Movies for TV - Early Television Foundation

WHAT MAKES GOOD COMMERCIALS 315
felt unconsciously, when watching the animated film, that every-
thing would be that easy if they
took their own Fords to be serv-
iced, but the harsh reality of a brother man lugging a large piece
of apparatus to work with on the car was too much like some
of their own jobs or experiences.
Naturally some products are only suitable for live demonstration.
These include clothes, jewelry, operating merchandise such
as toys, and many others. For these, animation has nothing to offer
since it is the real thing which needs to be seen. But although
animation has been ruled out above it does not rule out stopmotion,
which, while being a mechanical process in that it is done
by taking one picture at a time and is longer to do, is very ef-
fective because it actually shows the product.
A box of breakfast food, for instance, could be animated or it
could be shown live. Animation would not be able to point up
much in the way of package appeal, unless its marvelous powers
of giving energy were used. Cream of Wheat and LiP Abner lend
themselves well to that, for the energy he needs to rescue Daisie
May seems to come from a big steaming bowl of Cream of Wheat.
But if cost of production is an important consideration, as it usually
is, then rather than go to live treatment, it might be preferable to
use stop-motion photography.
A possible treatment would be to start with a close-up of the
package, then have the sides bulge in and out (done with a
bladder inserted from the bottom and inflated with compressed
air to force the sides out), and finally by stop-motion which would
show the flaps giving way and flying open. At this point shooting
stops and when the bladder is removed cereal replaces it and
filming recommences. Air from the same tube in the bottom would
then be released and blow the cereal into the air like a fountain.
Thus is demonstrated the effervescent energy-giving properties of
whatever the food happens to be.
The foregoing is only a very brief outline of a possible method
of preparing an interesting and selling film for an inanimate object,
but there are probably many better ways. The section on anima-
tion contains more information on how the actual films are made.