Errol Morris' new "Switch" ads

He did it for Apple, now he’s doing it for MoveOn:

https://www.moveonpac.org/donate/switchad_winners.html

And a story about them:

From Wired News.

Errol Morris, the documentary filmmaker who produced Apple Computer’s well-known series of ads about discontented PC users who switched to Macs, had a similar idea on how to reach undecided voters. His new advertising campaign features Republicans who voted for President Bush in 2000 explaining why they now intend to vote for Sen. John Kerry.

Scheduled to run during the Republican National Convention later this month, MoveOn.org’s political action committee, MoveOnPAC, will air Morris’ aesthetically stark 30-second interviews with ordinary citizens about why they won’t vote for Bush again in November.

“There’s a principle of advertising that if you want to talk to a certain group, it’s best to pick someone from that group,” said Morris, whose documentary on former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, The Fog of War, won a 2003 Oscar. “If you want to talk to Republicans on the fence, then it’s best to talk to Republicans who are on the fence. These are real people who are expressing themselves in their own words.”

I just wish they had the stoner girl.

Firstly, I had no idea Errol Morris did those Mac ads. Man. What a sell out! <j/k>

Those are nice. I really like how Morris just lets a person’s face do so much talking. His work with McNamara in Fog of War was wonderful. It’s nice seeing the same intimacy in those little election spots.

 -Tom

Those ads are cool.

There’s also an article about the Republicans-switch ads in last week’s New Yorker. Apparently for his documentaries Morris invented a gadget he calls “the Interrotron,” which projects his own face onto the camera lens, so the interviewee talks to the lens as though he’s talking directly to Morris. Pretty cool.

Funny, I found the first place winner to be the least compelling of the set there. Personally, William Harrop’s and George Moose were more compelling to me, especially when Harrop says that this administration has come close to squandering his life’s work.

Brady Van Matre was a good ad. Nice way to fuck over a hundred industries in pursuit of a few steel mill votes.

Of course some were rather lame, like the guy whining about how nobody else was paying his hospital bill.