[MacDV] Much Ado About Nothing

[Richard Brown]

The problem is, the ad described below is too busy and therefore not 
memorable to an audience with the attention span of a gnat. This is the 
attention span of a TV audience watching a commercial. Commercials must 
slap you in the face and hook you instantly else suffer the fate of 
being NOT WATCHED as the audience gets a beer.

Just LOOK at the ad:

A pastoral day, OUTSIDE, birds chirping. Not where you'd expect...  
BANG!  A young man in an an office chair propelled backward like a 
bullet by some mysteriously powerful force (NO EXPLOSION, but something 
powerful nonetheless) and is stopped by a tree, dazed and amazed (NOT 
in pain.)  Track back through an over the top scene of hole in the wall 
after hole in the wall (nice touch with the woman and the little dog) 
through the entire house to the BACK room to reveal power creating the 
effect... and then Jeff Goldblum says:

"Introducing the Power Mac G5, the world's fastest, most powerful 
personal computer."

It's an absurd non sequitur with a punch line, and enough said! Funny 
but not too funny (too funny and you FORGET due to a well documented 
chemical reaction in the brain), and thus just about perfect for what 
the ad needed to do...

This ad sells the sizzle with simplicity. Great ads sell the "sizzle" 
(as in "Who cares? It's SHINY!) and not forgettable details. If you're 
REALLY LUCKY, your ad incites your target audience to talk about it to 
others who haven't even seen the ad. This betters your proverbial cost 
per thousand.

And to look around here for the last few days, this ad REALLY worked. 
Nice job, dontcha think?

Richard Brown

P.S. Apple's Ad had FOUR shots, with great internal suspense (and 
building humor) as the camera slowly approaches the G5 through all the 
debris... the following has nine shots without a hook, and suffers the 
worst thing you can do in movie storytelling - SAYING it rather than 
SHOWING it.  Not cinematic. What's worse, it tells the audience what to 
think and how to feel about what it sees. Sorry to critique harshly.

> A much better version of the ad would go something like this:
>
> Establishing shot of woman and man in a doorway. Woman kisses young 
> man on cheek and says she'll be ready in a few minutes. Guy replies 
> great and he will do a little work while she is getting ready. Cut to 
> shot of guy as he sits down in front of G5 and 23in Cinema Display. 
> Cut to camera panning around the G5 as Goldbloom's voiceover begins 
> touting G5's unique features. Cut to close up of hand reaching for G5 
> power button or Apple optical mouse. Loud explosion of noise. Cut to 
> doorway and woman comes in and asks, "Honey, are you OK?" She looks 
> up. Cut to close-up. Cut to her POV and we see a hole in the shape of 
> a person through the walls of the house. Cut to view from outside of 
> house looking back at holes. Cut to close up of guys face. Goldbloom's 
> voiceover says, "The new PowerMac G5: It will blow you away."
>
> (Then of course there is the wonderful T2 style promo featuring an 
> Arnold voiceover that I have had in mind for weeks.)