PSA review

Public Service Announcement is some kind of advertising of social problems that exist in our society nowadays, and which are need to be seen and solved as soon as possible for the sake of our generation. Our previous assignment was making a PSA for the university issues. I and my partner decided to choose the problem of spread depression among students of Nazarbayev University. We showed that there are a lot of reasons for depression and that even if your friend doesn't tell you about his or her problems, it doesn't mean that they don't have any of them. Also, for our PSA we included the ways of how this issue can be solved and added some shocking and impressive facts about the depression. If you are interested in our work, I will leave the link to the video below this blog post.

Choosing the theme of our own PSA, I spent a lot of time watching different works on YouTube. There are plenty of PSA's made on diverse themes and every one of them are completely different. Not only by the content but also by the way how authors implemented their ideas and how the whole picture looks like. For this blog post, I decided to choose the work of the Heart & Stroke Foundation, titled "Make Health Last. What will your last 10 years look like?". The reason why chose this PSA is because I liked the idea of the video itself, and I liked the way this was shown for the audience. Later I will criticize this work, but at the beginning, I want to mention that the issue raised in a PSA is current not only in Canada (where this video shooted) but also is a common problem for the whole world.

The main audience of this promo is everyone. Literally. The fact that the actors are relatively old, and that the title is about the lifestyle at the last 10 years of life, doesn't mean that the audience is old people in ages of the 60s. The video itself shows the importance of healthcare from the very young ages. So, I think that this video will be interesting and helpful for everyone to watch. Furthermore, I think that PSA videos usually have no exact audience, cause there are real issues, common to the whole of mankind.

Let's discuss technical and camera aspects of the PSA. In the very beginning, the very first shot or the establishing shot is a red background with a corporation name on it. The next shot is an introduction to the topic and an animation of the facts about heart diseases. The voice of woman narrates about the actions taken by the corporation in order to raise the awareness of Canadians about the heart disease, and then shortly mentions the actions started to be taken in 2012 in order to solve it. By the next shot, a short 1-minute life video starts. The establishing shot (ES) starts with a picture of the two different environments. The interesting point of the video is that it is made like a comparison. So, in order to show to different possible lives of the one same person, the author used a technique of a split screen.

On the one side, there is a sunrise on the background of the beautiful nature, on the other side, there is a sunrise view from the windows of the hospital. From the very beginning, the viewer understands what those stories will be about, and this is a huge advantage to the very first, establishing shot.

The next scenes are simple and very similar to each other. There are scenes of the lives of one person, but two possibilities. One of them is healthy enough to live a full life, with a smile, family and power. And another one is a life of an ill person, who is has to survive in hospital, and who is dependent on all the medical stuff. His life is full of pain and fear of the next day.

The second scene is a close-up shot on the foot of the main hero. We did not see his face still, but we see that on the one side main hero puts on snickers, and on the other side slippers. Then with a cut, scene changes to the full and long shot of the main hero, a nearly 60-years old man, on the one side sitting on the porch of his house tying shoelaces, and on the other side sitting on the hospital bed wearing his slippers. Again, scene switches to another one and the close-up shot of the two different wheels rolling is shown. On the one side there is a bicycle wheel, and on the other: a wheel of a disabled carriage. Then these scenes cut to the full shot of men, one of which is riding his bicycle, and another one is ridden by the nurse on the carriage. (Every future scene are transitioned by the cut or switching.) Next, there is a full shot of the stairs on one side and stairs with a helping machine on the other. Then on the one side appears special equipment for garden work, and on the another, different pills and medicines. The next scene is a medium two shot of the main hero with a granddaughter playing together on the one side, and a main hero sitting with a nurse on the other. After this, by my mind, the most emotional and powerful scene occurs. On the one side, the long shot of a men tying his tie and standing in front of his happy wife is shown, then this scene zoom-in to the close-up shot of the men. And on another side, the same men tyes his breathing tube closer to his neck (following with a zoom-in to close-up shot as on the first side), with a tired wife on the background. Looking at that scene I am very impressed. Those zoom-in to the close-up shot became to be a very powerful technique, in this situation.

After this, we see a close-up shot on the hand of the men, on the one side we see his watches on the hand, and a medical label on the other. Next one is a full shot of the whole family sitting on the dinner at the house on the one side, and a men sitting with his wife in a hospital bed on the other. After all, everything ends up with a kiss of wife to the cheeks of men.

The whole video is followed by the voice of the men who makes a comparison of these two possible lives. He is questioning a viewer on his or her peferences. Which side do we like most? Which one will we choose? Which of them will be our future?

Then the video ends and cuts up to the animation again. The voice of a women tells us about their working site, where we can pass the risk assessment in order to know our conditions of the heart. This site navigates people and shows what they were doing wrong, and how they can change things to a better way. On the screen, we see different pictures of the site, its content, and the way to work with it. Moreover, women tell us some statistics on heart diseases, shows us solutions to a wrong lifestyle and adviced us on a healthy life.

Making a conclusion, I would like to say that overall, I like this PSA very much. I, myself, have relatives who suffer from heart diseases, and probably, if they saw this PSA in their adulthood, things would not end up in that way, as it did. Our generation should be able to decide whether they are ready to suffer at their old times, or they can work now, to the brightest future. I like every shot in this short movie, but, probably, I would like to end a little bit different transitions between scene. Somewhere I needed to see a field-in and field-out movements, but everything was made up by the cut or switching.

Their website: https://www.heartandstroke.ca/get-healthy

My video: https://vimeo.com/297766076