Pepsi Commercial

The Pepsi commercial is a narrative because it tells a story about this young boy who lives amongst Chinese Monks. He begins training at a young age and at the end of the minute long commercial he is at least 10 years older. To be a narrative, the story must have the events linked by causality (a causes b and b causes c). The events in the commercial tell a story about a young boy who trains with monks and when he is older he “performs” in front of all the elders.

The commercial uses discontinuity editing to flashback to the future. They use a quick flash of a black screen to jump to the boy as a young adult. The music in the beginning is very ethnic and a bit positive and then when it transitions to the future there is a “monster” like sound that is scary and the music stops for a while when the man is performing for the monks. Then the original music from the beginning of the commercial starts up again when all the characters in the commercial celebrate.

The cinematography in the Pepsi commercial is distinctive. The extreme long shot scale is used often to emphasize the vast land of China and how small the young boy is compared to the monks that are training him. The camera focuses often on the facial expressions of the characters.