In a couple of weeks it will have been 25 years since Ridley Scott’s hammer-tastic 1984 commercial introducing the Macintosh was seen during Super Bowl XVIII. Though it wasn’t seen on television again until popular demand brought it back years later, it wasn’t for lack of quality. Ridley Scott was just coming off of Blade Runner, and the spot, which cost over a million dollars to produce, has been named the best television commercial of all time. Not too shabby.
But in a day and age of TiVos and DVRs, are commercials still relevant? In fact, it’s hard to remember more than a handful of commercials that have had the cultural impact of Scott’s 1984.
Ad agencies often turn to big talent to try and draw attention to a commercial, and the pendulum often swings the other way when Hollywood taps a commercial director to direct a feature. That’s what launched the careers of David Fincher, Michael Bay, and many other high-profile filmmakers. While 1984 might be the most famous commercial by a famous director, there have been a slew of others that have been equally as strange, from artists ranging from Spike Jonze to the Coen Brothers. Here’s a look at a some of the better ones, including both Ridley Scott’s 1984 (and it’s updated 2003 version, along with the Hilary Clinton version from last year’s Presidential race).
In 2006, the Wes Anderson-directed AmEx commercials that preceded each film at the Tribeca Film Festival sadly topped most of the films themselves. That’s probably more of a dig at Tribeca than legit praise for Anderson, but regardless: the reigning king of quirk has a new side gig directing adverts for AT & T. I’ve embedded one above, and you can find four more here. I don’t think Anderson’s obsession with tableau has been put to better use since Rushmore, but until I see The Darjeeling Limited next week at the New York Film Festival, I’ll withhold final judgement.
I just did a post on SpoutBlog’s web and technology side about the cable channel Current TV. A mere year ago the idea of user-generated content as a source of entertainment was so new it was puzzling people; now, in a world with YouTube, the concept is old hat.
So what do you all think about this other aspect of Current TV: letting viewers create advertisements? Here’s what the San Francisco Chronicle article says:
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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