1984 (advertisement)
| "1984" | |
|---|---|
The heroine (Anya Major) running with her sledgehammer
|
|
| Directed by | Ridley Scott |
| Written by |
|
| Starring |
|
| Cinematography | Adrian Biddle |
| Edited by | Pamela Power |
|
Production
company |
Fairbanks Films, New York
|
| Distributed by | Apple Inc. |
|
Release date
|
December 31, 1983 (local broadcast in Idaho) January 22, 1984 (only national broadcast) |
|
Running time
|
1 minute |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $370,000–$900,000 |
"1984" is an American television commercial that introduced the Apple Macintosh personal computer. It was conceived by Steve Hayden, Brent Thomas and Lee Clow at Chiat\Day, produced by New York production company Fairbanks Films, and directed by Ridley Scott. English athlete Anya Major performed as the unnamed heroine and David Graham as Big Brother. It was aired only twice on American television,first in 10 local outlets, including Twin Falls, Idaho, where Chiat\Day ran the ad on December 31, 1983, at the last possible break before midnight on KMVT, so that the advertisement qualified for 1983 advertising awards. Its second televised airing, and only national airing, was on January 22, 1984, during a break in the third quarter of the telecast of Super Bowl XVIII by CBS.
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 estate of George Orwell and the television rightsholder to the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four considered the commercial to be a copyright infringement and sent a cease-and-desist letter to Apple and Chiat\Day in April 1984.
...
Wikipedia