I was trying to find an entertaining commercial, and I feel that this Toyota RAV4 commercial is hilarious. The point of the commercial is to show a husband and wife fighting to get to their car first. They both want to drive it to work, so the commercial is a series of tricks that they play on each other. They both do everything humanly possible to stop the other from getting in the car first. It was really entertaining.
Although, I really enjoyed this commercial, it wasn’t the most complex, digitally speaking. It was very simple; however, it was very obvious that the producer of this commercial put a lot of effort into making sure that every little piece was there for the audience to observe. This commercial requires a lot of attention. If the audience isn’t paying attention the entire time, they will have little to no clue what is happening.
Digitally speaking, the transitions are all quick, clean cuts. And the main camera movements/techniques consist mainly of framing and zooming. However, every technique has intent behind it. The intent is to give the audience a foreshadowing into what will eventually occur.
The commercial begins with a view of the house with the RAV4 sitting in the driveway. The audience has no clue at this point what the commercial is advertising. Then it cuts to the husband and wife happy in bed. Only to then cut to the wife from a different angle with an evil look on her face.
Once the wife gets up, is when the fun begins. The wife goes into the shower, where the shower curtain frames her body to draw emphasis on her bare, unclothed back. She then steps into the shower where it cuts to the blow drier on the floor. Here, there’s an impact cut to show the wife getting thrown against the bathroom wall from the shock she received.
Next, it cuts to the husband who awakens to his wife’s incident; however, he smiles rather then worrying. This is the first key that they’re doing these acts against one another. This is followed by many more. Such as when he goes to look out the window—the window that frames his RAV4 to draw attention to it—when the window falls down on his neck. He rises up and the camera zooms in on the string, which is framed by the wood and curtain. This helps the audience realize that the window had been rigged to fall on his head.
It returns to the wife where she is framed from inside the closet by the two closet doors. A cut zoom out takes place and a bowling ball falls onto her head. Then the camera zooms in a string that crosses the staircase, the husband trips and there are numerous multi-take cuts as he falls down the stairs. This is followed by a scene with the wife smiling and flossing her teeth with the same string used to trip her husband.
The wife tries to sneak past her husband passed out at the foot of the stairs, but he jumps up and spits out his tooth. The both fight each other to get outside first. As they’re approaching the car, they realize that neither of them have their keys. Yet, the husband actually has his, he was just faking it to get the car fist. He gets in the car as the wife runs back to the house, where she starts smelling in the kitchen. The camera quickly switches its focus onto the stove, just as the house blows up. The next cut takes the audience back to the husband in the car happy because he believes he won, only to zoom out and see the wife on top of the car.
As I said earlier, there’s not a lot of digital effects or camera techniques to this commercial; however, there was a lot of effort put into this commercial, which turns into a mini sitcom.
Interestingly enough, the first time I saw this commercial, I didn’t understand that each catastrophe one of the characters endured was an operation staged by the other. That probably speaks to my absentmindedness. Instead, I thought its point was to demonstrate that no matter how much disaster we encounter, this car will always be there to serve as our safe haven. I think it probably works on this level too, but it’s certainly funnier when approached as a no-holds-barred battle of wills. I think some of the pranks might be a little too severe, however, pushing the limits of good humor. The man cracking his neck back in to place, for example, might straddle the line. Altogether, though, I agree the commercial was done thoughtfully and relatively simply. It makes its point, keeps the product in frame of reference the entire time, and encorporates a funny narrative.