Your Brain On Drugs Videos

Observations For Video One
1. The video is only 11 seconds long
2. A man is speaking
3. The sizzling butter in the pan represents drugs
4. The fried egg represents what drugs do to your brain
5. The man ends the video asking if the audience has any questions.

Inferences For Video One
1. The video is extremely straight forward, the point gets across even if it is only 11 seconds long.
2. This video was made during a time where women didn't have as much power as they do now, it was more effective to have a man speaking.
3. The butter in the pan looked pretty gross, it was brown and oozing.
4. A fried egg is a great metaphor for a brain fried from drugs. It is extremely simple but still makes the audience think.
5. By asking if there are any questions, the man ends the video with a certain finality.

The intended audience for this video is probably aimed toward teenagers, but the way I see it, anyone can do drugs. Therefore this video could pertain towards anyone, from 10 year old people to 60 year old people. The tone in the video is somewhat condescending, especially towards the end when the narrator asks if there are any questions. I think the people did this in order to get their point across: if you do drugs, you are stupid. As I mentioned in my observations, this video was created many years ago when men still had more social status than women. I think it was for this reason that a man is the narrator.

Observations For Video Two
1. The egg still represents your brain
2. The pan reprents heroin
3. Rachel Lee Cook is not only the narrator but also on screen
4. The video is thirty seconds long
5. The video ends with Rachel Lee Cook asking if anyone has any questions

Inferences For Video Two
1. Obviously the first video got its point across so the people that made this video decided to keep the same central idea and just put a few twists in it.
2. The pan is more of a visual, the audience can see "your body on heroin" and how it affects your friends and family
3. Rachel Lee Cook was a good choice for this video. She is extremely well known but is one of the few celebrities without a bad reputation. She is beautiful so people are automatically going to listen to her and actually pay attention.
4. Thirty seconds can still be considered a short amound of time, especially with a topic as deep as drugs. But as in the first video, the point got across and if it would have been any longer, it would have taken away from the effect.
5. As in the first video, the audience is asked if they have any questions, which again puts a certain finality on the video.

The videos had many similarities. Both were geered towards younger audiences but could pertain to anyone, both had the same tone, and both had the same purpose: to make people think about how harmful drugs really are. The second video had more effectiveness for many reasons. You could actually see the person talking to you. She looked straight into the camera with a certain confidence, daring you to contradict her. Although both videos use ethos, the second video does it much better. It shows more effects of drugs, that they not only "fry" your brain and ruin your body, but hurt everyone around you and ruin your future.