Embrace Life
Sussex Safer Roads Partnership2010
Embrace Life is a 2010 90-second online and cinema film for Sussex Safer Roads Partnership.
The line
Always wear your seat belt.
Why it works
A father sits in his living room pretending to drive while his wife and daughter watch. Suddenly a crash is coming; his family race to him, the daughter wrapping her arms around his waist and the wife around his chest, and together they become the seat belt that holds him in place. Shot in slow motion and without dialogue, the film was developed for the Sussex Safer Roads Partnership as a deliberate contrast to the harrowing shock tactics common in road-safety advertising; writer-director Daniel Cox made it wordless so that viewers of any age or language could follow it. Posted online in January 2010, it passed a million views in its first two weeks and has since been watched more than 20 million times. It is studied as proof that a tender, hopeful frame can carry a safety message as far as gore. It won a Bronze Lion at Cannes, a Gold World Medal at the New York Festivals and YouTube's first Ad of the Year award.
Techniques
- Visual metaphor The wife's and daughter's arms become the seat belt, a single image suggesting that the people who love you are why you buckle up.
- Pathos Wordless and tender, it moves viewers through family love rather than gore, deliberately rejecting the shock tactics common in road-safety advertising.
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