1984 (advertisement)

1984 is an American television commercial which introduced the Apple Macintosh personal computer. It was conceived by Steve Hayden, Brent Thomas and Lee Clow at ChiatDay, 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 inlocal outlets, including Twin Falls, Idaho, where ChiatDay 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.

The commercial opens with a dystopic, industrial setting in blue and grayish tones, showing a line of people of ambiguous gender marching in unison through a long tunnel monitored by a string of telescreens. This is in sharp contrast to the fullcolor shots of the nameless runner Anya Major. She looks like a competitive track and field athlete, wearing an athletic uniform red athletic shorts, running shoes, a white tank top with a cubist picture of Apples Macintosh computer, a white sweat band on her left wrist, and a red one on her right, and is carrying a large brassheaded hammer. Rows of marching minions evoke the opening scenes of Metropolis.As she is chased by four police officers presumably agents of the Thought Police wearing black uniforms, protected by riot gear, helmets with visors covering their faces, and armed with large night sticks, she races towards a large screen with the image of a Big Brotherlike figure David Graham, also seen on the telescreens earlier giving a speech ........

Source: Wikipedia