0:00-0:04 Sunrise; birds chirping.
0:05 “The Scientist” instrumentals begin (mellow guitar chords); Blue sky, mountains and fields stretch into background, with green grass and trees in foreground. One small wooden fence is pictured
0:10 Farmer with wife and infant child appear. Tire swing hanging from one tree in background
0:12 Small, pink, oblong pig enters frame, walking calmly up to farmer. The pig is grunting.
0:16 Pig turns and trots into A-frame enclosure; farmer places final wall on enclosure with pig inside. He turns away brushing his hands on his shirt as though he has finished his work for the day. This is the first barn.
0:20 Farmer turns around and six more pigs are roaming freely. A large red exclamation point appears about farmer’s head as he gives a start with either anger, annoyance, or surprise. The exclamation point appears at the exact moment of a small slide in the guitar accompaniment, giving emphasis to the farmer’s jump.
0:23 A fence builds itself around these formerly free-range oblong-shaped pigs. A new note is added to the instrumental, making the musical accompaniment feel faster. Farmer disappears from left side of screen
0:25 The first storage building appears. It is a barn to store hay.
0:27 The first sight of mechanical technology appears. Farmer reappears on right side of screen. The farmer is riding a tractor as other farm buildings quickly build themselves near the pig enclosure. The camera angle is rising above ground level. The shadows are longer. One tree is turning brown and losing its leaves.
0:29: The first grain silos appear as the farmer appears to be performing evasive driving maneuvers to avoid these buildings that are rapidly going up, seemingly growing from the earth. More trees are turning brown and losing their leaves. These grain silos make noise, like construction materials being put together, as they are growing out of the ground.
0:32: The farmer drives along further, away from the silos and the pig enclosures towards some cows, grazing in a field.
0:34: More industrial grey buildings grow around the cows, looking like the cows are wedged in tightly. The farmer drives on. I was just guessing
0:37: The camera angle drops back down to ground level. The cow enclosure grows one storey higher. Snow begins to appear on the right edge of the frame, towards which the farmer is driving. The mountains are still visible in the background and the trees have no leaves. Everything except the tractor is grey. At numbers and figures
0:38: the farmer jams on his breaks, a highway overpass is rapidly growing across his path, going out the top of the camera frame. A semi-truck drives along the new highway.
0:41: The farmer disappears from the frame as the camera increases speed in its right-ward movement. Near a dead or wintering tree, an even larger, 3-storey, more industrial pig building is going up. The pigs are in rows behind railings. Pullin’ the puzzles apart
0:43: the pigs are being flipped out of the cages onto a conveyor belt. They no longer walk but are moved.
0:46: The conveyor belt takes the pigs into yet another large grey building. There are two tanks of pill capsules and green liquid being pumped into the building as the pigs disappear. The pigs disappear from view as they enter the building. The background is entirely white and grey. The only colour comes from the pink pigs and the bright chemicals. The farmer has still not caught up. Questions of science
0:48: The pigs come out the top of this building on another conveyor belt, only now they are spherical, not oblong. They still do not walk or grunt as they are moved along.
0:50: The camera angle has moved to a bird’s-eye view again. Beneath the pig factory there is a blue lake. We see pools of green oozing out of pipes into the lake. Science and progress
0:53: The pigs are moved along their conveyor belt to another building, where a large machine violently moulds them into cubes with no eyes, snouts, or tails. The cubes fall deeper into the building out of sight. Don’t speak as loud as my heart
0:57: The camera angle is a bird’s eye view still. The pink pig-cubes come out of conveyor belts in the bottom of the shaping building and move into the back of giant grey transport trucks. There are eight trucks that take the pig-cubes away. The pavement below the trucks is full of traffic-directing lane lines and there are other grey buildings nearby
1:00: The trucks split into different direction, driving past more factories spewing green puddles into the lakes. The ground is white with snow and the trees are dead. There are smoke stacks billowing opaque grey smoke. Nobody said it was easy. It’s such a shame for us to part.
1:07: Most of the lakes that the trucks are driving by are more green than blue now.
1:10: The sun sets on the snowy ground. The camera leaves the factories behind and we see a broken tractor below on the snowy ground.
1:13: The farmer comes into view, walking through the snowy. He has a cloud above his head. Nobody said it was easy
1:17: The camera returns to ground level and focuses on the farmer, looking older and slouching like a broken man. It is dark and there are stars in the sky. As he walks, clouds appear above his head filled with thoughts of chemicals or antibiotics, pigs behind bars, and chemical sludge being dumped into lakes. No one ever said it would be so hard
1:26: The farmer looks like he has sudden inspiration. He puts his hat back on and the clouds dissipate, leaving the sunny grassy background from the beginning of the ad. The trees still are leafless. I’m goin’ back to the start
1:28: The farmer runs to the cow building and pulls it down with one tug. The cows are free to walk around the grassy field now, as the building fades into the grass on the ground.
Guitar chords become more optimistic and energetic, and stay that way for the rest of the ad.
1:34: the farmer runs to the pig building and frees the pigs in the same manner.
1:36: The farmer runs over to a dry-looking brown field with a partial fence around it. There is a tall lever beside it. The farmer flips this switch and the small rectangular plot flips over to reveal more green grass. This grass comes with green leafy trees and pigs walking around.
1:39: This switch starts a cascade chain reaction where all the dry brown dead looking rectangular plots of land start flipping over like dominoes into the distance. In the farthest point of the background, one can see the two red buildings and the turquoise building, arranged exactly as they were when the farmer “built” them earlier in the ad. These do not go away when he flips the switch. Farmer disappears from the left side of the screen.
1:42: In the foreground, the camera zooms in on the farmer, who has reappeared on the right side of the screen, looking very old, with glasses and a white mustache, carrying a small wooden crate. He is walking by a group of chickens pecking at the ground.
1:48: The farmer reaches a small white van with the Chipotle logo on the side. He pushes the crate into the back of the van. The van slowly drives away
1:55: The farmer walks over to his now-white-haired wife and his grown up son. In the background are the mountains, leafy green trees and the tire swing. The farmer and his wife hold hands.
2:00: The farmer’s son walks over to a pig that is walking towards him, just like the moment where a pig walked up to the farmer at the beginning of the ad. The pig grunts.
2:07: The camera continues to pan right, away from the family and the pig. It stops on a rustic wooden sign with a wagon wheel in front of it. The sign reads: “CULTIVATE A BETTER WORLD Chipotle.com”
2:11: The camera moves past the sign and the sun sets over the mountains, green fields and leafy green trees. The sound of crickets is audible as the song ends.
2:14: The screen fades to black as the iTunes logo and song credit appear advising viewers to download the song from the ad.