4 ms·

> Competitors said no photocopier could work that easy or that fast. They said the ad exaggerated the speed of the machine. If they wanted to communicate how f

by p1mrx 3y ago

> Competitors said no photocopier could work that easy or that fast. They said the ad exaggerated the speed of the machine. If they wanted to communicate how fast the machine is, they should've filmed it without a bunch of cuts.

Animats 3y ago
This was from an era when national broadcast commercial time was very expensive. Only three networks, and only 4 to 6 minutes of commercials per hour.
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  They made and aired a 90 second ad which could have showed the entire process uncut, but they wasted a lot of the ad time with pointless filler of a little girl walking around and whatnot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7gxp9JKqDQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7gxp9JKqDQ
  - starkparker 3y ago
    Because watching a copier from 1959 actually, literally take 40-odd seconds to make one copy in real time is boring, even if it was novel for the time. The ad's runtime took as much time as the copier, which was the point. Yeah, it's filler. They did a bunch of filler ads. The article ignores this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vJk_JVl9ME https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vJk_JVl9ME
  - AlbertCory 3y ago
    So: you're critiquing the editing of a commercial from 60+ years ago? The point being... what?
    - mcpackieh 3y ago
      Paraphrasing: > > > p1mrx: they should have show it working unedited > > Animats: commercials were very expensive [implying it was too expensive to run a commercial long enough to show that] > me: they _did_ run a sufficiently long commercial [the price of commercials was not the problem.]
  - masswerk 3y ago
    Back then, it was an important aspect of ads that they were self-contained, pleasing stories. They sold products by becoming a cultural reference. Also, the rather abstract, but still charming scene (the girl walking by the chairs, and wandering on) not only adds to the development of the story, but also adds a style and production value, which not only separates the spot from what came before and what came after, but which – at the best of times – becomes also associated with the product. It's probably the essential pivot of the spot, establishing style, pace, and mood, and by this claim. Showing the copier running for a minute in real-time couldn't have achieved any of this, and it wouldn't have conveyed a great message either, when there were already wet process offset copiers running 50, maybe even 150 copies a minute. Also mind that these wet processes were much more complex, requiring specialist jobs, organisation, etc., something that the story, namely, "a little girl does it on her own in a minute", brings home.
dmbche 3y ago
Cinematic taste came a long way since - I don't think most people were even aware of the cuts back then. The Taken movies have a lot to do with that!
- joemi 3y ago
  Why Taken? I was a moviegoer well before the Taken series, and people (normal people) were definitely aware of cuts. In particular they’d come up in conversation with action movies, or any movie where a music video director made the leap to films.
  - dmbche 3y ago
    It's a joke - there was a very well known scene where I think they cut 15 times in 5-10 seconds to show Liam Neeson jumping a fence. (Edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by4UZ-79MK4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by4UZ-79MK4 ) I'd say moviegoers were more aware of filmmaking starting in the 80s, and most people know about complex things like green screens and the like today.
    - hackernewds 3y ago
      Mind-blowing stop motion technology innovated by Taken

by p1mrx 3y ago

Animats 3y ago

This was from an era when national broadcast commercial time was very expensive. Only three networks, and only 4 to 6 minutes of commercials per hour.

mcpackieh 3y ago
They made and aired a 90 second ad which could have showed the entire process uncut, but they wasted a lot of the ad time with pointless filler of a little girl walking around and whatnot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7gxp9JKqDQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7gxp9JKqDQ
- starkparker 3y ago
  Because watching a copier from 1959 actually, literally take 40-odd seconds to make one copy in real time is boring, even if it was novel for the time. The ad's runtime took as much time as the copier, which was the point. Yeah, it's filler. They did a bunch of filler ads. The article ignores this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vJk_JVl9ME https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vJk_JVl9ME
- AlbertCory 3y ago
  So: you're critiquing the editing of a commercial from 60+ years ago? The point being... what?
  - mcpackieh 3y ago
    Paraphrasing: > > > p1mrx: they should have show it working unedited > > Animats: commercials were very expensive [implying it was too expensive to run a commercial long enough to show that] > me: they _did_ run a sufficiently long commercial [the price of commercials was not the problem.]
- masswerk 3y ago
  Back then, it was an important aspect of ads that they were self-contained, pleasing stories. They sold products by becoming a cultural reference. Also, the rather abstract, but still charming scene (the girl walking by the chairs, and wandering on) not only adds to the development of the story, but also adds a style and production value, which not only separates the spot from what came before and what came after, but which – at the best of times – becomes also associated with the product. It's probably the essential pivot of the spot, establishing style, pace, and mood, and by this claim. Showing the copier running for a minute in real-time couldn't have achieved any of this, and it wouldn't have conveyed a great message either, when there were already wet process offset copiers running 50, maybe even 150 copies a minute. Also mind that these wet processes were much more complex, requiring specialist jobs, organisation, etc., something that the story, namely, "a little girl does it on her own in a minute", brings home.

dmbche 3y ago

Cinematic taste came a long way since - I don't think most people were even aware of the cuts back then. The Taken movies have a lot to do with that!

joemi 3y ago
Why Taken? I was a moviegoer well before the Taken series, and people (normal people) were definitely aware of cuts. In particular they’d come up in conversation with action movies, or any movie where a music video director made the leap to films.
- dmbche 3y ago
  It's a joke - there was a very well known scene where I think they cut 15 times in 5-10 seconds to show Liam Neeson jumping a fence. (Edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by4UZ-79MK4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by4UZ-79MK4 ) I'd say moviegoers were more aware of filmmaking starting in the 80s, and most people know about complex things like green screens and the like today.
  - hackernewds 3y ago
    Mind-blowing stop motion technology innovated by Taken