Research blog commercial conventions

     Sports drinks attempt to prove their usage by setting their commercials in athletic atmospheres. These can include gyms, stadiums or fields. The characters are typically wearing athletic wear or sporting uniform. They attempt to show their usage by showing someone heavily sweating followed by then drinking the drink. There is obviously as little makeup as possible to portray a realistic athletic event. The lighting is usually dim to allow the cameras to focus more on the athletic activity being performed, and the results of that activity (for example, sweat dripping down their face). The drink usually has a small amount of condensation on its container to show that it is cold. Finally, these commercials typically have a famous athlete as the main focus of the ad, for example, a recent Gatorade commercial had J.J. Watt, a popular NFL player, narrating and performing a lot of actions within the ad.
     The scripts of these ads usually revolve around all the things athletes do to succeed, and this is usually ended by the athletes showing how the beverage allows them to do it. This dialogue is usually done by a voice-over, but will sometimes be in the form of a flashback. They also have a lot of diegetic sounds for where the scene takes place, for example, a swish of a basketball going through the net or the sound of a football player getting hit. Sometimes there will be a non-diegetic sound of a whistle of a referee off-screen for example. There is also sometimes intense music but it is not the focus. Finally, there is often some athletes chanting or doing rally cries to try to bring the increasing intensity.
   The commercials utilize close-ups very frequently. They try this to humanize the athletes as much as possible. This is done by focusing on specific parts of their bodies. Another common shot is of a person slamming down a bottle of the beverage and a small amount splashing out of it. This is to focus on the drink more than the effects of it. The main editing technique is jump cuts, the rest of it is pretty plain from an editing perspective.