EV1 multiple commercial personalities

I thought the "appliances" commercial was scary too.

It's not as scary as the nuclear war commercial, but it's dark and strange and not something I can see generating a desire for the car. (Especially since the car isn't even seen in most of it.)

Yeah, I thought that commercial was spooky/scary as well.

VFX, I think you mixed up Jekyll and Hyde, unless I missed your point.
Hint - Hyde was the evil personality.

Wasn't the apllicances commercial shown during a Superbowl? Or maybe my memory is faulty on that.

In any case, it was a clever commercial, and appealing to the more geeky of viewers, but not at all effective at selling cars.

I forget who it was in the WKTEC movie who said something like, "If you want to sell cars, you do a commercial with an attractive girl cruising on a mountain road."

Something like Jessica Alba driving the PCH just north of Big Sur, finishing with a shot of her on the beach in a bikini, with the car parked just in the background.

That's how you sell cars.

Was GM trying to scare away customers with their commercials?

GUILTY as charged!

They've been in business since 1908, you can't seriously claim they haven't yet figured out make a car commercial.

vfx said:

If the "Appliances" spot was scary it's because the level of character animation was weak in those days. I'm gonna say that Pixar (who was long separated from Lucas) could have brought more life and personality to the individual gadgets. Some R2D2 bleeps and bloops could have helped, but I think tremendous effort was spent successfully making the 3-D objects photo-real. More time and effort should/could have been spent making the appliances more anthropomorphic and cute.

Luxo Jr it was not...and it should have been.

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I know you are involved in video effects. I have been a Pixar fan since the early Siggraph demo reel days. Dated animation wasn't the reason why the commercial was scary. The lighting seems intentionally dark in places. Also the idea of having a bunch of animated appliances staring out the window at you as you drive home just seems spooky. It reminds me of a gremlins or dawn-of-the-dead type movie where someone is peering out at your through partially closed curtains. The appliances also look hostile and aggressive snapping and surrounding you. The message I get is "they will find you, you can't get away, and you are surrounded."

Pixar probably did a fine job animating what they were told to do. What I wonder is who wrote the script and did the storyboards?

I don't want a dog to lick my feet. I don't want a bunch of kids listening to my hood. I don't want to be surrounded by a bunch of animated appliances. The message I keep getting from them is "we think electric cars are weird."

Maybe it is just me, but I would say the first 30 seconds of that spot would be fitting for a horror movie. I think if it were in High Def on my big screen, the part where the mixer is about to dismember you would be good for a few gasps from the audience.

Personally, I'm really looking forward to Darryl getting the opportunity to work on some traditional media advertisements for Whitestar.

Not that it will be difficult to beat a slobbery dog.

I don't think the big difference in tone is really do to the visuals, to me it's entirely because of the music selection. The Mastercard commercial has fun, cute music, the background music for the EV1 ad is spooky/scary.

I remember there was a time when that same gravely voiced lady was in countless commercials of all kinds. I never "got" that. What was the appeal? Just that she was memorable?

Now there are many, many commercials with women talking in a tone like they are talking to a baby or at least a toddler. Until you notice it, it's ok, but once you notice, it sounds condescending.

Now that you guys mentioned it, all of GM's commercials for EVs were weird. Next time they should just stick to normal commercials; people think EVs are weird enough without having to be reinforced by weird commercials.

Yes, until GM starts making normal car commercials for their electric cars, people will continue to claim that they are really out to sabatoge the EV industry.

It is hard for them to promote the advantages of EVs; clean, inexpensive to operate, less maintenance, because that implies that their ICE cars are not clean, inexpensive to operate, or low maintenance.

That's one of the big advantages of dedicated companies such as Tesla.

BBHighway said:

Yes, until GM starts making normal car commercials for their electric cars, people will continue to claim that they are really out to sabatoge the EV industry.

It is hard for them to promote the advantages of EVs; clean, inexpensive to operate, less maintenance, because that implies that their ICE cars are not clean, inexpensive to operate, or low maintenance.

That's one of the big advantages of dedicated companies such as Tesla.

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...Bingo!...

Here are a few more videos of the EV1 when it was still called the impact and in concept form.
[youtube]vMgKJ88oTU4[/youtube]
[youtube]anx90C-XTzA[/youtube]
Uncanny how similar it is to the Volt introduction. But this time I don't think GM can afford to cancel the Volt like they did the EV1.

stopcrazypp said:

But this time I don't think GM can afford to cancel the Volt like they did the EV1.

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Not until they "prove" that there is no market for electric cars. To do that, they have to produce some really awful commercials and make it as unavailable and low quality as possible.

I thought it was different this time, that GM had gotten their electric mojo back. But then I saw the commercials for it, and I suspected they are once again setting it up for failure. Lutz's attempt to piss-off all the environmental buyers has me completely convinced.

Those are about the only people who would still want it in spite of the awful commercials.

I'm actually pretty sure GM wont setup the Volt to fail. They might not be able to make a desirable car at a decent price point, or they might not be able to market it properly, especially since they don't want to say bad things about their dinojuice cars. The fact of the matter is that Renault, Think, Tesla and eventually many more WILL create EV's and hybrids that people want at a price point they can pay. And with the oil prices going only one way they've got to face reality.
In that way will the Volt be too late and too little to save GM, that is the question the way I see it.

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