Emergency Medical Service Television Spots (c. 1974)

2015.007.061

http://detroithistorical.pastperfecto...

Color 16mm film containing six television public service announcements about Detroit's Emergency Medical Service and the 911 phone number. The spots caution the viewer about misuse of the service, and each end with the slogan, "Help Us Help You." The first two spots are both 60 seconds in length, the third and fourth are 30 seconds long, and the final two are 10 seconds long.

The first spot opens with a caller reporter an unconscious woman, and quick montage that includes shots of an electrowriter machine, a dispatcher, and the ambulance. The ambulance is then shown on an expressway, on East Lafayette Street with Lafayette Towers Apartments East and Lafayette Towers Apartments West in the background, and then on John R at East Minnesota Avenue. In this latter shot, the sign for Bronson's Vacuum Cleaner Service Shop, and the marquee of the Art Theatre are both visible. The ambulance is then shown arriving at a house, where the woman in carried out. A medic is shown providing chest compressions, and a shot from the ambulance's front window shows an unknown street with a Kentucky Fried Chicken on it. After several more shots of activity on the ambulance, and blurred views from its window, a series of stills shows doctors operating in a hospital.

The second spot begins with a medic getting into an ambulance, and then fades to blurred shots of a passing car wash. The medics are briefly shown at a scene, and then the ambulance is filmed head on driving south on the Chrysler Freeway beneath the East Grand Boulevard overpass. The medics are shown at several other scenes and on unknown streets. In one shot they are on Lyndon Street, west of Wyoming Avenue, with the King Picture Tube Company's building in the background. After several more rapid shots of unidentifiable locations the footage from East Lafayette Street used in the previous spot is repeated. The spot ends with the medics arriving at a house, and taking a man in a stretcher from it into their ambulance. This final sequence is edited with rapid back-and-forth cuts.

The third spot consists of a single long shot of a man being carried by a pair of medics from a home on a stretcher toward an ambulance.

The fourth spot follows an ambulance as it take the Chrysler Freeway south into downtown. Initially the ambulance is shown from a neighboring vehicle, south of East Canfield Street. Then the perspective moves inside of the ambulance as it passes beneath the East Lafayette Street overpass. As the ambulance turns onto Jefferson Avenue, the Renaissance Center, still under construction, comes into view. The spot ends with a shot of the ambulance passing on Jefferson, with the Renaissance Center standing in the background.

The fifth spot is a brief shot of an ambulance's lights.

The final spot reuses some of the footage of from the fourth spot of the ambulance on the Chrysler Freeway.

The film is on a grey plastic reel in a white cardboard box. "E.M.S. TV Spots, 10-30-60, Cut Tails & Heads" is handwritten on the box.