DTphonehome said:
I've heard the "how many ways can you shoot a chip fab" argument before, but it's baseless. The camera angles are nearly identical, the expressions on the actors' faces are similar (they even look alike), and the slow motion, camera panning, and general pacing of the videos are too similar to strike away as coincidence. If you've ever shot a video before, you'd know that every one of those factors are thought out carefully. There's definite intent behind the ad.
I agree that it's highly unlikely this was pure coincidence. However, your claim that the camera angles are nearly identical is only true of a small subset of angles (IMHO, blocking one character giving another character a disk doesn't leave the film maker with a whole lot of options, not when you want to see the expression on the receiver's face).
And your claim that the expressions on the faces are similar ... I'm not sure where you get that, as the Mac ad both actors convey importance of purpose and joy, while the PS video both actors convey repressed longing for each other ... other than that these are human beings and neither is sticking their tongue out or scowling, I really don't think the expressions match.
Slow motion: while both use slow motion (which is a classical mechanism to convey the importance of a singular moment in time, which is a shared theme and honestly, quite common), they don't use the same pacing. Which one might expect given the different feature lengths they are dealing with.
And camera panning? I'm not sure what you're getting at there.
The similarities, though, are that they are set in a microprocessor plant, that they center around a hand-off of a wafer of chips, and that there are two central actors. Honestly, the setting and action fit a lot better in the ad than in the video, but whatever. The point is, it's obviously not coincidence that Apple came up with this particular representation of the many possibilities of putting an Intel chip into a Mac, and the directors of the videos are to blame for not bringing a different idea to the table unless someone at Chiat or even Apple directed them to copy the setting and action of the previous work.
BTW, love the Postal Service album. Love this song too; although it's not my favorite of the album, it was my first exposure to PS. And don't believe the morons claiming PS ripped of the guy who sings the same song in the M&M commercial ... that's a cover off the single to this song, which coincidentally is also available on iTunes if you like it. Personally, both I and my wife hate the slow, plodding version, to the point that she asked me how they could do such a thing to that song when we first heard it playing in front of a movie. But others love it, so to each their own ...
