Sunday, January 21, 2007

From Balls....


The bouncing ball ad was good, but the new advert goes a step further. 70,000 litres of paint used for what has to be described as a riot of colour. In a day and age when the first choice is to turn to computer animation, Sony are returning to the real thing. And the real thing is nothing short of impressive. The effort that had to go in to this advert is beyond imagination, and the vision of those behind it to even think of the possibilities has to be admired. I mention this because today the block of flats in Glasgow where this was filmed was finally demolished. Jim Kerr of Simple Minds grew up here but this marks another step forward for the development of Glasgow. It seems a fitting end for an area of Glasgow that developed many colourful characters that it should finally find colour of its own.

4 comments:

sally said...

I just followed your link nd watched the ad, and the background information. Amazing!!!!

Caroline said...

call me churlish (hello Churlish) but I was, and remain, completely unimpressed by the paint ad. the 'concept' and vision are remarkable, but, well, to me it just doesn't work. the scale is too big, the editing of the film is too choppy and bitty, the final effect looks more like special effects and computer imagery than it should given that it really happens...give me the balls any day. ;)

1 i z said...

Have to say I'm with Caroline - the intensity of colour just doesn't work as well as you'd want it to. Plus at the back of my head a nagging voice says "have you any idea of the environmental cost of all that paint?" - at least the bouncing balls presumably went on to new homes.

After the beauty of the bouncing balls ad, I was eager to see this paint version when it came out a while back, but I have to say it just doesn't measure up. Such a shame after all that effort.

And Jonathan Glazer is one of my favourite music video directors and everything...

Merlin said...

And for once I thought I was going for uncontroversial! Would it help to say it was environmentally friendly paint and that they spent 5 days cleaning up afterwards (which, considering this was Glasgow, probably means it was cleaner than it had ever been). No. Oh well.