Robert Abel / Levi's Ads

[graymachine 0]

So, during 3am nap breaks between feeding and diaper changing, I've got some time to kill. Last night, I stumbled upon some truly amazing Levi's ads from the 70s. The first one is my favorite, as maybe it is the one that, although it exemplifies the "retro" style that is mimicked so much today, at the same time it's 30 years ahead of its time.

 

 

 

Here's some more that jumped out at me.

 

Harvest

 

 

[nextexit 0]

Great stuff, THE STRANGER has some great copy......

[Jean_Pierre 0]

Man, those are some cool spots. The stranger makes me think of "History of America".The last one, evolution, is a little too tripped out for me.

[jan 0]

Great post. youtube is full of these gems. This one is good too:

[jaan 0]

one of my teachers in college worked on that first one and broke it down for us in class, along with bunches of other stuff from abel's. they must have been blowing people's minds back then.

[ClintVideo 1]

Been changing a lot of diapers myself lately. Our three month old hadn't pooped in a few days, so my wife suggested I put some Karo syrup in his bottle. Shortly thereafter I had a slimy green explosion come out of him. Despite my best efforts while changing his diaper, he still managed to wriggle free and dip his new socks in it. Sigh.

 

Cf

[andyscott 0]

Loved those.

[adam 0]

...and they used freaking ken nordine, and you really can't beat that.

[Rob M 0]

Yeah, pretty cool indeed

[graymachine 0]

From the same company, Robert Abel and Associates:

 

Man and Woman

 

 

The super tripindiculor "Reknown Clothing"

 

 

and Uncola

 

[yuppster 0]

While we're at.... here's one that Jaan might be able to offer some insight into:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=b7w0nQB8Hew

 

There's also some Robert Abel demo reels here, in small / streaming / impossible-to-download Quicktimes.

http://design.osu.edu/carlson/history/lesson6.html#raa

[silatix 0]

heres a good article remembering robert abel.. these vids are great

 

http://digitalcontentproducer.com/mag/vide...ng_robert_abel/

Edited April 8, 2008 by silatix

[Haley 0]

While we're at.... here's one that Jaan might be able to offer some insight into:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=b7w0nQB8Hew

 

 

that music is by far the best audio i've heard in a long while.

[jaan 0]

While we're at.... here's one that Jaan might be able to offer some insight into:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=b7w0nQB8Hew

 

 

he did break this down for us. this is what i can kinda remember, in combo with what looks obvious now that i'm all old an' shit... meaning i might unintentionally be extrapolating beyond what he actually said, so no one should accept any of this as fact. this will all be obvious anyway...

 

most of it was how they used techniques to marry the animated stuff and live action. like how the first few shots have that optical printer generated blue halation flash, then in the next few pure live action shots, they used blueish flashes of actual light with a lil smoke. take away that element from either or both and you much less successful integration.

 

for the tunnel, they only built one small section... the curved portion where you see the car actually driving in it. the other instances of the tunnel are cgi, and the shots of the driver (front and ots) were achieved via a structure with many rows of blue neon that would move over the car as it sat static. the ots shots use greenscreen of course.

 

i can't remember anything about the helmet reflection, though the landscape reflection is an obvious composite since there's no camera reflection and the helmet never moves at all.

 

every time i see this, i never tire of seeing those dangerous pink tubes rising out of mini-pyramids as a flutter of sparks pluff out. because my brain knows that it's actually physically real and that someone actually got to build something that has absolutely no reason to ever exist outside of a videogame. i hope that's what the new tron movie will be like. but it won't. cgi... yawn.

Edited April 8, 2008 by jaan

[RaechelParker 0]

Thanks. very helpful post. I read a few of your other posts and they all helped me.