What better way to sell a product than to demonstrate what it can do? In a spot created by TBWA/Chiat/Day (TBWA/C/D), Los Angeles, for Apple Computer’s latest product, the iMovie, a real dad’s home movie has now gone national.
"Kids" is a simple :30 that features a brother and sister just being themselves. In the opening shot we see them at bath time with wet hair and playing with their towels. Cut to a shot of the siblings sitting on their parent’s bed, side by side, in different poses. In the final shot, the little boy jumps up and down on the bed and his sister joins him. The piece is affectionately set to Bob Dylan’s "Forever Young." Just as the commercial is about to end, the camera moves back to reveal that the images are playing on an iMac Apple Computer. The screen fades to white and a super reads: "An iMovie directed by Dad," then the tag: "Think different."
No one could have guessed that the source of this touching mini-movie came from Apple Computer executive Sina Tomaddon. According to TBWA/ C/D creative director Ken Segall, every executive at Apple was asked to create his/her own home movie to familiarize the company’s employees with the iMovie software. The request was made independent of TBWA/C/D’s advertising campaign, but when word got out that Apple had all this home movie footage, Segall decided to check it out. "We saw lots of great ones, but this guy just happened to do a really nice movie," said Segall.
In fact, the film was so nice that it’s hard to believe your average consumer shot it. Tomaddon’s house is beautifully, yet sparsely decorated, and his children are natural and likeable. There is a misty quality to the film, as if it had been shot through a filter. Editor Brad Wetmore, who cut the piece while at Santa Monica-based Jigsaw (he has since moved over to Mad River Post/Santa Monica), told SHOOT that Tomaddon had put a stocking over the lens of his digital camcorder to create that effect. "We really didn’t need to do that much to the footage except to cut the two or three minutes that he had down to thirty seconds. Then we searched for a really good piece of music to go on there."
That turned out to be an early recording of Dylan’s "Forever Young," which Segall found on the ’85 compilation Biograph. "We wanted something heartfelt that a proud parent might put on there," said Segall, who noted that this was the first time Dylan has given permission for a master recording of his music to be used on a spot. "We have a great relationship with Dylan’s people from when we used his image in the original ‘Think different’ campaign, so they trusted us. Everyone agreed that it was a really nice use of his song," related Segall.
"Kids" was part of a three-spot package for the iMovie that also included "Actors" and "Garage Monkeys." The package was directed by Mark Coppos and Virginia Lee of bicoastal Coppos Films. Coppos has been helming spots for Apple since ’81, and Lee joined him about two years ago. For this particular spot, the team crafted the final pullback shot that reveals the movie is playing on an iMac, but they had no idea what the spot was going to look like going into the shoot. "The home movie was still in the editing process at the time, so we literally shot the mechanics of the job. We did shoot several versions of the pullback so they could take whatever worked best," explained Coppos.
"The great thing about Apple advertising for the last two and a half years is that they keep handing us these incredible products that are so perfect for what Apple stands for," said Segall. "It’s pretty compelling when you put a product in front of someone and show what a few minutes of your time can produce."
