Hovis Advert Analysis
In this essay, I will be analysing the 2008, £15 million Hovis TV advertisement. Filmed in Liverpool with a cast of over 750 extras, director Ringan Ledwidge portrays a young boy (13 year old Brian Mackie) buying a loaf of bread in 1886, which was when the first Hovis loaf of bread was sold, and then travelling with the bread tucked under him arm, through 12 decades in British History. The concept behind the advert is to show that Hovis has been around for 122 years and is a British Institution. For this reason, the advert lasts 122 seconds; each second depicting each year. The product is shown to be just as good, hence the slogan “As good today as it’s always been”.
Throughout this advert, a range of different camera angles are used/ At the beginning, in the course of the ‘Woman’s Rights’ parade, there is a point-of-view camera shot to give a first person opinion of the scene. This makes us feel like we are there in the scene because the camera looks towards the crowd and it makes us feel like we are looking at them as well. The angle of this shot is low and the distance is a long shot. The low angle shot in this scene makes the crowd around the young boy seem more numerous, bigger and powerful compared to him. It also contrasts the height of the boy to the large size of the parade. Even though the occasion is already extremely overpowering, this show emphasizes the volume of the parade even further creating a strong impact on the viewer by showing how important events such as this parade were. The effect of the low angle shot is repeated in the scene with the army of soldiers in World War 1 marching in the street, when the camera is looking up at the soldier. This connotes that the soldier is powerful and the boy looks up to him.
When the boy goes through an alley whilst kicking a can, he enters a bombsite during which an emotional camera angle is used. Firstly, a long shot is used to portray the devastating situation