Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Colour. Like no other.

This was the slogan Sony used to launch their Bravia LCD television. When I first saw this advert I was at my parents and I remember very clearly that we all stopped one after the other and just watched it. Trust me, when my family is together, having everyone go quiet is pretty unusual!

Anyway, I remember thinking what a clever and simple idea it was. Apparently they used 250,000 rubber balls that were all colours of the rainbow and filmed them bouncing down the hill in San Francisco. Of course many people would recognise the main street as Lombard Street which is where the famous car chase in the movie Bullitt took place (with green VW Beetle)!

The cinematography and editing are fantastic. The soundtrack for the advert is also a wonderful choice. It is a song called 'Heartbeats' by Jose Gonzalez and is beautiful to listen to. The advert reminds me of warm summer days and of being a child (I used to have one of these balls and I was always losing it on the roof or somewhere when it bounced out of control!). Whenever I see this advert it always makes me smile and feel happy. I hope it has the same effect on you.

16 comments:

Unknown said...

All you need to finish off that advert is a Mustang and a couple of sets of wheel hubs!

kenju said...

That was great! I wonder how many of those balls were never recovered and went into the bay?

Niall young said...

Yes..stunning!..have you seen the other 'Bravia' advert where they explode paint 'bombs' on and around an high rise housing estate?

OldLady Of The Hills said...

Well that is really something! I've never seen this before and am amazed that I haven't...unless....unless it is NOT for American consumption....Mot the Bravia, but that particular Ad....

It's strange, in a way but I wanted those balls to be real...not just electronically created, you know? I know there is that one shot of a lat a lot a lot, of balls at one of the flat streets traversing Lombard....but all the rest were too "manufactured" for me...! I'm sorry I feel this way, my dear, but, I certainly appreciate the artistry that went in to creating the whole entire Ad....

Very Very Pretty song...

Preeti Shenoy said...

Brilliant.Loved the frog jumping out of the pipe.How did they do that i wonder.My brother is in advertising--am mailing this to him.(Guess he'd have already seen it,but still it is too good to not share)

OldLady Of The Hills said...

I remember "Das Boot" very well and you are so right about the value of that film..."Letters" ceertainly has that same value, for sure and it is a beautifuly made film, too....

I cannot get over that they used real balls through out the entire Ad...I swear, some of that is 'generated'...I mean, you can kind of see through the balls at times....! How they managed that trick---well, that is amazing...!
Thanks for tlling me, my dear....

utenzi said...

I never saw that commercial, B-K. I wish I had since a lot is lost with this sample rate from youTube.

There's no way those were real balls tho. That's got to be false. I like that song they used as well. Nice post, B-K.

Bobkat said...

When I first saw this ad I thought they had used CGI too but I saw the making of this commercial and the Director says they used real balls. Apparently they cleared out the US stock of bouncy balls!

Zeus said...

This is why I want to move to Europe: intelligence in advertising! I absolutely loved this. It made me instantly think of playfulness, freedom, and innocence. The best part was the frog jumping out among the bouncing balls. That was precious.

Unknown said...

I thought it was great! I would have loved to seen that filmed. I'm not sure if it sold me anything. Well, I do want some superballs now but I don't think the commercial was for that!

Thanks for adding me to your blog roll!!

Melody said...

Like you, I remember seeing the making of that Ad and it was fascinating and very clever. No digital balls were used at all, they were ALL real. Simply amazing...

On the power of the music for that ad I actually bought Jose Gonzalez's cd. If I had the $, I would have bought the tv too!

Niall young said...

Here is the link to the other Sony commercial I mentioned...or try visiting youtube.com and search Bravia paint commercial.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=WISz7r3Hj3g

Unknown said...

Thanks for the comments ;)

As you probably noticed I had already blogrolled you ;)

Goofy Girl said...

I love that ad, it is so cool!! :)

Anonymous said...

For some reason I am not seeing the video box :(

Guess my 'puter is feeling persinkity tonight.

Ya'll have me dying to see this video though.

Anonymous said...

I am s glad i scrolled down further to watch this.
I can't stop grinning. My two old has a bunch of these balls and he just giggles when we bounce them all at once in the kitchen.

here via micheles :)