Textual Analysis - The Scarecrow Game App

This video is closer to a short film than an advertisement, lasting three and half minutes. The trailer itself is in fact a high quality 3-Dimensional cinematic, the footage of which isn't present in the game, similar to promotional cinematics used for upcoming disney or pixar films. As rare as app game video adverts are anyway, having the trailer as a full cinematic indicates that the company that's made the game is well-established, and also has money enough to use more expensive advertising techniques.

There's no indication to begin with however that the trailer is promoting an app game for a long time, as no actual game footage is shown until the very end of the clip, where there are smaller screens showing snippets of gameplay, as well as the trailer's scene zooming out, revealing it to be playing on an iPad. There is information shown at the end of the trailer on what platforms the game will be coming to. One thing to mention however, that I didn't realise before, is that this game has another shorter trailer that's devoted to the game's content, and there is also a video detailing where the concept of the 'The Scarecrow' came from. Both were made by the same person who uploaded this trailer.

The game and advert are in fact made by a catering company, called Chipotle, who specialise in Mexican Grill and, more importantly, have a policy that 100% of the food stock they import comes from farms that grow their crops and livestock naturally without artificial interference. They designed the game to tie in with this policy, quite possibly as a different way to gain income to expand their cause.

In terms of Mise-en-Scene the setting is shown to be out on a vast, dry, western-esque prairie, where a huge factory has been built this factory farm is called Crow food, and is run by robot crows, and serves as the supplier of food to the entire world. True to the game's title the workers in this factory are not humans but scarecrows, which enables a strong association with farming, as scarecrows are a stereotypical icon for farms growing crops. It also goes against traditional convention, as scarecrows are known to scare crows away from crops, whereas here they're working under them.

The scarecrow referred to in the game's title refers to one particular scarecrow that the trailer revolves around. This scarecrow does maintenance around the factory farm, although it's made clear through the shots that his job is making him hate himself, the reason of which is shown with the shots in the trailer

Due to the Chipotle's ideals about its food, the trailer deliberately makes use of shocking imagery in the factory farm, such as having a chicken casually blown up to a overly plump size with an injection of growth hormones from a robot. A similar one is shown later with a stack of tiny metal boxes, out which living cow's heads are showing. The boxes are shown to be vibrating, as well as having inserted into them, but nothing can be seen of what's going on inside.

Whilst these images are shocking in their own right, the context they're used in is also interesting. Both shots are shown be taken from inside structures that otherwise couldn't be seen into, but have a piece of their outer structure loose or fallen off. These structures come in the form of adverts or posters for the factory, which glamourously portrays their food as naturally grown and 'farm fresh'. Their contents are only shown when the scarecrow is repairing them, and looks in both times before fixing the structure and hiding its contents once again, as per his job requires.

Along with other shots showing the inhabitants casually consuming the factory's foods en masse, it's implied that the inhabitants aren't aware of the atrocities going on within the factory, and another key thing is that the trailer really revolves around a character concealing them as his job indicates, although he may not openly enjoy it.

From these images and shots you can put together the pieces. The trailer is in fact about campaigning for Animal Rights and also to raise awareness of the horrible techniques used in factory grown livestock. The hypocritical advertising represents false promises about the foods, to put the public's minds at ease. The blissfully ignorant citizens represent us, the consumers in real life, who buy and eat factory produced food without a thought as to how it was made, and the scarecrow workman concealing the factory's secrets from prying eyes further represents this ignorance that we have towards factory foods.

The end of the clip does however represent how these techniques can be stopped and changed, when the scarecrow returns home and its shown that he has vegetables growing there. The following day he travels to the city and sets up his own food vendor alongside the factory, where he prepares vegetable based dishes and the inhabitants start to take an interest one by one.

One final thing to mention is the sound used in the trailer. There is very little diegetic sound used in the clip. The only sources of diegetic sound come from the sounds of machines in the factory, and the shrill cries of the robot crows. The key piece of sound comes from a non-diegetic song playing for the duration of the advert.

The mood of the song changes as the trailer goes on, to reflect the change in the mood of the trailer as well. I starts off sounding rather dubious and grim, when the factory is shown from the inside as the scarecrow travels through it, setting the mood of the factory itself. It then strengthens in tone as the scarecrow goes about his job, indicating a stronger message and stronger imagery present within the trailer. It then changes in key considerably when the scarecrow returns home and starts up the vegetable business, becoming far more positive and glorious sounding.

The lyrics of the song, when listened to carefully, have deep meaning to them about the advert's portrayals. It partially talks about how imagination is prettier to look at than what happens in reality, which ties into the facade created by the factory about its foods. It also talks about how it isn't impossible to see the ideal world that you dream of, and that changing the world really isn't difficult at all, which ties into the Scarecrow taking action against the factory, by starting up selling vegetable goods.

The Scarecrow Youtube Commercial - Original Uploader