Advertising, History
The Unproduced NeXT :30 TV Script
May
During my early advertising days I worked with Steve Jobs on NeXT computers. I was working as a copywriter at the ad agency Ammirati & Puris and for this client I wrote print ads and the sole tv commercial A&P created for NeXT. Recently I found that script. It’s dated November 17, 1989. The commercial was never produced. It’s a 30 second spot and the script, below, is three pages.
“WHITE ROOM”
MUSIC THROUGHOUT. SFX: CLICK OF A MOUSE.
VIDEO: There is an office. We see a computer cursor icon mousing over the scene. It clicks on filing cabinets. Click. The filing cabinets are gone. Click, the drawing table gone. With each click a related icon appears on the tv screen. The final shot is a pullback to reveal the icons are actually on the NeXT computer’s screen and that the room is now open, white, free of clutter, with a powerful NeXT system at it’s center.
AUDIO VO: It is its vast power and remarkable simplicity… that combined, offer something never before available in computers. Room to think.
My art director on the assignment was Jeroen Bours and my boss on the account was Ken Segall who later wrote the “i” in iMac.
The significance of NeXT was that during it’s time an operating system was created for it that eventually became the foundation for Apple’s new second life with Steve Jobs in command. When he returned to Apple he brought the NeXT OS with him.
Saw this video, below.
It visualizes the idea of many-tools-into-one.
Video LINK
Thank you, Evan, for sharing this!