"1984" is an American television commercial which
introduced the Apple
Macintosh personal computer for the first time. It was conceived by Steve Hayden,
Brent Thomas and Lee Clow
at Chiat/Day,
Venice,
produced by New York production company Fairbanks Films, and directed by Ridley Scott. Anya Major performed as
the unnamed heroine and David Graham
as Big Brother.
Its only U.S. daytime televised broadcast was on January 22, 1984 during
and as part of the telecast of the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII by CBS. Chiat/Day also ran
the ad one other time on television, in December 1983 right before the
1:00 am sign-off on KMVT
in Twin Falls,
Idaho, so that the advertisement could be submitted to award
ceremonies for that year. In addition, starting on January 17, 1984 it was
screened prior to previews in movie theaters for a few week. It has since been
seen on television commercial compilation specials, as well as in
"Retro-mercials" on TV Land.
In one interpretation of the commercial, "1984"
used the unnamed heroine to represent the coming of the Macintosh (indicated by
her white tank top
with a stylized line drawing of Apple’s Macintosh computer on it)
as a means of saving humanity from "conformity" (Big Brother).
These images were an allusion
to George Orwell's
noted novel, Nineteen
Eighty-Four, which described a dystopian future ruled by
a televised "Big Brother".
The rows of marching minions have direct cinematic parallels with those in the
opening scenes of the classic dystopian film Metropolis.
The estate of George Orwell and the television rightsholder to the novel 1984
considered the commercial to be a copyright infringement and sent a
cease-and-desist letter to Apple and Chiat/Day in April 1984.
Originally a subject of contention within Apple, it has
nevertheless consistently been lauded as a classic, winning critical acclaim
over time. It is now considered a watershed event and a masterpiece in
advertising, and is widely regarded as one of the most memorable and successful
American television commercials of all time.
Photo Legacy: Making your memories last forever http://www.photolegacy.com
Research courtesy of Wikipedia
Images courtesy of Wikimedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ad_apple_1984.jpg
No comments:
Post a Comment