears detritus (broken glass, plastic) from the green sports car. The other factory workers move around in the background.
VO mE: “Vee dub!”
22.(LS, static camera) Music begins again as the Volkswagon is now in the center of the screen. Each of the characters begins to move from the positions that they occupied in 19. Mike move back, away from the camera towards the car. FE moves from the left of the car across the bumper to the right of the car. ME moves from the right of the car slightly forward, directly into the center of the screen. As he says his line he kneels down and gives another exaggerated VW gang sign. As he kneels fE puts her hand on her hips and shifts her weight to one leg.
mE: “holding it down on ze engineering tip y'all.”
23.(MS, static camera) Shot is centered on mE in the foreground, showing his gang sign, the Volkswagon (perfectly framed by the shot) in the background and mE to the right of the vehicle, hands on her hips staring at the camera. ME delivers the line in an exaggerated fashion.
mE: “Jaaa?”
24.(LS, static camera) The final shot of the ad shows the Volkswagon, turned 45 degrees to the camera. Four white safety cones surround the car. The narrator begins speaking in clear english. As the shot progresses, below and to the right of the car the Volkswagon logo appear, simultaneously to the left and below the car the url “vwfeatures.com” appears.
VO Narrator: “The GTI mark five, pre-tuned by German engineers”
A young, culture savvy consumer base demands punchy and sticky advertising. This simple, and relatively short segment for the Volkswagon GTI Mark V packs a surprising number of varied shots into twenty-nine seconds. The producers of this ad were clearly interested in conveying a discreet image for both Volkwagon and this particular model of car. In order to cultivate this image they employed a combination of visual tactics, ironic humor, sex and precise metering in the pace of this segment. The result is an extremely slick, well paced ad, with high production values that exploits some very basic perceptions to achieve its goal.
The visual structure of this segment is deceptively simple. The entirety of the set, the costumes of the characters, and the car itself are predominantly white, or gray. Those visual elements that pop out are naturally those that have color. Both the character Mike and his car are presented in highly saturation colors. This serves to immediately separate both him and his car from their surroundings. Visually, it becomes clear that these items are brought in from the outside, alien to both the engineers and their industrial setting. This separation becomes critical for conveying the relationship between Mike and the engineers with a certain amount of economy. There is no room for background information in the sparse narrative, we are only given the information “got Mike in da house”. The understanding that Mike is “other” relies on visual delineation.
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